Re: Reading Float Data from a binary file into ada

[Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr>]

Ali Bendriss a �crit :
> I was not aware that VB has some fixed point built-in. 
> (... In fact I never use the fixed point at all).
> I was thinking that it's mostly a facility offered by Ada.
> I undersand that it could be usefull for the monetary conversion for example 
> but is it an important feature for a language to offer a built-in fixed point 
> representation ? does a library can offer the same level of facility ?
> 
IANAL, but I heard that it is forbidden by law to make monetary 
computations in floating point. Even when you are computing the budget 
of the DoD :-), you are not allowed to loose cents just because the 
amount is too big.

Time is another interesting example: except when you are modelling the 
big bang, the origin of time is arbitrary, and you'd better not loose 
precision as time flows.

Of course, if you are using a poor language without fixed point, you can 
get the facility with a library. However, it is much more convenient to 
have it as a first class type. There are really two ways of modelling 
mathematical reals; the fact that most languages provide only one does 
not imply that the other one is not useful.
-- 
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            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr