Re: Introduction of fractions exposes uniform vector prototype bug

[tomas]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 07:38:16AM +1000, Kevin Ryde wrote:
> Mikael Djurfeldt <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> > I have no good suggestion for what to do about this, but one thing is
> > certain: We can't suggest people to use 1/3 as prototype for double
> > arrays (at least now without modifying scm_make_uve).
> 
> I'd be pretty inclined to make it a special case, for compatibility.
> 
> Asking people to change their code after they've followed something
> the manual explicitly said is never nice.

Hmmm. You have a point there...

But sometime you'll have to tell them that Santa ain't really ;-/
(it's quite a surprising thing to carry forever: 1/3 behaves here
as an inexact, whereas 1/6 doesn't).

I'd propose making it a deprecated feature, to let it fade off
slowly. Opinions?

What do we take as prototype now for an inexact? Do we have a
constant for sqrt2 (or better pi -- algebraic numbers might
be coming someday ;)

Someone (was it Mikael?) expressed dislike for this prototype
business. I too think it sticks out a bit. Maybe real names
for number classes would be better.

Regards
-- tomas