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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f43e6,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 107079,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid107079,public X-Google-Thread: f8362,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8362,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109d8a,c7637cfdf68e766 X-Google-Attributes: gid109d8a,public From: "Dr. Rex A. Dwyer" Subject: Re: floating point comparison Date: 1997/08/07 Message-ID: <33E9D4E7.6670@eos.ncsu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 262876250 Distribution: inet 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> Organization: North Carolina State University Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis,comp.software-eng,comp.theory,sci.math Date: 1997-08-07T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > Wes says > > I KNOW some of my colleagues have no clue how floating point numbers > are represented, yet still manage to produce working code. > >> This reminds me of a possibly apocryphal story I heard about a programmer assigned to maintain numerical libraries at a well-known but unnamed scientific installation. He noticed that the square-root routine happily processed negative arguments, so he changed it to raise an exception. He was then deluged with angry calls from colleagues whose "working code" relied on this "feature". ******************************************************************************* Rex A. Dwyer Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Programs Computer Science Department North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-8206 Telephone: 919-515-7028 Fax: 919-515-7896 E-mail: dwyer@csc.ncsu.edu *******************************************************************************