Replacing built-in complex? What's this about?

[Walter Bright]

Bill Baxter wrote:
>> At the moment, what can the compiler do with the built-in AAs at
>> compile time? (I think very little).
> 
> I don't actually know.  I was thinking the basics worked, but the 
> point is Walter could make it work pretty easily by supplying a 
> completely different compile-time implementation for the compile-time
>  interpreter.  Joe Librarywriter doesn't have that ability.   One 
> solution could be a version(CompileTime) to let Joe target compile 
> time specificallly, or even a whole distinct interpreted sub-language
>  for CT usage.  But I think the best is just for the compile-time 
> interpreter to grok all code that's grok-able.  Just because that 
> requires no extra explanation.

The interpreter does use a completely different algorithm than the 
runtime does for AA's.