From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Robert Uhl Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: Low level things in C or Scheme [was Stupid module and pregexp questions] Date: 29 Apr 2003 22:27:23 -0600 Sender: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <20030428175342.GA15667@www> <9c0db84ca1f62a523f9acef422573520@bouncing.localnet> <20030429081243.GA18455@www> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1051677213 27386 80.91.224.249 (30 Apr 2003 04:33:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 04:33:33 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Apr 30 06:33:32 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19AjHf-00077a-00 for ; Wed, 30 Apr 2003 06:33:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 19AjEo-0006N7-07 for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:30:34 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 19AjEL-0006KZ-00 for guile-user@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:30:05 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 19AjE7-00069O-00 for guile-user@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:29:52 -0400 Original-Received: from [66.7.170.6] (helo=latakia.dyndns.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 19AjBp-0005LQ-00 for guile-user@gnu.org; Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:27:30 -0400 Original-Received: (from ruhl@localhost) by latakia.dyndns.org (8.11.6/linuxconf) id h3U4RNZ26370; Tue, 29 Apr 2003 22:27:23 -0600 X-Authentication-Warning: latakia.dyndns.org: ruhl set sender to ruhl@4dv.net using -f Original-To: guile-user@gnu.org In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 30 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/21.2 X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:1876 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.user:1876 Thamer Al-Harbash writes: > > The funny thing is, thanks to guile's seamless use of arbitrarily big > numbers (its numerical tower), I don't know if I *want* to do my > number crunching in C anymore. No offense to any of the developers, but guile has more of a numerical ash-heap than a numerical tower. I tried to fix it parts of it (particularly, number->string's ridiculous insistence on base-10 for fractions), but had issues with the compile and could get no assistance. Don't even get me started on how the fractions don't stay fractions. For a good look at a good numerical tower, take a look at umb-scheme. It does a decent job (although it does not render (sqrt (/ 16 25)) as 4/5 but rather as 0.8). It also can calculate up to at least (factorial 5547), while Guile gets a stack overflow. Guile is very good at many things, but its numerical tower is not the best, > I have not noticed any significant penalty in performance. I've been quite surprised by how fast Guile can be, and in fact how what should have been optimisations in my Scheme can slow it down, it seems. It's a rather remarkable beast, and one whose entrails I'd dearly like to plumb. I _really_ want to add the ability for number->string to work with non-decimal bases. Ten is such an _ugly_ base; twelve is much better. -- Robert Uhl Cristo Resucitado! En Verdad Resucitado! _______________________________________________ Guile-user mailing list Guile-user@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user