From: rav@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (robin)
Subject: Re: fixed point vs floating point
Date: 1997/12/03
Date: 1997-12-03T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <6627vl$s4h$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: dewar.881006262@merv
dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>As to expecting the language to do scaling autoamtically, I think this is
>a mistake for fixed-point. PL/1 tried and failed,
PL/I did not fail. Automatic scaling of fixed-point intermediate
results is highly successful. It works on the principle
of preserving as many digits after the binary/decimal point
as possible.
> and COBOL certainly
>does not succeed (a common coding rule in COBOL is never to use the
>COMPUTE verb, precisely because the scaling is not well defined).
>I think any attempt to automatically determine the scaling of intermediate
>results in multiplications and divisions in fixed-point is doomed to failure.
It isn't really, but the user needs to understand how fixed-point
arithmetic -- with a fractional part -- works.
>This just *has* to be left up to the programmer, since it is highly
>implementation dependent.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-12-03 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 64+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-11-22 0:00 fixed point vs floating point Matthew Heaney
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Geert Bosch
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Herman Rubin
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-26 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-26 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin [this message]
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-26 0:00 ` William A Whitaker
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Geert Bosch
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-11-25 0:00 ` John A. Limpert
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Vince Del Vecchio
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Vince Del Vecchio
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
[not found] <9711221603.AA03295@nile.gnat.com>
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1997-11-27 0:00 tmoran
1997-11-27 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-29 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
1997-11-28 0:00 tmoran
1997-11-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
2011-09-29 10:25 RasikaSrinivasan@gmail.com
2011-09-29 10:49 ` AdaMagica
2011-09-29 13:38 ` Martin
2011-09-30 10:17 ` Stephen Leake
2011-09-30 16:25 ` tmoran
2011-09-30 16:52 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-10-01 11:09 ` Stephen Leake
2011-09-30 19:26 ` tmoran
2011-09-30 22:31 ` tmoran
2011-10-01 13:37 ` RasikaSrinivasan@gmail.com
2011-10-02 14:19 ` Stephen Leake
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