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Re: Constructors motion



> From: "Nate Hayes" <nh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Ralph Baker Kearfott" <rbk5287@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> 	=?ISO-8859-15?Q?J=FCrgen_Wolff_von_Gudenberg?= <wolff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: "Dan Zuras Intervals" <intervals08@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> 	"John Pryce" <j.d.pryce@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> 	<stds-1788@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Constructors motion
> Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:25:18 -0600

	Folks,

	I am with Nate on this one.  Jurgen, I don't think one
	can appeal to KISS in this case.  Our users are going
	to need some flavor of non-standard intervals to aid
	them in solving equations.  I'll leave it to you &
	others more qualified than me to decide just which
	flavor.  But if we can anticipate a necessary extension,
	we should define it, for all the reasons Nate describes
	& more.  There is no reason to publish a standard
	which gets fragmented on day 1 for lack of a necessary
	feature.

	I guess, in that sense, KISS applies after all.  It is
	simpler for the world to have one standard extension
	for solving equations than many incompatible ones.

	Do you not agree?


				Dan

> 
> Hi Baker,
> 
> On one hand, I agree what you say about this option. In this sense, its
> better than nothing, so I support moving in this direction.
> 
> On the other hand, I'd be careful not to oversell this approach as a
> panacea. For example, programs and applications written by users for such a
> system are likely under these circumstances not to be portable to other
> conforming systems that don't provide the same arithmetic extensions. A
> user's experience and understanding of what is an IEEE 1788 standard may
> then become muddled or confused.
> 
> Think about my previous analogy: if a user writes a program that uses signed
> integers on a system that supports signed integer arithmetic, this program
> will not run on a different system that only supports arithmetic for
> unsigned integers. Technically in this hypothetical scenario both systems
> are conforming to a "standard for integer arithemtic" but from the user's
> perspective this may lead to some head-scratching.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Nate
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ralph Baker Kearfott" <rbk5287@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Jürgen Wolff von Gudenberg" <wolff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: "Dan Zuras Intervals" <intervals08@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "John Pryce"
> <j.d.pryce@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <stds-1788@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2011 5:48 AM
> Subject: Re: Constructors motion
> 
> 
> > Yes, that's an option.
> >
> > I'd like to remind people that, simply because something
> > doesn't appear in the standard, that doesn't necessarily
> > preclude someone from implementing it in a standard-conforming
> > system, as long as the standard does not mandate something that
> > makes it impossible to do so.
> >
> > Does anyone wish to proffer one or more motions?
> >
> > Baker
> >
> > On 12/29/2011 05:39 AM, Jürgen Wolff von Gudenberg wrote:
> >> Dan, Nate, John and all
> >> I think that the approach with 2 constructors is feasible.
> >> we should provide those in P1788 but, because of KISS, nothing more on
> >> Kaucher intervals
> >> Jürgen
> >>