std.math performance (SSE vs. real)

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2014 at 05:03:47PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> D is a systems programming language. That means it should have access
> to the hardware supported types. Portability is not the only goal -
> especially if that means "least common denominator". People pay money
> for more powerful chips, and they'll want to use them.

What should we do in the case of hardware that offers strange hardware
types, like a hypothetical 48-bit floating point type? Should D offer a
built-in type for that purpose, even if it only exists on a single chip
that's used by 0.01% of the community?


> Not only that, a marquee feature of D is interoperability with C. We'd
> need an AWFULLY good reason to throw that under the bus.

I'm not sure I understand how removing support 80-bit floats hurts
interoperability with C? I thought none of the standard C float types
map to the x87 80-bit float?

(I'm not opposed to keeping real as 80-bit on x87, but I just don't
understand what this has to do with C interoperability.)


T

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