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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 107079,183ebe04e93f0506
X-Google-Attributes: gid107079,public
X-Google-Thread: 103376,183ebe04e93f0506
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: fixed point vs floating point
Date: 1997/11/26
Message-ID: <dewar.880598918@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 293046883
References: <mheaney-ya023680002211970739180001@news.ni.net>
 <65846t$4vq$1@gonzo.sun3.iaf.nl>
 <mheaney-ya023680002311970203250001@news.ni.net> <dewar.880302541@merv>
 <65c58j$1302@mean.stat.purdue.edu> <dewar.880417337@merv>
 <gwinn-2511971025020001@dh5055083.res.ray.com> <dewar.880487594@merv>
 <gwinn-2511972139290001@dh5055083.res.ray.com> <dewar.880518760@merv>
 <gwinn-2611971945330001@dh5055143.res.ray.com>
Distribution: inet
X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.nyu.edu
X-Trace: news.nyu.edu 880599089 31538 (None) 128.122.140.58
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,sci.math.num-analysis
Date: 1997-11-26T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Joe said

<<The great hope of Ada83 fixed-point arithmetic was that it would make such
memos unnecessary.  This would have been a good thing, but it had to wait
for the wide use of floating point.
>>

It would also be a good think if Ada could magically write your program
for you :-)

There is no free lunch when it comes to being careful with fixed-point
scaling. To expect Ada83 to somehow solve this problem automatically
sounds a bit naive, or let's at least say over-optimistic.

<<As for the differences in Ada's model, I don't recall complaints about
that, or that they couldn't understand how it worked.  What I do recall
was that the Ada experts couldn't get it to work reliably or well using
the compilers of the day.
>>

SOunds like you had the wrong "Ada experts" or the wrong compilers, or both.
Many people used fixed-point in Ada very successfully in the early days
(I am really thinking specifically of the Alsys compiler here, since I was
working for Alsys at the time).