Re: 48-bit fixnums

[Sam S. <sd...@gn...>]

> * Bruno Haible <oe...@py...> [2005-06-06 13:13:23 +0200]:
>
> 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 2 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.

and what does adding 2 bytes to each vector have to do with this?

Bytes permanently allocated:       66792
Bytes currently in use:          1774088
Bytes available until next GC:    121192
1774088 ;
121192

SIMPLE-STRING                              11246        466372         41.470
SIMPLE-VECTOR                               4638        245820         53.001
SIMPLE-8BIT-VECTOR                          2936        222252         75.699
STRING                                       292          7016         24.027
SIMPLE-BIT-VECTOR                            495          4784          9.665
VECTOR                                        95          2660         28.000

this will add
(* 2 (+ 11246 4638 2936 292 495 95))
39404 bytes - less than 40k to a 2M image - 2%.

clisp is already very frugal on memory.
2 bytes per vector is a cheap price to pay for large arrays.

>> (can you add a "large array" flag?)
> Have you already needed an array with 4,000,000,000 elements?

when I (or someone else) needs it,
it will be too late to ask you to modify CLISP
(especially given our release rate).
when people need it, they need it _NOW_.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k
<http://www.palestinefacts.org/> <http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/>
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