23 Oct
2011
23 Oct
'11
1:55 p.m.
On 23/10/11 4:25 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011, Tony Duell 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...
:(
These are the programmers equal to Tony's 'There are no
382.73 ohm resistors in the box, and I can't find them in any catalogue'
anecdote.
--Toby
There probably is a need for an
'engineer's spreadsheet' with proper
complex number support, but I guess the market is much less than for
'business' applicatiosn which only need real numbers.
In many cases, "REAL" (actually "floating point") numbers are
inappropriate. For MONEY, I tried to get my students to use ints (and
calculate the pennies not the dollars), and then just move the PERIOD
when they display the results.