Floating Point Expectations

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <995 at s8.Morgan.COM> amull at Morgan.COM (Andrew P. Mullhaupt) writes:
>It becomes quite clear that this authoritative and very recent
>reference is written with the point of view that you should _not_
>assume the radix of the floating point representation is 2, ...

It is even more obvious when you consider the wide variation even among
binary-radix floating-point processors with respect to guard bits,
rounding modes, and so on that it is insane to think than any simple
model of floating-point is going to apply accurately universally.
Rather than attempting to model exact behavior of floating-point systems,
I recommend devising algorithms that are robust in the face of
considerable cruft from the floating-point unit.  This is virtually
always possible, if you undertake the task with sufficient suspicion.