Integer division (was: Case-sensitivity... (was: Damnation!))

[Moshe Zadka]

On 21 May 2000, [ISO-8859-1] François Pinard wrote:

> No doubt that I would not like having to revise existing code!  But also,
> as the current `i / j' gives access to useful hardware instruction, a new
> `int(i/j)' might incur unwelcome overhead for something that once was faster.

Hardware instruction? Hardware instruction? Francios, you need a
theraputic session with gdb on Python. Try to single-step 

python -c '1/2'

And see that the hardware instruction is lost in a sea of function calls
and jumps all over the place.

--
Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il>
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com