Prothon vs. Python integers

[Heather Coppersmith]

On Mon, 24 May 2004 11:31:08 -0700,
"Mark Hahn" <mark at prothon.org> wrote:

> "Paul Prescod" <paul at prescod.net> wrote

[ snip ]

>> Prothon 0.1 Interactive Console, Build 532, May 21 2004 (Ctrl-D to exit)
>> 
>> >>> print 2** 65
>> 3.68935e+19
>> 
>> >>> print 2**65 == (2**65 + 1)
>> True

>> If Prothon is a language designed for the next ten years then
>> it should be tuned for correctness and ease of use, not for
>> limitations of today's hardware.

> I'm sure this isn't the only place Python is better.

> Prothon has the long integer support in the parser if anyone
> wants to take the trouble to put the long object code in. I did
> nothing to preclude it. I just didn't see any need for it myself
> and didn't take the trouble to put it in.

> Longs seemed like a needless exotic kludge to me in the 64-bit
> world. Surely once you get to 3.7e19 you are in floating point
> territory. I can't imagine counting anything up to 10**19.

Beans?  ;-)

Accountants ("bean counters," in the derogatory vernacular) will
be displeased if Prothon silently loses pennies (or other small-
valued currencies) after a certain amount (lira and drachma spring
to mind, too).

Also, modern day cryptography applications can demand integer/
logical operations on 256-, 512-, or more- bit (upwards of 1e150)
integers.

Regards,
Heather

-- 
Heather Coppersmith
That's not right; that's not even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli