24 Oct
2011
24 Oct
'11
12:44 p.m.
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
I absolutely agree with you. I should have used clearer wording last
night, I was using the term 'real numbers' in the mathematical rather
htan computing sesne (real, as opposed to complex, numbers, the integers
are of course a subset of the reals),
Although IIRC some compound interest calculations require you to work to
an accuracy of better than 1 penny/cent.
Actually, I rarely use the term 'real number' to mean 'floating point
number'. In hardware you always talk aboput a 'floating point
coprocessor' (never a 'real number coprocessor'). The high level language
I used the most at the moment is C, which of course declares such
variables with the 'float' keyword.
-tony
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.