10 Sep
2002
10 Sep
'02
10:09 a.m.
Errm, but in C there is no unified shift operator. You have << for left shift and and >> for right shift, and a negative shift is undefined.
[blush]
This makes the specification come out nice and clean - you're multiplying the number by 2^n instead of 2^{-n}.
Errm, but then right shift comes out as dividing by 2^{-n}, instead of 2^n. For a unified shift operation, I don't think there is any good reason to prefer one direction over the other, since there is no precedent in another language (AFAIK).
I think this spec (for >0 == left shift) shift x n = x * 2^^n is simpler than (for >0 == right shift) shift x n = x * 2^^(-n) [Ok, I probably need a few from/to Fractionals added to those specs] -- A