Subject: Re: Lisp Programmers in X Months
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 08:42:39 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3227330576163731@naggum.net>

* Bruce Hoult <bruce@hoult.org>
| There are no errors or rounding techniques needed.  Integer arithmetic 
| using IEEE FP is exact.

  What nonsense!  You have only so many bits of precision.  When a result
  (eventually) needs more than that, instead of losing the most significant
  bits, as in C-style "integer" arithmetic, you lose the least significant
  bits, which generally goes undetected.

| Financial arithmetic in the real world is not defined using rationals.
| It is defined using decimal numbers with a fixed number of decimal
| places.

  Which is a rational.

///
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