Richard Kelsey <xxxxxx@s48.org> writes:

>    If I'm using some exotic number representation (constructive reals,
>    perhaps), then EXTRACT_DOUBLE may very well involve some pretty hairy,
>    hence possibly GC-causing, computation.
>
> This doesn't worry me too much; there aren't a lot of such
> implementations around.

Huh?  This is a very poor reason.