Re: 0.3-0.2=0.999999999998?

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#16377

From: Roedy Green
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 00:00

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On 05 Mar 1999 00:09:41 +0100, Tor Iver Wilhelmsen <toriw@online.no>
wrote:

>Kinda opens a possibility for maths akin to how BigDecimal and friends
>do their stuff - as long as you remembered to adjust your decimal
>point correctly.

The IBM 360 packed decimal -- 1 nibble per digit plus sign still
handled only integers, not floating point.  It was quite a bit slower
than binary arithmetic, and usually not as compact.  The main reason
to use it was for numbers too big to fit in 31 bits. The PL/1 compiler
would do some scaling for you which was its other attraction.  

Today's programmers, raised on machines with hardware floating point,
seem to think that scaling an integer and inserting a decorative
decimal point is rocket science.  They keep needlessly reverting to
floating point with its speed penalities and fuzz problems.

For the JAVA GLOSSARY and the CMP Utilities: <http://mindprod.com>
--
Roedy Green,  Canadian Mind Products 
-30-

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From: roedy@mindprod.com (Roedy Green)
Subject: Re: 0.3-0.2=0.999999999998?
Date: 1999/03/04
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