complex numbers

[kenna]

How useful would complex numbers be in a programming language?

There are eight basic arithmetic operations in my language, more complex operations are in a separate mathematic library, so it wouldn't be a fully fledged system for using complex numbers.

• addition
• subtraction
• multiplication
• division
• exponentiation
• additive inverse
• multiplicative inverse
• absolute value

So far my language has only three data types, bit (b), integer (n), and fraction (n,d), but I've been wondering whether it would be useful to add a complex (a,bi) data type too.

[John]

Honestly I have no idea where complex numbers would be used in computer science, I've been programming for four years and haven't come across them - I am eagerly waiting WingedPanther's reply!

[WingedPanther]

Not to leave Sidewinder disappointed...

The usefulness of adding complex numbers will depend heavily on your target audience. If you are going after the scientific community, it would be nice to include. If you are targeting business/web apps, it probably wouldn't help much.

Another question would be: is this an OOP language which would allow you to define a new datatype. One of the first things I would do, however, is check on the IEEE specifications on data types, as this will give your language standards defined behavior.

[kenna]

Originally Posted by WingedPanther

The usefulness of adding complex numbers will depend heavily on your target audience. If you are going after the scientific community, it would be nice to include. If you are targeting business/web apps, it probably wouldn't help much.

Another question would be: is this an OOP language which would allow you to define a new datatype. One of the first things I would do, however, is check on the IEEE specifications on data types, as this will give your language standards defined behavior.

I want to reach a wide audience, so while it wouldn't be of much use to ordinary programmers, it would be very useful for scientists, even if only basic arithmetic operations. Or perhaps complex numbers would have som engineering value.......or maybe not...(T_T) Anyway, it would widen the audience a bit.

The language is almost like C, but regular and very strict. It is also very minimalistic and has a few very useful features not found in C. And absolutely no OOP! Not even if hell froze over! For creating new types you have enum and struct, and so far I cannot see the need for anything more. The language is also purely procedural.

One of the main reasons I began creating this language (besides creating a language I myself am happy with) was to get away from everything OOP and away from bloated GCC, Visual Studio, .net, and whatnot. *drooool* I love TCC!

A minimalistic, strict, regular, simple, "universal" programming language, based on C...with a few twists (-_^)

[John]

Originally Posted by kenna

And absolutely no OOP! Not even if hell froze over!

Thats blasphemy

[G_Morgan]

C99 has complex numbers. Good luck finding a good implementation of it.

[WingedPanther]

It sounds like your language will be competing with C/Fortran, which seem to be the favorite languages for scientists/engineers. You may want to look at some of their language specifications to get some ideas for what to include.