[Python-Dev] Unifying Long Integers and Integers: baseint

[Dmitry Vasiliev]

Skip Montanaro wrote:
>     >> I think this would be a good idea; maybe the name should be
>     >> baseinteger?
> 
>     Michael> I would like to urge caution before making this change. Despite
>     Michael> what the PEP may say, I actually think that creating a
>     Michael> 'baseint' type is the WRONG design choice for the long term.  I
>     Michael> envision an eventual Python which has just one type, called
>     Michael> 'int'.
> 
> I agree.  I made a suggestion that we consider the entire tree of numeric
> types,

Is it a good time to consider the entrie tree of ALL types then?

For example:

object
     (Tree of numeric types as suggested by Gareth)
     number
        complex
        real
           (Decimal)
           float
           rational
              fraction
              integer
                 int
                     bool
                 long
     sequence
         buffer
         basestring
             str
             unicode
         list
         tuple
         mapping
            dict
     set
     frozenset
     file

> but I had int/long unification in the back of my mind as well.  I
> will take /F's suggestion and poke around the peps when I have some time,
> but I see no pressing reason a base integer class, however it's spelled,
> needs to be added for 2.4.

-- 
Dmitry Vasiliev (dima at hlabs.spb.ru)
     http://hlabs.spb.ru