half datatype?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Monday, November 19, 2012 19:57:37 Manu wrote:
> I also wanted to gauge the interest/opposition.

I'd never even _heard_ of half types before this discussion came up. But then 
again, the same goes for SIMD. And IIRC, there was some sort of function 
attribute relating to pointers and registers that you or some other gaming 
person was insisting on a while back, and I'd never heard of it existing in 
C++ either (as an extension or otherwise). You clearly program in a very 
different world than I do. I care about high performance in what I do but 
nothing on _that_ level. I suspect that this is another one of those things 
that certain folks would really like to have, and most of the rest of us don't 
have any real interest in and often know nothing about in the first place. I 
don't know that I really care whether it's added to the language though. I'll 
leave that sort of decision up to Walter.

If anything, I just find it interesting how many low level things folks like 
you keep coming up with as must-haves or very strong wants that I've never 
even heard of and will almost certainly never care about aside perhaps from 
how having them in D might help D catch on.

- Jonathan M Davis