AMDG On 03/09/2011 12:23 AM, Gordon Woodhull wrote:
- What is your evaluation of the design?
The STL and its offspring are founded on the principle of separating data structures from algorithms. IMO this is important not just so that other representations of big integers could be used, but also for clarity of code.
IMHO, trying to make a bigint "just like the STL" is simply misguided. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division aren't algorithms that operate on a bigint. They're the basic operations that define an integer. Let's consider why we want to separate the data structures from the algorithms again. The basic reason is that this allows new data structures and new algorithms to be added independently. Does this apply here at all? I'm not seeing it: a) New data structures: The implementation of the operators depends on the details of how the numbers are represented. If you wanted a representation that differed from what the library provides in any significant way, you'd have to reimplement them anyway. b) New algorithms: Are the basic operations that are provided not enough for some algorithm that you care about? Concepts should be created by abstracting concrete code. If you try to define the interface by guessing at what some hypothetical user might want, you'll end up with something much more complex than it needs to be. In Christ, Steven Watanabe