On Jun 24, 2005, at 11:02 PM, Bob Rogers wrote:
Since Complex could also be considered a Number, but of a very
different
sort, it might be worth constructing the type hierarchy to reflect
this:
Scalar
Number
Real
Integer
Float
Complex
This is inaccurate. All integers are reals (in fact, all integers are
rationals and all rationals are reals), but floats are not all
integers. Factorial should be defined for integers but not floats.
Also, all reals are complex numbers (with a zero imaginary component).
Here's my suggested hierarchy with abstract types in lowercase and
instantiable types capitalized:
scalar
number (possibly complex)
real
rational
integer
Integer
BigInt
Ratio
Float
Complex
Quaternion
String
...
Also, what about non-scalar numbers such as vectors and matrices? Will
we have operators for dot-product and cross-product? Or is this
another HLL issue?
Josh
