[Yhc] some ideas for revamping numeric bytecodes

[Robert Dockins]

Hello,

A few weeks ago I was thinking about the strange situation with Yhc's  
numeric primitives.  Some of them are in the bytecode set, and some  
are handled through the FFI (at least I think that's what's  
happening).  Thinking about it led me to decide it would be better to  
somehow represent all the numeric primitives as bytecode operations.   
So, I wrote up a proposal.  Anyone who is interested can check it out  
at:

http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Image:Num-bytecodes.txt

The ideas are about 3/4 baked (which is to say, somewhat more than  
half-baked ;-) )  I think the integer stuff is pretty good, and the  
floating point is OK.  I'm less sure about the pointer stuff.  At any  
rate, I thought I'd share the proposal so it doesn't become  
completely lost in the dark recesses of my home directory.


Rob Dockins

Speak softly and drive a Sherman tank.
Laugh hard; it's a long way to the bank.
           -- TMBG