Re: Vectors as functions

[address@hidden]

> Sometimes it can be hard to allow the language user the choice.
> Suppose I had a language that allowed you to override the primitive
> arithemetic via an `*arithmetic-operation-hook*'...so chances are this
> language would be dog-slow in math....   even if you *didn't* ever
> use this hook.

    I understand that offering that kind of freedom *at all times* would
break optimization at all times.  What I mean is, what if you could
say something like "I don't need to use the
*arithmetic-operation-hook* in this project / module / procedure /
expression", so that the one-to-one mapping with machine operations
was restored locally or globally, and the compiler could apply all the
traditional optimizations.