Re: Integers and Mathematical Correctness

[vincent.diemunsch@gmail.com]

> There's no relation.  The post from Vincent that started this said "I thing [sic] there are two problems with the current Ada implementation :", and then he described two separate problems, one dealing with modular types and one dealing with rational numbers.  (It's just a coincidence that both involved division, I think.)
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>                                -- Adam

No, there is no coincidence : I am disappointed that Ada uses "/" as an integer division operator. 

I understand the reasons that dated back from Ada 83 : direct hardware instruction mapping, difference with the "mathematical" "div" operator on negative numbers and the relation -5 / 4 = 5 / -4. 

(Even if you call me a charlatan, I still maintain that Euclid was right : imagine that 3 friends need to pay a bill (which means that they have a negative amount of money) the only way to share is rounding toward -Infinity  :-) )).

But now that we have operator overloading and that I use it for rationals or symbolic expression, I am bothered that an integer division has exactly the syntax I would like to use for a rational number...

And this gives rise to a deeper question : should the revision of the Ada langage be used to improve the langage (make it better) sometimes with the same core functionality, or should it be intended only for adding new features keeping backward compatibility ? The response is not obvious for me, since the only motivation I have to use Ada is that it is a "better" (cleaner, easier to use, to read, to understand) langage than C.

Kind regards,

Vincent