Proposal for Decimal64 and Decimal128 value-based classes

[Paul Sandoz]

> On Mar 30, 2021, at 4:05 PM, Raffaello Giulietti <raffaello.giulietti at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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 would recommend building from the git repo if you can, since that will allow for the most relevant feedback.


> 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.
> 

Ok.


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

No.

Paul.