Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Matthias Blume]

Pascal Costanza <costanza at web.de> writes:

> Matthias Blume wrote:
> 
> >>we both don't have the necessary empirical data to back our claims)
> > Speak for yourself.
> 
> You too.

I am.

> 
> 
> This:
> 
>  > I have worked on projects where people worried about *every cycle*.
>   ^^^^^^^^
> 
>  > (Most of the time I agree with you, though.  Still, using infinite
>  > precision by default is, IMO, a mistake.  Having it around and at your
>                            ^^^^^^
> 
>  > fingertips, though, is nice.  That's why I added the long-missing
>  > compiler support for IntInf to SML/NJ recently.)
> 
> is by any scientifical standard not enough evidence to back this:

It is more than enough evidence that there are programs which require
cycle-level efficiency and therefore cannot afford to use infinite
precision arithmetic.

It is, in my opinion, ridiculous to claim that most programs should
use infinite precision integers in almost all places (i.e., by
default).  Infinite precision is rarely necessary and almost always
wasteful overkill.

And in any case, it is also completely besides the point in the
discussion of static checking vs. everything dynamic.  (It just came
up as a side discussion after Andreas gave an example of ML code which
exhibits different semantics in different typing contexts -- a
discussion which seems to circle around the extremely questionable
idea that the only correct result of 20 * 30 has to be 600.)

Matthias