Core vs Library

[Walter Bright]

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> "Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
> news:ftv48m$21m5$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> http://reddit.com/info/6foi8/comments/
> 
> 1: Yes, in .Net languages the core types are aliases to structs in System, 
> not the other way around.


I don't buy it. The C# compiler somewhere in it knows what an int is, 
after all, divides aren't done by a subroutine somewhere, they're done 
by a hardware instruction.

If you don't agree, show me how System.Int32 can be implemented without 
referring to a core int type.


> 2: The article seems self-contradictory.  First you say that an int as a 
> struct is slow, possibly ugly, can't be optimized, etc. etc.  But then you 
> turn around and say that modern compilers can make a user-defined complex 
> type efficient.  Which is it?  It doesn't feel like the article comes to any 
> kind of conclusion.  Is it that fundamental types like int and float should 
> be builtin, while anything higher-level including complex can be done 
> satisfactorily as a library?

The struct can be optimized if it is based upon *core* types that can be 
optimized.