There is---I do not write with any inside knowledge---some prospect that Paul Gilmartin will not need to confront another option. A fairly obvious and 'easy' design option is that of making all arithmetic set-symbol values signed doubleword ones, and if I were laying bets it is the one I should bet that the IBM group in Hursley would choose.
En passant, let me also note 1) that this is not what I should do if the decision were mine and 2) that I do not share Paul Gilmartin's (and Microsoft's) view that options are bad. They are, on one view, inconvenient for developers; but the notion that there is a magic number that will meet [almost] everyone's needs seems to be to be delusional. Worse, perhaps, is that code tested only for one such magic value is very likely to break down when, perforce, that value is changed. Paul has lamented the card-image orientation of some IBM facilities here when his ox was the one being gored, but he has been slow to learn the larger lesson of such rigidities. What can be conceded to his view is that options are not always for novices, that they should mostly be unobtrusive. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
