13 Jan
2005
13 Jan
'05
6:51 p.m.
On Jan 13, 2005, at 8:52 AM, Simon Marlow wrote:
On 13 January 2005 12:39, Ross Paterson wrote:
Int{Map,Set} use the type Word, but I think it was decided a while ago that this type shouldn't be standard. Should that be reconsidered?
I don't see a problem with Word given that we have Int. However this tends to turn into a religious argument so that's all I'm going to say on it :-)
In this particular case (Patricia Trie - based IntMap/IntSet), you need special-case code for the high-order bit if you use an Int, but the Ord instance for Word (ie unsigned comparison) gives you exactly what you want. There's not much more to it than that. It makes a huge difference to readability/maintainability, though. -Jan