Re: [Chicken-users] Problems with rationals

[John Cowan]

Peter Bex scripsit:

> The only way to truly fix this is to add numbers to core; the way it
> extends the reader is a bit of a hack and it doesn't truly replace
> the procedures from the Scheme module.  Even if it did, compiled code
> often calls C functions directly which "bypasses" any overwriting the
> numbers egg might do at the Scheme level; that's why it doesn't even
> try to do this at all.

I proposed an alternative to Felix several years ago, namely to do things
in the core via hooks which can be set at run-time when you load the
numbers egg.  That way everything behaves systematically except compiled
code that inlines procedures based on type information.  Felix said this
was too big and comprehensive a change.

But, blast it, if little Chibi can include a full numeric tower, why
should Chicken position itself with RScheme and VX, plus a bunch of
broken Schemes that always return a fixnum when multiplying fixnums,
even if it's the wrong one?

See http://trac.sacrideo.us/wg/wiki/NumericTower for a table of which
Schemes support which numeric tower features.

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