ow Integers Should Work

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 12/5/11 10:37 AM, Don wrote:
> On 05.12.2011 14:31, bearophile wrote:
>> Found through Reddit, two blog posts about how integers should behave
>> in system languages (with hardware support):
>>
>> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/641
>> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/642
>>
>> Bye,
>> bearophile
>
> Not very convincing, since he proposes a change to existing
> architectures, and seems completely unaware of the overflow flag.
> If you can change existing architectures, why not simply allow an
> exception to be generated if an overflow occurs?
>
> Doesn't seem at all helpful to D.

Agreed. One thought that comes to mind is using the small int 
optimization for BigInt, i.e. use no dynamic allocation and built-in 
operations whenever possible if the value is small enough. Does BigInt 
currently do that?

Andrei