OT (partially): about promotion of integers

[bearophile]

Walter Bright:

> Java makes no attempt to detect integer overflows.

There are various kinds of code. In some kinds of programs you 
want to be more sure that the result is correct, while other 
kinds of programs this need is less strong.


> I personally know people who write high speed trading software. 
> These people are concerned with nanosecond delays. They write 
> code in C++. They even hack on the compiler trying to get it to 
> generate faster code.
>
> It doesn't surprise me a bit that some people who operate 
> server farms use slow languages like Ruby, Python, and Perl on 
> them. This does cost them money for extra hardware. There are 
> always going to be businesses that have inefficient operations, 
> poorly allocated resources, and who leave a lot of money on the 
> table.

One "important" firm uses OcaML for high speed trading because 
it's both very fast (C++-class fast, faster than Java on certain 
kinds of code, if well used) and apparently quite safer to use 
than C/C++. And it's harder to find OcaML programmers than C++ 
ones.

Bye,
bearophile