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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gidf4fd2,public X-Google-Thread: 10259a,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid10259a,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,ea8ea502d35ca2ce X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 103d24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid103d24,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1164ba,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid1164ba,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-30 17:56:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!mtu.ru!news.rosnet.ru!newsfeed.rt.ru!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!newsfeeds.bigpond.com!not-for-mail From: robin Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.basic,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: Beginner's Language? Message-ID: Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 00:41:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 144.134.49.140 X-Trace: newsfeeds.bigpond.com 991269660 144.134.49.140 (Thu, 31 May 2001 10:41:00 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 10:41:00 EST Organization: Telstra BigPond Internet Services (http://www.bigpond.com) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7904 comp.lang.lisp:11003 comp.lang.smalltalk:10342 comp.lang.functional:5974 comp.lang.scheme:4074 comp.lang.perl:3060 Date: 2001-05-31T00:41:00+00:00 List-Id: Johan Kullstam writes: > Florian Weimer writes: > > > stephan@pcrm.win.tue.nl () writes: > > > > > COBOL has lots of interesting numerical types, such as fixed-precision > > > decimal numbers. Very useful for counting beans. > > > > Well, fixed point decimal numbers are extremely useful, and many > > people actually need them. Just try to implement the ECB currency > > conversion guidelines in a language without fixed-point decimal > > support, and you'll see what I mean. > > > > Just my EUR .0000010100011110101110000101000111101011100001... > > you can always do fixed point with integers. Indeed you can, but the advantage of decimal arithmetic is the range of values is typically greater than that offered by integer arithmetic (decimal hardware offers varying field length arithmetic of from 1 to say, 30 digits). > for example, to do dollars to two decimal places, just count pennies > instead of dollars. That typically allows up to $21,474,836.48, which isn't a large amount. Even less in Lire (L2,147,483,647 -- L1000 = $1 approx) > other than a little notational convenience, i've never understood what > the big deal was with fixed point. > > -- > J o h a n K u l l s t a m > [kullstam@ne.mediaone.net] > sysengr