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: Making 'eq' == 'eql' in bignum branch Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 18:12:07 +0300 Message-ID: <83lg91dqd4.fsf@gnu.org> References: <29f933ac-a6bf-8742-66a7-0a9d6d3e5a88@disroot.org> <87tvpdnzgy.fsf@tromey.com> <4c2a814f-c254-29e5-39cf-11b5f2e5c9c8@cs.ucla.edu> <49d8ba62-c9a5-9203-d882-8e900b441ff3@cs.ucla.edu> <8e0320d9-e0d0-2b57-57cc-2df4399f133c@cs.ucla.edu> <87lgaio7xd.fsf@tromey.com> <877em1cb0i.fsf@tromey.com> <765767b2-d2e5-a9a6-f724-d58ecf4847bb@cs.ucla.edu> <76081b5d-8c10-0a37-2c97-d4864c0faa80@cs.ucla.edu> <09153aed-361d-4f82-d9ac-b502314769ae@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1534777983 12435 195.159.176.226 (20 Aug 2018 15:13:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 15:13:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eggert@cs.ucla.edu, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Pip Cet Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 20 17:12:59 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 1frlrW-00033s-4J for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 17:12:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47663 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1frltc-0002xv-KI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:15:08 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39089) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1frlqo-0001gx-V2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:12:15 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1frlql-0007ch-K9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:12:14 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:35606) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1frlql-0007cd-GY; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:12:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=3713 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1frlql-0005Jz-4G; Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:12:11 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Pip Cet on Mon, 20 Aug 2018 07:19:39 +0000) 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:228730 Archived-At: > From: Pip Cet > Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 07:19:39 +0000 > Cc: Stefan Monnier , emacs-devel@gnu.org > > I think references to most-positive-fixnum (and implicit ones, like > using Frandom without an argument) should be eliminated. Fixnum range > is now an implementation detail. That is too radical, IMO. Having bignums _allows_ us to write programs that are oblivious to most-positive-fixnum's value, but it doesn't _require_ it. It is perfectly legitimate to want to write a program that is sensitive to that value, e.g., because using bignums makes some program significantly slow, and so you'd like to ask the users whether they want to proceed regardless. Or maybe even refuse to do something (e.g., buffers and strings generally cannot be larger than that). We have other system dependent variables and constants (e.g., shell-file-name), and for a good reason. Sometimes you need those so you could actually implement a portable program. So I don't think we want to argue for a total elimination of most-positive-fixnum from our code.