Python from Wise Guy's Viewpoint

Pascal Costanza costanza at web.de
Tue Oct 28 17:38:26 EST 2003


Matthias Blume wrote:

> The problem
> is that for many algorithms people want to be sure that the compiler
> represents their values in machine words.  Infinite precision is
> needed sometimes, but in the majority of cases it is overkill.  If you
> need infinite precision, specify the type (IntInf.int in SML's case).
> A clever compiler might optimize that like a Lisp compiler does.  In
> most other cases, why take any chances?

I disagree strongly here. I am convinced that in most algorithms, 
machine words don't matter at all. Have you ever seen in books on 
algorithms that they actually _need_ to restrict them to values that are 
representable in machine word sizes?

"Here is a proof for the correctness of the Quicksort algorithm, but 
only for arrays with a maximum length of 65535." Ha! Nonsense! ;-)


Computers are fast enough and have enough memory nowadays. You are 
talking about micro efficiency. That's not interesting anymore.


(but I have no problems if we agree to disagree here. we both don't have 
the necessary empirical data to back our claims)

Pascal





More information about the Python-list mailing list