[M3devel] 64bit INTEGERs, WIDECHAR: language specified or configuration/target dependent?

[Elmar Stellnberger]

Am 28.05.15 um 04:03 schrieb Antony Hosking:
> BYTESIZE(ADDRESS) = BYTESIZE(INTEGER) in cm3 on all target platforms. I don't really understand what you are proposing.
>
on AMD64: BITSIZE(INTEGER) = BITSIZE(LONGINT) = 64bit

I have just noticed that and when taking a practical standpoint - i.e. 
what really matters to new and old programs -
this is a really bad decision which I wish to change for the next release.

If you have not examined it yet please reclaim the design decisions for 
leaving int 32bit in C:

/However things turned out to be very different when the extension from
32bit to 64bit was at stake. There was no more gain by automatically
extending the value ranges from 2^32  to 2^64  for 95% of all application
purposes while the memory hierarchy has increasingly become a bottle
neck in recent time. Additionally doubling the size of all integers would
initially have doubled our memory needs which would have been a
potential drawback for introducing the AMD64 arch. Just think of a machine
with 4GB of RAM: It can not be addressed by 32bit (only ~3GB can) while
making all INTS 64bit would have shrunken our memory to an effective size
of 2GB. Luckily the decision was taken differently this time:

* keep all ints of at most 32bit and just extend pointers to 64bit
/  

  Same reasoning applies to Modula-3. - and I believe you have failed to 
notice when
making your decisions for cm3 5.8.6. Or do you want to tell me that 
Modula-3
developers are more prudent than the C/C++ community?

   Even worse I have discovered the following:
BITS 8 FOR INTEGER and BITS 32 FOR INTEGER do not work with cm3 5.8.6:

:: BITS FOR size too small, must be at least (64)

That will break existing legacy code when trying to compile it with cm3 
5.8.6.
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