Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.object
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!cornellcs!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!dsinc!spool.mu.edu!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!syd.csa.com.au!news
From: donh@syd.csa.com.au (Don Harrison)
Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better!
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: dev50
Message-ID: <E4FL5H.LMA@syd.csa.com.au>
Sender: news@syd.csa.com.au
Reply-To: donh@syd.csa.com.au
Organization: CSC Australia, Sydney
References: <5c4ita$3qs@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 22:29:40 GMT
Lines: 24
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.eiffel:17541 comp.lang.ada:56300 comp.lang.c++:242309 comp.lang.smalltalk:49686 comp.object:60149

Fergus Henderson writes:

:I don't know how it got its start there, but I have heard that it got a
:bit of a boost after the stockmarket crash in '87.  Apparently the
:volume of shares traded was very high, and many financial programs
:failed, because the numbers involved were so large that they overflowed
:various limits, but the Smalltalk programs kept running, because
:Smalltalk quietly switches to using floating point arithmetic when
:integer arithmetic overflows.  

That's a worry.

:(Well, that's the rumour anyway.  I
:don't know how much truth there is to it.)

I guess it won't be so much of a problem in the crash of 1997 as most
hardware now uses 32 bits. :)


Don.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Don Harrison             donh@syd.csa.com.au


