Le 29/10/2013 23:04, Gilles a écrit : > On Tue, 29 Oct 2013 20:14:19 +0100, Luc Maisonobe wrote: >> Le 29/10/2013 15:00, Gilles a écrit : >>> Hello. >> >> Hi Gilles, >> >>> >>> While working on MATH-1047, I wondered about the usefulness of those >>> two methods. Excluding the trivial case (base=|1|), the result will >>> overflow as soon as the exponent is larger than 31, when base=|2|, >>> and sooner the larger the base. >>> Hence, the methods amount to syntactic sugar to spare a cast from >>> a "long" to an "int" exponent. >>> IMO, this is not worth the number of source code lines. >>> Unless there is an objection, I propose to deprecate those methods >>> in 3.3 and remove them in 4.0. >> >> There were three main reasons for this method : >> >> - in many cases, very low (and fixed) exponents are often encountered >> (say exponents up to half a dozen or so), >> - computation with long in Java bytecode is not done the same way as >> int because it needs two successive variable slots and requires >> successive memory loading, and thus is slower (of course, this effect >> disappears when the JIT compiler converts everything to native code >> if the processor is 64 bits), >> - forcing the user to add a cast clutters the code. >> >> As always, your mileage may vary. >> > > I must be missing something (sorry!): I propose to remove the methods were > the exponent is a "long", and as I understand it, you give reasons for > doing > so:
Sorry, I misread the subject. I thought you wanted to remove the pow(int,int) and preserve only pow(long,long). > 1. Why would one want/need to use a "long" for a _small_ value? > 2. Moreover you say that using a "long" is slower; thus, a second reason > for > not calling those methods. > 3. A cast would only be necessary if the user chooses to use a "long" > anyway, > even if it is neither necessary (cf 1.) nor desirable (cf. 2.). Go ahead with removing the long exponent. Luc > > Best, > Gilles > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org
