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=0.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_PCNT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e99ea9c9d228f6b8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-21 17:44:45 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!elnk-nf2-pas!elnk-pas-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.easynews.com!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!crtntx1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!chcgil2-snh1.gtei.net!news.bbnplanet.com!wn11feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!rwcrnsc54.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F6E4600.2020901@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: interest computing problem Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.34.139.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: rwcrnsc54 1064191475 24.34.139.183 (Mon, 22 Sep 2003 00:44:35 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 00:44:35 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 00:44:39 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42730 Date: 2003-09-22T00:44:39+00:00 List-Id: > That is definitely something that I need to look into.. making this program as you said a little more robust. This is why it is such a good idea to 'echo back' the input data as your program sees it. There are all sorts of conversion and accuracy issues, plus the fact that your program can never tell if the way it interprets the numbers is the way that the user of the program intended.( I would avoid anthromorphizing the software here, except that makes it even more complicated to understand. The user may be a later edition of the author, as in this case. But from the program's point of view, the assumptions never changed...) If the percentage rate had been 'echoed' as 0.02% you would have seen the mistate immediately--or at least sooner.