From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107079,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid107079,public X-Google-Thread: f8362,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8362,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 109d8a,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid109d8a,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "W. Wesley Groleau x4923" Subject: Re: floating point comparison Date: 1997/08/05 Message-ID: <33E74A62.53E2@pseserv3.fw.hac.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 262504404 Sender: usenet@most.fw.hac.com (News Administration) References: <33DF6F43.6EEA4806@digicomp.com> <5rqehs$g1r$1@odin.cc.pdx.edu> <33E11967.4A30@nr.net> <33E214C3.311C@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> <33E61497.33E2@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> <33E6D359.3EF4@imbi.uni-freiburg.de> X-Nntp-Posting-Host: sparc02 Organization: Hughes Defense Communications Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis,comp.software-eng,comp.theory,sci.math Date: 1997-08-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > > I've worked with a lot of decent programmers whose degrees are in > > English, History, EE, ME, .... and most of them could say the same. > > I KNOW some of my colleagues have no clue how floating point numbers > > are represented, yet still manage to produce working code. > > And that's the problem. Programmers are satisfied if they can "produce > working code", i.e. the program does what I expect it to do. But if > you don't care about numerical problems, the program will give you a > nice result, which might be wrong. Just take SAS as an example of a > commercial widely used wrong software. "what I expect it to do" is meet its requirements. And the requirements rarely tolerate wrong answers. So when I say "working code" I mean code that gives right answers. To put it another way, we did have a few people on the project with degrees in mathematics, and I don't recall ever hearing one say, "That won't work because xxxx" where xxxx was something to do with floating point. What I'm trying to say is that it should be possible to come up with a few simple guidelines that cover most cases, and a guideline for identifying the cases that require a mathematician--excuse me, a numerical analyst. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wes Groleau, Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN USA Senior Software Engineer - AFATDS Tool-smith Wanna-be Don't send advertisements to this domain unless asked! All disk space on fw.hac.com hosts belongs to either Hughes Defense Communications or the United States government. Using email to store YOUR advertising on them is trespassing! ----------------------------------------------------------------------