Re: [Chicken-hackers] [PATCH] Re: make check failing

[Felix]

>> It could. Should it? C just truncates. I dunno.
> 
> I think it should.  This will be an extra help in detecting bugs; if a
> user accidentally passes a flonum where a fixnum is expected that's
> always a bug, unless the flonum is the result of a fixnum overflow.  And
> in the latter case, this should always be an integer value.  To catch
> accidental misuse the additional check is useful.

The flonum/fixnum distinction is a distinction between types. But in
this case it is a property independent of type. Since we are passing
values to C anyway, I don't see a reason to add extra checks in this
case - the values pass the Scheme/C boundary and might as well
be treated using C semantics. I also don't see how this might prevent
bugs, and what type of bugs these would be.

>> I get cramps thinking of all the work that would have to go into such
>> a project.
> 
> Yeah, me too.  But it's good to hear you aren't against it per se.
> I might give this a try sometime.  There are some improvements I want
> to make in the numbers egg first, which then should make integration
> into core simpler.  I know the numbers egg improvements have been slow
> going, but it's a fine goal for the new year ;)

I *am* against it per se, but if the performance and complexity impact
is acceptable, then it would be reasonable to just ignore my whining.


cheers,
felix