INTEGER Type is Platform-Independent shock ....oracle

We are grateful to oracleplsqlprogramming.com for their December 2005 Tip of the Month: Insights into PL/SQL Integers, in which we learn this:

INTEGER - defined in the STANDARD package as a subtype of NUMBER, this datatype is implemented in a completely platform-independent fashion, which means that anything you do with NUMBER or INTEGER variables should work the same regardless of the hardware on which the database is installed.

And thank goodness for that, is what we say. Sometimes you just don't need platform-dependent results from your PL/SQL integer calculation depending on the hardware on which the database is installed.