Re: IEEE fp & Java

[fjh@murlibobo.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Now, it is certainly trivially easy when designing a language to make a
> statement that FPT will be exactly IEEE 754, and then congratulate 
> yourself for doing such a splendid job of portability design, but if
> what you have achieved is a design that does not run correctly on the
> machines that people think of as being appropriate for high end fpt
> calculations (Sun is not a big player in this market), then perhaps you
> have not done such a great job after all.

Java implementations that do not conform to the Java language
specification are already starting to appear.  One was announced
recently in comp.compilers... amoung other reasons for its non-
conformance is the fact that it doesn't handle IEEE infinities or NaN.

It will be interesting to see how much the market values conformance to
spec versus how much it values ease of implementation (which translates
into lower cost) or efficiency.

The Ada market has placed a very high value on conformance to the
standard (and in particular on validation).  Whether the Java market
will do so remains to be seen.

--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.