Lisp has converted fixnums (hardware integers) to bignums on overflow since the 1970s, too, so it's not just the "Java generation." Their words: > Computers a

Lisp has converted fixnums (hardware integers) to bignums on overflow since the 1970s, too, so it's not just the "Java generation." Their words: > Computers are implemented in hardware, not maths proofs. The _ generation is infatuated with _ without realizing their performance cost. This sounds just like the assembly programmers arguing against high level languages, who were against the overhead of unlimited named variables and recursive function activation records. We should optimize for writing a lot of correct but slightly inefficient software. By keeping high-level language compilers (rather than assembly language programmers) in mind for the design of newer ISAs, we already have, to some extent. That said, I still don't know about making the lowest signed number a trap representation in hardware. We already usually have a flag to detect signed overflow; why not just check that?