> do you want modular numbers to carry their modulus along
> with them? (there are argument pro and con)
I'm not sure I follow you here. If they don't carry their modulus along
with them, in what sense are they different from integers? It may well
be that modular numbers with modulus are not terribly useful -- but the
design should be such that if they are, they can be handled, as can
those without.
> Tagging floats (in addition to the tag they already have
> in CL) is going to cost in time and space.
Thanks for picking up on this. I did write that all gennums would be
tagged, but in fact I expect that those which are native CL types would
not be tagged additionally, something like the current situation with
float and bigfloat. I do not have a complete design, though. Note that
bigfloats don't work everywhere they should, either (there is no
keepbigfloat for CRE representation -- bug 661193; random functions fail
with bigfloats -- bug 652470). I suspect that gennum-integers (e.g.
modular) will not really work that well, but I also suspect that they're
not that useful.
I'd like to look at the Maple design. Can you point me at the
particular documents that you think are relevant?
-s