The following article is part of a series of posts I made on a Discord server.
Original publication date: 2024-09-13
— Previous: Variables, Memory, and Types (Part 2 of 3)
Variables, Memory, and Types (Part 3 of 3)
Types (Continued)
The same byte can represent different information depending on how we interpret it, so why limit ourselves to only the 4 types in PSeINT? In other languages like Java, we can create more variable types, whether by assembling a set of types we already manage in PSeINT, others present in Java, or entirely new ones.
A classic example is the point type (or class); it is formed by 2 real numbers, similar to saying it is a real-type vector of dimension 2, but depending on the language, we can define how this type interacts with others, either by limiting operations only to its own point type or by allowing multiplications with integers and real numbers.
Let’s say Define origin As Point, but trying variableA = origin + "hello" would throw an error because it makes no sense to allow this type of operation… Why or how would you add a point (coordinates on a plane) to a string? 😖
However, it would make sense to operate it with other points or use it to define a more complex type, such as a vector on a plane.
Conclusion
Depending on the language, we will have more or less control over the different layers of abstraction we create or use in a program.
More Material
This video from Veritasium explains in a very interesting way how we can represent information in bits and also covers information density.
Additionally, I’m sharing 3 videos about computers without electricity.
Let’s use the thread 🧵🙂