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0 pointshatthew1y ago0 comments

FTA: JavaScript's built-in JSON implementation is limited to the range and precision of a double.

Obviously, not all int64 values are representable in float64 (double).

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We have ample computing power today to be rid of floats altogether and use integers, fractions and natural numbers.

With 10 times the memory usage and 100 times the compute power, maybe you could replace floats with something that behaves more like real numbers and covers mostly the same range.

But the resulting type is still going to have its own limitations and sharp edges. Floats are not the right tool for every job but they are quite good at the jobs they are right for. Learning how they work is more useful than lamenting their existence.

hinkley1y ago

It’s about 2.5 times as much memory, if you do base 10. 65k is a little less than 5 bytes to represent 2.

But floats are not the right representation for values that need to exactly match, like an ID, to be sure.

If I’m off by half a cent it’s annoying. If I’m off by half a row I get nothing.

The thing is that almost all of the problems we had in my initial story came from choosing system defaults. All except the PK algorithm.

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