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From: donh@syd.csa.com.au (Don Harrison)
Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better!
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Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 04:16:53 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.eiffel:17548 comp.lang.ada:56308 comp.lang.c++:242351 comp.lang.smalltalk:49704 comp.object:60159

John Kuszewski writes:

: ...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.
:
:That's not a worry--that's just wrong.  Smalltalk quietly switches
:to a LargeInt object when integers overflow.  

Presumably LargeInts are integers implemented as two words rather than one?
Sounds reasonable.

:The guys who write 
:Smalltalk environments aren't idiots.

No doubt you're right. There are few genuine idiots. :)


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


