From: Charles Mills <cmills@...>
Date: 2005-10-26T07:35:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Time for built-in Rational and Complex classes?

On Oct 24, 2005, at 7:14 AM, Ara.T.Howard wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
>
>
>> There has been some support for, but no comment on, RCR #260 ("Make
>> 'Rational' a built-in class") [1].
>>
>> I won't repeat the RCR here.  Just wondering if anyone has any
>> comments to make about the proposition that Rational (and Complex)
>> should be written in C rather than in Ruby.
>>
>> If their functionality is stable and a test-suite available, it would
>> be possible to write them as built-in classes before the release of
>> 1.8.4.
>>
>> I realise there's no urgency, but it seems like a good idea!
>>
>
> rational and complex support certainly would gain scientific users.
>
> regards.
>
> -a

A C version could be created using the regular extension mechanisms.   
I personally would like to see a faster complex class.  Also  
implementing GCD in C would speed up the rational class substantially.

-Charlie