Complex numbers

[Reginald S. Perry]

>"Andreas" == Andreas Eder <are@laphroig.mch.sni.de> writes:


> Ingemar Hulthage writes:
>> Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 19:44 EDT
>> From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry G. Baker)
>>
>> > I think I can count on my hands how many people think
>> > complex numbers should be retained in a new CL.
>
>I have to disagree strongly. Complex numbers are very important in
>mathematics, physics and engineering.
>
>Ingemar

> Yes , I agree. Complex numbers are very important, and it is also
> very important that you have an easy way of using them. I would say
> we need the whole numeric tower, and even more than is currently in
> CL. Infinite precision reals, exact computable reals and p-adic
> numbers are also very important.  But, with Lisp there is no need to
> have it in the language proper! It could equally well be in a
> standard library. All that is important is that the integration and
> implementation is well done.

I agree with this. One of the biggest mistakes some languages take is
to not expose the floating point architecture. So at the lowest level,
totally expose the floating point part of the machine with all of the
IEEE options, if any, and then we can design and build the complete
numeric tower as the level 2 addition to the language.


-Reggie

-------------------
Reginald S. Perry                      e-mail: perry@zso.dec.com   
Digital Equipment Corporation
Performance Manager Group	               
http://www.UNIX.digital.com/unix/sysman/perf_mgr/pmweb/index.html

My opinions are barely my own. Clearly Digital wants nothing to do with them