Proposal for Decimal64 and Decimal128 value-based classes

[Raffaello Giulietti]

Hi Paul,


On 2021-03-30 22:54, 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 guess the most recent builds of Valhalla are those resulting from 
building from the source code in the git repo. Or are you recommending 
the official ea releases instead?

I ask because I plan to use the latest release from the git repo and 
keeping it current, not the ea release.


> 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.
> 

As far as I can tell, scientific computation will make use of binary 
floating point numbers for a long time. Decimal floating point numbers 
are still limited to biz and fin applications.

Does Intel's lib operates on decimal formats as well?


Greetings
Raffaello