Re: small integers

[Scott_Fahlman@SEF-PMAX.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU]

Jeff,

This is what I was calling option 5.  I guess I didn't explain it very
well.  Actually, your proposal combines my options 5 (separate fix+ and
int+) and 6 (big switch at compile time) by using a + macro for operations
meant to be controlled by the big switch and the more specialized names
where finer control is required.

I could live with this.  I think having three flavors of +, -, etc. around
may be as confusing for users as having two flavors of 5, but I could
easily be wrong about this.  In either case, the complexity could just be
hidden from beginners.  They wouldn't have to know about the more
specialized operators (or in Rob's probposal, about bignums) until they're
armed with the Parentheses of Power and heading for level 3 of the dungeon.

The approach of bundling the desired behavior into the numeric operands
seems more object-oriented, but I guess that's a religious argument.

-- Scott