Here's a challenge for floating point lovers.

Scott Amspoker scott at bbxsda.UUCP
Wed Feb 6 09:17:18 AEST 1991


In article <1991Jan29.173341.11899 at zoo.toronto.edu> henry at zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In general, despite Doug's distaste for its complexity, IEEE floating
>point is an order of magnitude superior to the rest.  It was designed
>by people who understood numerical arithmetic.

The designers didn't necessarily understand business arithmetic.  It's a
pain in the rear trying to manage rounding errors and arbitrary *decimal*
precisions with a format that is fundamentally radix 2.  Other than that
it's a great format.

-- 
Scott Amspoker                       | 
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