23 Oct
2011
23 Oct
'11
3:07 p.m.
On 23 Oct 2011 at 16:55, Toby Thain wrote:
And what reaction did you get to presenting this very
important
concept of fixed point or exact numbers? It is not as if this isn't
immediately useful in the commercial software business. Any common
RDBMS demands that one choose between fixed and floating types, and
many people choose the wrong type. This is also an FAQ on pretty much
every programming forum...
Any calculation where the decimal point is movable is "floating
point", even if said number is not in exponential notation. The two
are not the same, even though the terms are often confused. Early
calculators that would simply shift the point one way or the other in
a field of significant digits is an example of floating point, but
not exponential notation.
--Chuck