Message 58473 - Python tracker

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Author	noam
Recipients	christian.heimes, gvanrossum, nascheme, noam, rhettinger, tim.peters
Date	2007-12-11.23:07:39
SpamBayes Score	0.22654349
Marked as misclassified	No
Message-id	<b348a0850712111507i32d41943hd9ce3734843e478d@mail.gmail.com>
In-reply-to	<1197405806.3.0.732915191463.issue1580@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>

Content
If I understand correctly, there are two main concerns: speed and portability. I think that they are both not that terrible. How about this: * For IEEE-754 hardware, we implement decimal/binary conversions, and define the exact behaviour of floats. * For non-IEEE-754 hardware, we keep the current method of relying on the system libraries. About speed, perhaps it's not such a big problem, since decimal/binary conversions are usually related to I/O, and this is relatively slow anyway. I think that usually a program does a relatively few decimal/binary conversions. About portability, I think (from a small research I just made) that S90 supports IEEE-754. This leaves VAX and cray users, which will have to live with a non-perfect floating-point behaviour. If I am correct, it will let 99.9% of the users get a deterministic floating-point behaviour, where eval(repr(f)) == f and repr(1.1)=='1.1', with a speed penalty they won't notice.

If I understand correctly, there are two main concerns: speed and
portability. I think that they are both not that terrible.

How about this:
* For IEEE-754 hardware, we implement decimal/binary conversions, and
define the exact behaviour of floats.
* For non-IEEE-754 hardware, we keep the current method of relying on
the system libraries.

About speed, perhaps it's not such a big problem, since decimal/binary
conversions are usually related to I/O, and this is relatively slow
anyway. I think that usually a program does a relatively few
decimal/binary conversions.
About portability, I think (from a small research I just made) that
S90 supports IEEE-754. This leaves VAX and cray users, which will have
to live with a non-perfect floating-point behaviour.

If I am correct, it will let 99.9% of the users get a deterministic
floating-point behaviour, where eval(repr(f)) == f and
repr(1.1)=='1.1', with a speed penalty they won't notice.

History
Date	User	Action	Args
2007-12-11 23:07:40	noam	set	spambayes_score: 0.226543 -> 0.22654349 recipients: + noam, gvanrossum, tim.peters, nascheme, rhettinger, christian.heimes
2007-12-11 23:07:40	noam	link	issue1580 messages
2007-12-11 23:07:39	noam	create