On Jun 24, 2005, at 8:07 AM, Chip Salzenberg wrote:
On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 08:21:25AM +0200, Leopold Toetsch wrote:
The plan is to move these methods to classes/scalar.pmc
Last I remember, I asked for a number.pmc for Integer and Float to
derive from. A Number isa Scalar. Is there some problem with Number?
Forgive my C++ bias, but why are these methods at all? Shouldn't
mathematical functions be functions? Shouldn't the transcendentals
take floating point values (converting from integers) and others be
overloaded for both types as appropriate?
Having asked the question, here's my answer (which I'm making up and
may not be accurate):
There's not a fixed set of numerical types -- consider bignums and
complex numbers. In C++ you would provide overloaded operators and
functions along with the type declaration, but like Perl 5, Parrot
blurs the distinction between operator and function, and method call
vs. function call, so the effect is the same.
Having read my answer, I'd say that transcendentals (e.g. cos()) belong
to Float-based types and any other types for which it makes sense to
define them. If you just happen to be dealing with an integral number
of radians (probably zero), which just happens to be stored in an
Integer, convert it to a Float first.
Speaking of radians, are there any plans for unit analysis? It would
be helpful to be able to write:
$angle = 60 degrees;
print cos $angle, "\n";
# prints 0.5
Josh
