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From: bagpiper@pnet02.gryphon.com (Michael Hunter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Non-static constant propagation in
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Date: 10 Jan 90 04:00:20 GMT
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firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
>In article <20600032@inmet> stt@inmet.inmet.com writes:
>
>>In ARM 4.10:4, it states:
>>   . . . Furthermore, if a universal expression is a static expression,
>>then the evaluation must be exact.
>>
>>Let's hope they don't try to define "SQRT" on universal reals ! ;-*
>
>The sentence quoted was perpetrated by one of the Neoplatonists on
>the language design team.  The point of the joke, of course, is that
>in Ada all 'universal' expressions yield only rational results, and
>so may indeed be computed exactly.

I'm missing something here....no matter how hard to try to compute the square
root of 2....you ain't gonna get it exactly...I don't care if you are doing
your arithmatic with rational immediate results!!  The sqare root of 2 doesn't
exist in the rationals!!!!  (go check with your college abstract algebra book
or if you want overkill check out galois theory!)  Now you can computer the
root of 2 to maximum percision of the hardware percisely...that is a different
matter...!

                                        Michael

Mike Hunter - Box's and CPU's from HELL: iapx80[012]86, PR1ME 50 Series, 1750a
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