Java numerics issue

Arthur van Hoff avhamarimba.com
Thu Jan 30 16:27:45 PST 1997


Hi Dean,

>    I've been curious to know why complex numbers were left out
>of Java.  Since there is no operator overloading the syntax for
>working with, for example, objects of type ZDouble will be pretty
>ugly.

We spend most of our time figuring out ways to keep Java simple.
One of the goals was to avoid unnecessary duplicate functionality.
It is unfortunately not possible to design a language that is all
things to all people. We had to made some sacrifices for simplicicty,
and operator overloading was one of them. Personally I think it would
do more harm than good, so we left it out. Unfortunately that leaves
you with an ugly notation for complex numbers. Sorry about that...
	
Have fun,

	Arthur van Hoff

Marímba Inc., 445 Sherman Avenue, Palo Alto CA 94306
415-328 JAVA (main), 415-328 5283 (direct), 415-328 5295 (fax)
http://www.marimba.com/, mailto:avhamarimba.com



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