Proposal for Decimal64 and Decimal128 value-based classes

[Maurizio Cimadamore]

Add me to the list of interested folks.

Such types are useful when interacting with System ABIs, and the Foreign 
Linker API needs "well-known" carrier which model these types in Java. 
There are also other interesting types to be explored in that domain, 
such as Long128, LongDouble (extended precision float) and HalfFloats.

Maurizio

On 30/03/2021 21:54, Paul Sandoz wrote:
>
>> 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.