Twos complement assumption, other issues
Laura Dickey 15 Jan 2005 17:44 UTC
The SRFI assumes that integers are represented in two's complement
form, and states as such. Since R5RS makes no such assumption,
perhaps it would be worthwhile to have a line or two (maybe in the
implementation or rational sections) noting that the functions can be
implemented by converting to/from twos complement as necessary, but
that the majority of implementations already treat integers this way.
In other discussions, I also prefer SRFI-33's names (and title!), as
both follow Scheme's naming tradition of preferring clarity and
consistency to succinctness.
Finally, I'm not a mathematician, but including Gray codes in what is
otherwise a general SRFI seems a bit odd. It seems that to include
them, they should have both widespread applications in computer
science, and not be possible to implement efficiently as a portable
library on top of this SRFI. If both are true I have no objection.
Scott