'int' is enough for 'length' to migrate code from x86 to x64

[via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 24 November 2014 at 19:06:35 UTC, Matthias Bentrup 
wrote:
> There is no right or wrong in Mathematics, only true and false.
> The result of modular addition with overflow is not wrong, it is
> just different than the result of integer addition.

I think we are talking past each other. In my view the term 
"overflow" has nothing to do with mathematics, overflow is a 
signal from the ALU that the computation is incorrect e.g. not in 
accordance with the intended type.

> Agreed, though I don't like the explosion of new operators. I'd
> prefer the C# syntax like check(<expression>), wrap(expression),
> saturate(expression).

Yep, that is another way to do it. What is preferable probably 
varies from case to case.

> And can fail spectacularly in others. The compiler always has to
> prepare for the worst case, i.e. the largest integer size
> possible, while in practice you may need that only for a few
> extreme cases.

In some loops it probably can get tricky to get it right without 
help from the programmer. I believe some languages allow you to 
annotate loops with an upper boundary to help the semantic 
analysis, but you could also add more frequent overflow checks on 
request?