Re: 48-bit fixnums

[Bruno H. <br...@cl...>]

Sam wrote:
> > It was not my goal to increase the memory size of every array (by
> > increasing its 'length' field from uintL to uintV).
>
> an extra 4 bytes is nothing compared to extra functionality.

Please think about it again.

IRIX died because it ate too much memory. The causal chain was this;
  - IRIX ate too much memory =>
  - users observed slow and sluggish behaviour =>
  - users considered alternatives like Solaris =>
  - further developments were not worth the development cost, because the
    user base was already too small.

> (can you add a "large array" flag?)

Have you already needed an array with 4,000,000,000 elements?

Bruno