Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

[Robert Pluim]

Michael.Albinus@gmx.de (Michael Albinus) writes:

> -    ;; Convert inode.
> -    (unless (listp (nth 10 attr))
> +    ;; Convert inode.  Big numbers have been added to Emacs 27.
> +    (unless (or (fboundp 'bignump) (listp (nth 10 attr)))

Given that there are people who want to remove #'bignump, should we
(provide "bignum") somewhere to give people a canonical method for
checking for bignum support??

Robert

Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

[Paul Eggert]

Robert Pluim wrote:
> Given that there are people who want to remove #'bignump, should we
> (provide "bignum") somewhere to give people a canonical method for
> checking for bignum support??

No need; just do (natnump (1+ most-positive-fixnum)).

Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

[Robert Pluim]

Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> Robert Pluim wrote:
>> Given that there are people who want to remove #'bignump, should we
>> (provide "bignum") somewhere to give people a canonical method for
>> checking for bignum support??
>
> No need; just do (natnump (1+ most-positive-fixnum)).

Then how come NEWS talks about bignump and fixnump?

Robert

Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

[Paul Eggert]

Robert Pluim wrote:
> Then how come NEWS talks about bignump and fixnump?

Because some contributors thought that bignump and fixnump might be useful 
convenience functions for Lisp programmers. They're not, but I lost that argument.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't mention these functions in NEWS or document 
them, as they cause more trouble and confusion than they cure. Worrying about 
the distinction between bignums and fixnums unnecessarily complicates Lisp 
programmers' lives, and we shouldn't encourage it.

Re: master adcf904: Add bignum support in Tramp

[Robert Pluim]

Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:

> Robert Pluim wrote:
>> Then how come NEWS talks about bignump and fixnump?
>
> Because some contributors thought that bignump and fixnump might be
> useful convenience functions for Lisp programmers. They're not, but I
> lost that argument.

They're currently useful to me with the calc bignum conversion, but
won't be needed once thatʼs done, the end result will just use
'integerp'.

> If it were up to me, I wouldn't mention these functions in NEWS or
> document them, as they cause more trouble and confusion than they
> cure. Worrying about the distinction between bignums and fixnums
> unnecessarily complicates Lisp programmers' lives, and we shouldn't
> encourage it.

I agree with that sentiment.

Robert