From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id TAA19777; Sat, 31 Jul 2004 19:10:33 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA19264 for ; Sat, 31 Jul 2004 19:10:32 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from asmtp-a063f35.pas.sa.earthlink.net (asmtp-a063f35.pas.sa.earthlink.net [207.217.120.220]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i6VHAVSH004427 for ; Sat, 31 Jul 2004 19:10:31 +0200 Received: from 168-103-58-16.tcsn.qwest.net ([168.103.58.16] helo=dylan) by asmtp-a063f35.pas.sa.earthlink.net with asmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BqxNO-0002LK-QW for caml-list@inria.fr; Sat, 31 Jul 2004 10:10:31 -0700 Message-ID: <004d01c47721$72854820$0201a8c0@dylan> From: "David McClain" To: "caml" Subject: [Caml-list] Array Indexing Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 10:11:34 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 X-ELNK-Trace: 7a0ab3eafc8cf994b22988ad1c62733440683398e744b8a41a5f386f5f25ae44de1c9db2e57e953e350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c X-Originating-IP: 168.103.58.16 X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 410BD287.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; mcclain:01 dmcclain:01 dominated:01 estate:99 fourier:01 accountant:99 lacking:01 tedium:01 mcclain:01 arrays:01 arrays:01 bigarray:01 impose:01 ought:01 unit:03 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk I would like to offer up some blasphemous ideas in the world of programming... Array indexing has forever been dominated by the accountant's view that we own only so much memory real estate and by golly your indexes into that array better be within bounds. But scientists realize that we live on a torus in this universe. Our arrays are but a snapshot of the basic unit cell of a mapping that extends infinetly in all directions. Hence array indices that extend beyond that basic unit cell are merely referencing an identical twin array in the next cell over. FFT's are used like pencils in this world, and our digitized versions impose this torus mapping on us. Would that we could perform non-digitized analysis and get perfect Fourier Transforms, but that isn't reality. I would like to suggest an additional option in BigArray, one of addressing mode -- Accountant, and Scientist. Lacking the Scientist mode means much excessive code for users, having to check that arrays are within bounds, splitting the accesses that cross these boundaries, etc. etc. The computer ought to be doing this tedium for us. David McClain Senior Corporate Scientist Avisere, Inc. +1.520.390.7738 (USA) david.mcclain@avisere.com ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners