Add commentary about integral conversions

Fixes #26.
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Taylor Fausak 2021-05-28 21:17:55 +00:00 committed by GitHub
parent b0a6402976
commit e5cabcd77d

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@ -190,6 +190,25 @@ module Witch
-- possible to convert from @s@ to @t@ but there are a lot of caveats, you
-- probably should not write any instances at all.
-- ** Integral types
-- | There are a lot of types that represent various different ranges of
-- integers, and Witch may not provide the instances you want. In particular
-- it does not provide a total way to convert from an @Int32@ into an @Int@.
-- Why is that?
--
-- The Haskell Language Report only demands that @Int@s have at least 30
-- bits of precision. That means a reasonable Haskell implementation could
-- have an @Int@ type that's smaller than the @Int32@ type.
--
-- However in practice everyone uses the same Haskell implementation: GHC.
-- And with GHC the @Int@ type always has 32 bits of precision, even on
-- 32-bit architectures. So for almost everybody, it's probably safe to use
-- @unsafeFrom \@Int32 \@Int@. Similarly most software these days runs on
-- machines with 64-bit architectures. That means it's also probably safe
-- for you to use @unsafeFrom \@Int64 \@Int@.
--
-- All of the above also applies for @Word@, @Word32@, and @Word64@.
-- ** Downsides
-- | As the author of this library, I obviously think that everyone should
-- use it because it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. But nothing is