are int, float, long, double, side-effects of computer engineering?

[Tim Roberts]

Xah Lee <xahlee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>some additional info i thought is relevant.
>
>are int, float, long, double, side-effects of computer engineering?

Of course they are.  Such concepts violate the purity of a computer
language's abstraction of the underlying hardware.  We accept that
violation because of performance reasons.  There are, as you point out,
languages that do maintain the purity of the abstraction, but that purity
is ALWAYS at the expense of performance.

I would also point out pre-emptively that there is nothing inherently wrong
with asking us to accept an impure abstraction in exchange for performance.
It is a performance choice that we choose to make.
-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.