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0 pointsGibbon16y ago0 comments

Yeah and then we have the problem that most floating point variables shouldn't be IEEE 754. And we're mostly fucked because most languages don't support anything else.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

mark-r6y ago· 3 in thread

If they shouldn't be IEEE 754 then what would you use instead? IEEE 754 exists because a lot of smart people put a lot of thought into what the best floating point representation should be. Then the hardware folks put a lot of work into making it fast and accurate.

Gibbon1OP6y ago

IEEE 754 is designed for scientific computation and simulation. And it's very good for that. However it's terrible for representing decimal numbers and fractions. You end up with the exact problems described in the article.

It's kind of a problem since most programmers aren't writing programs to do scientific/modeling. They're writing programs that are doing decimal math and currency where IEEE 754 is inappropriate.

mark-r6y ago

I ask again: what would you use instead? The industry has decided that IEEE 754 is the best all-around compromise, and everything is optimized for that case. Most programs aren't doing "decimal math", but programmer expectations are shaped by that since that's what they've used all their life.

StillBored6y ago

I hope you noticed that IEEE 754 merged DFP support in 2008.... Which means its actually quite good at base 10 if you have a machine/compiler that supports it.

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