[vector] Vector.cast

[Paul Sandoz]

Ok.

Razvan, any views on this before i start reducing down the scope of the cast implementations? (I realize you put a lot of effort into supporting the current functionality).

Thanks,
Paul.

> On May 25, 2018, at 8:13 PM, John Rose <john.r.rose at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, that makes sense. A length changes should be a separate operation, which will generate very different code. 
> 
>> On May 25, 2018, at 3:08 PM, Paul Sandoz <paul.sandoz at oracle.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Would it make sense to simplify Vector.cast to species of the same length? if length differs an exception is thrown.
>> 
>> That’s one less thing to think about and same concept can then be applied to Shuffle and Mask, which is effectively a nop if no boxing occurs because the underlying lane elements don't change.
>> 
>> We can lean on the reshape/rebracket/resize for other length transforming operations, in addition to mask/shuffle conversion to/from vector.
>> 
>> Paul.
>