Dear Squeakers,

I'm thanking you _all_ for your very worthable comments.

After my first attempt under the title 'Better integer performance
possible?' there wasn't such a great reaction; now I think there _is_
interest in improvements in this area.

Andrew, David (thank you for the hint with the compile times) and Dean have
favorized Plugins as implementation choice (for different reasons).

I think this is a possible variant which makes sense, too. But also I think
that's not the main point:
- it should be possible for a non C-freak just by reading sources in
Smalltalk to get a working idea how its possible to make LargeInteger
computations in Smalltalk
	=> this is the didactic approach;
- its interesting to have LargeInt arithmetics __as fast as possible__
without the coercion to follow the 'didactic' implementation line
	=> cryptographic, maths, random generators, advertising (for people who
compare Squeak with other Smalltalks);
- then it should be as portable as possible, so don't try near assembler
programming.

I cannot see a significant enlargement of the VM by implementing this in
_addition_ to the 'didactic' approach at the moment, but there is no
pressing to make a decision now: the plugin variant seems to be valuable for
development first and if there is a working plugin there should be no
problem to put it in the standard VM if there is an increasing demand to do
so (num of downloads of plugin, how many programmers suggest to download it
to speed up their work, or similar measures).


Some personal remarks:
I want to start this around mid of November (then I have some holidays, now
I'm working for money and writing these mails ;-)). But after start I have
to
- compile Squeak first;
- understand the plugin mechanism with a simple example, not 'primitive' ;-)
example, what I first have written;
- read some stuff about large integer computation or not (but probably it
makes sense), etc..

My first timeline was to have some results _before_ 2K. Perhaps this is too
optimistic thinking, but it's a nice timeline :-)


With best regards,

Stephan

sr (stephan.rudlof at ipk.fhg.de)
   "Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis.
    You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'"
    -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3