Proposal for Decimal64 and Decimal128 value-based classes

[Paul Sandoz]

> On Mar 30, 2021, at 1:03 PM, Brian Goetz <brian.goetz at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> Overall, I'd be happy to see Decimal types that are aimed at "reasonable precision" in addition to the infinite precision that BD offers.  (After Valhalla, of course.)
> 

Yes, me too.

Raffaello, as an experiment you could develop such classes as primitive classes compiled against recent builds of Valhalla.

I would caution against unduly biasing towards "business applications”, as I think with primitive classes and other possible features Java can become a better platform for scientific or engineering purposes.

As an example we are making progress with the Vector API and in the panama-vector repo we have integrated with code of Intel’s Short Vector Math Library, which may open the possibility for it to be used by the auto-vectorizer too.

Paul.