Treating Failure As Value

Limsoon Wong, Beng Chin Ooi

Abstract: Two's complement notation is a popular binary numeral representation of integers. However, this representation is asymmetric and partial. The consequences are complications like overflowing and underflowing. We try to re-interpret the asymmetry of two's complement numbers to provide a better representation of integers. Our effort leads us to consider the treatment of failure as value rather than as state. The result of this approach goes beyond the solution of our original problem and gives rise to a rather elegant treatment of failure.