Re: 64-bit integers in Ada

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Maybe we're just talking at cross-purposes here. I certainly don't object to
support for user defined ranges/sizes that would be smaller than 16 bits.
The question at hand here had to do with the standard type Integer being
required to be at least 16 bits and therefore the standard mandating that an
implementation be able to support at least 16 bit integers in general.
Removing that requirement would mean that an implementation would be free to
say something like "The largest integer you can declare is 8 bits..." -
which seems like an unlikely thing to do, so having the requirement is not a
bad thing. Would most programmers find a language implementation useful if
you couldn't declare integers larger than (for example) 8 bits? Is an
implementation greatly inconvenienced by having the standard type Integer
required to be at least 16 bits? (Especially since they are free to create
Short_Integer and Long_Integer as 8 and 32 bits if they like. Seems like
they'd be free to create things that match most common hardware - even for
small machines.)

As for declaring one's own types, yes, I'm generally in favor of that. When
I care about specific sizes and ranges, I'll make my own types or subtypes.
Often, when all I care about is that I've got a variable big enough to
handle some chore, I'll use the standard Integer type. If you want to argue
that "All *competent* Ada programmers dutifully declare types to be sure
they are as big as they need." then that would imply the standard should
remove the types Integer, Float, Duration, etc. So long as these types
remain in the standard, I think it is a good thing that the standard
guarantees some minimal characteristics for the types so that a programmer
knows what he can count on.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Lutz Donnerhacke" <lutz@iks-jena.de> wrote in message
news:slrnakkdbb.ou.lutz@taranis.iks-jena.de...
>
> Ack for C, nack for Ada. Ada has the ability to specify the type ranges
you
> need. C hasn't.
>
> >That's why I wouldn't object to the standard requiring that an
> >implementation support at least 16 bits - even for small machines. People
> >expect it.
>
> No. Ada people expect to define there own types if they need certain
ranges.
> They expect efficient implementations for those types.
>