From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Checking for loss of information on integer conversion Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2018 19:01:22 +0200 Message-ID: <83d10x557h.fsf@gnu.org> References: <7432641a-cedc-942c-d75c-0320fce5ba39@cs.ucla.edu> <87woza7wwi.fsf@trurl.irif.fr> <87sh9x97yz.fsf@trurl.irif.fr> <87zi41kmto.fsf@trurl.irif.fr> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1519319002 14599 195.159.176.226 (22 Feb 2018 17:03:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:03:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Juliusz Chroboczek Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 22 18:03:18 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eouH7-0003IN-9L for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 18:03:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39930 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eouJ7-0006nr-Iz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:05:21 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49225) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eouF4-0003WA-L1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:01:11 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eouF1-00008m-H3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:01:10 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:42069) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eouF1-00008Y-Dn; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:01:07 -0500 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=2250 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1eouF0-0005Eq-Nf; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 12:01:07 -0500 In-reply-to: <87zi41kmto.fsf@trurl.irif.fr> (message from Juliusz Chroboczek on Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:31:47 +0100) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:222990 Archived-At: > From: Juliusz Chroboczek > Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:31:47 +0100 > > > However, I'd rather prioritize progress in computing horizontal > > alignment and widths with variable-width fonts. That is something > > we really need. > > I am tempted to argue that silently returning the wrong answer is a more > serious (but admittedly less visible) issue than minor cosmetic limitations > of the redisplay engine. It's not a minor cosmetic limitation, it's a basic inability to line up text displayed with a variable-pitch font. It makes Emacs look ugly and basically unusable when variable-pitch fonts are used to display program source code, formatted text, tables, etc. These are all important and frequent use cases these days. By contrast, silently returning a wrong result due to overflow is a much more rare situation, especially since today 64-bit machines are so ubiquitous.