Re: Ranges and (non)static constraints

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org> writes:

> Robert A Duff wrote:
>> What's NINA?
>
> It's the name I've given to the language I've been thinking about for
> some time. NINA is an acronym; it stands for NINA Is Not Ada.

OK.  I'm sure I will enjoy reading the RM for it someday.

But are you sure you want to define it by what it is NOT,
rather than what it IS?  ;-)

>> Well, I'll quibble with your names, here.  When God created the
>> integers, He didn't say they stop at 2**31-1 or 2**64 or whatever!
>> The term "integer" (or the abbreviation "int") ought to mean the true
>> unbounded integers.  Names like Unbounded_Integer and _universal_integer
>> are an abomination.  ;-)
>
> You may have a point, there. What do you think the Ada type Integer
> should be called, if Integer referred to Z?
> String_Index_And_Exponentiation_Value seems a bit excessive to me, but
> perhaps the concepts should be separated.

String_Index seems reasonable for indexing strings.  Machine_Integer
seems reasonable for a type that matches the machine's register size
(but it should not be in Standard).  I think one wants a way to say
(e.g.) that a type ranges from 1 up to at least a million, but it's fine
to go beyond that, and please make it efficient (for example, perhaps
round it up to 2**31-1).

Instead of Machine_Integer, perhaps we want a way to define a type that
can count the number of Mumble objects, given that if we create more
than some number of Mumble objects, or an array of them, we can be sure
this count will not overflow.  That is, we would have run out of
(virtual) memory before that count overflows.

- Bob