Dan Ingalls wrote:
>
> Comments?

IMNHO both the original poster and the ANSI standard are wrong :)  As
Ken Dickey pointed-out a 2's complement representation with infinite
precision (infinitely many bits "to the left") is perfectly consistent. 
CLOS got it right.  In this representation -1 bitShift: 1 *is* -2.  -1
bitAt: n should be 1 for all n (even if in VisualWorks it creates an
integer this large to test, and hence -1 bitAt: SmallInteger maxVal
takes rather a long time to compute :) :)

Bit manipulation should be consistent with all negative numbers having
an infinite number of ones "to the left" and all non-negative integers
having an infinite number of zeros "to the left".  Anyone assuming that
-1 bitShift: 1 should be (2 raisedTo: 32) - 2 should be using C and
avoiding i286s and Alphas at all costs...
_______________,,,^..^,,,_______________
Eliot