[M3devel] small objects

[Mika Nystrom]

hendrik at topoi.pooq.com writes:
>On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 12:26:57PM +1000, Tony Hosking wrote:
>> 
>> I'm not sure that we are seeing any semantic changes at all.  And with  
>> Mika's definition of SmallInteger.T as a "boxed" INTEGER object  
>> (actually it would be a subrange for values that fit into  
>> BITSIZE(Word.T)-1 bits), it is essentially transparent.  It just  
>> happens to be a run-time optimization that unboxes the INTEGER value.
>
>You should also be able to box a CARDINAL.  Isn't that a subrange of 
>integers that can be encoded in the right bit width?  Hardwarewise, it 
>would be decoded with a logical shift instead of an arithmetic shift.

I think you can do either, but not both... a REFANY containing
0xffffffff stands for either the boxed CARDINAL 2,147,483,647 or
the boxed INTEGER -1.  It can't really be both... I think INTEGERs
are more useful, since you can get [0..2^30-1] in there?

>
>-- hendrik
>
>P.S.  Apologies for the word "Hardwarewise".  It's late here, and I 
>don't have enough brain left for both English and technical content.
>
>-- hendrik