Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

[Daniel C. Wang]

Pascal Costanza <costanza at web.de> writes:

> Matthias Blume wrote:
> 
> > The problem
> > is that for many algorithms people want to be sure that the compiler
> > represents their values in machine words.  Infinite precision is
> > needed sometimes, but in the majority of cases it is overkill.  If you
> > need infinite precision, specify the type (IntInf.int in SML's case).
> > A clever compiler might optimize that like a Lisp compiler does.  In
> > most other cases, why take any chances?
> 
> I disagree strongly here. I am convinced that in most algorithms,
> machine words don't matter at all. Have you ever seen in books on
> algorithms that they actually _need_ to restrict them to values that
> are representable in machine word sizes?
> 

Hmmm.. lets see... AES and  MD5 most if not all DSP/ signal processing
algorithms. There are quite a few.