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List:       boost
Subject:    Re: [boost] Infinite precision integer draft
From:       Daniel Mitchell <danmitchell () mail ! utexas ! edu>
Date:       2006-05-31 22:35:16
Message-ID: 200605311735.17167.danmitchell () mail ! utexas ! edu
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I know I'm entering this discussion a little late, so forgive me if this has 
already been said, but I fail to see the point of having an unsigned_integer. 
I understand that certain quantities are intrinsically non-negative and 
therefore the idea of an unsigned_integer has aesthetic value, but my 
experience with the built-in types is that unsigned integers create more 
problems than they solve. (I'm talking about subtraction and comparison to 
signed types.) An infinite precision signed integer can represent all the 
same values as an unsigned integer, so from a practical point of view, why 
bother with the unsigned type at all? It seems to me that it just introduces 
a lot of unnecessary complexity.

D.

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