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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: floating point comparison
Date: 1997/08/06
Message-ID: <dewar.870870673@merv>#1/1
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References: <mheaney-ya023680002907972345420001@news.ni.net>
 <33DF6F43.6EEA4806@digicomp.com> <5rqehs$g1r$1@odin.cc.pdx.edu>
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Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: 
 comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis,comp.software-eng,comp.theory,sci.math
Date: 1997-08-06T00:00:00+00:00
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Wes says

<<"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.
>>


The idea that having a math degree qualifies someone as a numerical
analyst, let alone a competent one, is about on the same level as
assuming anyone with a degree in computer science is an expert in
logic programming systems (or choose any other specialty here).

And no, sorry, it is NOT possible to come up with a few simple
guidelines. Ask anyone who *does* know about numerical analysis
and they will likely agree.

There simply is no susbtitute for knowing what you are doing when
it comes to floating-point computation.