Signed word lengths and indexes

[Don]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:24:52 -0400, Don <nospam at nospam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> A question I have though is, Java has >>>. Does Java have these 
>>> problems too?
>>
>> Java doesn't have unsigned values, so it's necessary to use regular 
>> int's as bitmasks, hence the extra operator.
> 
> The reason D has >>> is to cause an unsigned right shift to be generated 
> without needing to resort to casts as one has to in C.

Unfortunately it doesn't work. You still can't do an unsigned right 
shift of a signed byte by 1, without resorting to a cast.

> The problem with such casts is they wreck generic code.

It's C's cavalier approach to implicit conversions that wrecks generic 
code. And it makes such a pigs breakfast of it that >>> doesn't quite work.