Re: [Caml-list] Array 4 MB size limit

[Frederick Akalin <akalin@akalin.cx>]

On May 19, 2006, at 5:57 PM, Brian Hurt wrote:

> Now, I realize the core reasons for the delay in moving to 64-bits  
> are industry wide.  Intel's Itanium fiasco delayed Intel  
> introducing a 64-bit chip at least 7 years.  And Microsoft seems to  
> be incapable of releasing a new OS- 32-bit or 64-bit.  But that, I  
> think, is the core of the problem- Ocaml's array limit is just one  
> of many symptoms.
>
> And that's my point- we should be looking to fix the underlying  
> problem, not looking to patch the symptoms.  Because often times  
> patching the symptoms and not addressing the core problem simply  
> makes the whole situation worse- the underlying problem simply  
> shows up in new ways, and the fix for the specific symptom often  
> causes new problems.
>
> Brian

I think that's an awfully simplistic point of view.  My problem is  
that I want to store more than 4 million items in an array.  You're  
suggesting moving to 64 bits?  And even if everyone magically moves  
to 64 bits, I can imagine that in the future someone will want to  
read more than 2^(64 - 10) items from a file into memory, as 64 bits  
isn't quite "number of atoms in the universe" big yet.

Fred