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> DEC64 is intended to be the only number type in the next generation of application programming languages. Please no. There's a very solid case for integers i

> DEC64 is intended to be the only number type in the next generation of application programming languages. Please no. There's a very solid case for integers in programming languages: many places in code call for a number which must be an integer: having the type enforce this is nice: you don't need to check and abort (or floor, or whatever) if someone passes you a non-integer. Basically, anything that does an array index, which is any for loop walking through a memory buffer (which might be an array, a string, a file, the list goes on and on. Anything that can be counted) wants an integer. x[i] where i is not an integer just doesn't make sense: ideally, let a type system enforce that. Granted, of course, that many languages will just truncate a float in an integers context, and so funny stuff does happen (I don't really feel that this is a good thing). (Although interestingly, JS is not one of them.) Personally, I think JS needs an integer type. Especially when you see people start getting into bignum stuff in JS, it gets silly fast, as first you can only store so many bits before floating point loses precision, but even then, even if you have an "integer", JS will find funny ways to shoot you in the foot. For example: x | 0 === x does not hold true for all integers in JS.

tdicola 13y ago
Nothing is stopping you from building a natural number/integer on top of a dec64 type. You could add whatever logic necessary like truncating fractional values, throwing exceptions, etc.
- MaulingMonkey 13y ago
  That sounds like a lot of work and a lot of pain (and likely bugs) just to end up not quite back at square one thanks to the resulting performance drop. I feel what you've done here is the rough equivalent of pointing out that "nothing is stopping you" from building a webpage generator in brainfuck. It's turning complete after all! You could add whatever logic is necessary, like UTF8, XML, and Json parsing, etc. Technically correct, but fails to address the core point that this might be a terrible idea.
userbinator 13y ago
And there's also the fact that 64 bits is overkill for many applications as well - especially when you need to store large arrays of them. Another one of the most difficult to understand concepts for JS-only programmers seems to be the finiteness of memory...

tdicola 13y ago

Nothing is stopping you from building a natural number/integer on top of a dec64 type. You could add whatever logic necessary like truncating fractional values, throwing exceptions, etc.

MaulingMonkey 13y ago
That sounds like a lot of work and a lot of pain (and likely bugs) just to end up not quite back at square one thanks to the resulting performance drop. I feel what you've done here is the rough equivalent of pointing out that "nothing is stopping you" from building a webpage generator in brainfuck. It's turning complete after all! You could add whatever logic is necessary, like UTF8, XML, and Json parsing, etc. Technically correct, but fails to address the core point that this might be a terrible idea.

userbinator 13y ago

And there's also the fact that 64 bits is overkill for many applications as well - especially when you need to store large arrays of them. Another one of the most difficult to understand concepts for JS-only programmers seems to be the finiteness of memory...