On Dec 10, 2015, at 2:04 PM, Robert Ramey
To me this is a 30 year festering carbuncle on the face of C++/C. For the language to permit the writing of an arithmetical expression and to permit it to fail silently, is a recipe for disaster which are are suffering from on a daily basis. The amazing thing to me is that all languages have have this problem - even those which are interpreted!!!
Python has bigints by default, though it has other issues that make it unsafe.
BUT now we have a realistic solution!!!. I believe this is a practical, correct, elegant alternative which we can add on to C++ via a library such as this. Then C++ can stand alone not only as the way to create the most efficient programs but the most correct one as well. There will be no serious competitor.
I too have been concerned about this danger of C++, as well as others. My solution is to develop a new programming language that combines C++ staples (such as regular types and convenient control of memory layout) with typical scripting language features (e.g. enforced memory safety), as well as its own quirks (aggressive compile-time computation, for one). For starters it runs interpreted, but it's intended to be translated into other source languages, including C++. There's more info at http://www.vcode.org/, if anyone's curious.
I believe that C++/14 is going to usher in a whole new err for computation.
Freudian typo? :-) Josh