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neutron*star
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Posts: 2039
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 Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:31 pm Post subject:
Re: floating point problem
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Tak-Shing Chan said:
| Quote: | On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Richard Heathfield wrote:
Kaz once talked about solid, topical articles being like pennies in the
bank, and off-topic articles being dollar withdrawals. That's a pretty
good analogy. And of course the trick is to stay in credit. (Warning:
that's just an analogy, and is not to be taken literally - nobody is
doing the accounting, as far as I am aware.)
I do not think that this is a good analogy.
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That is your prerogative. Feel free to take it up with Kaz next time he
shows up in here.
| Quote: | IMHO the level
of expertise and/or effort required to answer the question should
be taken into account.
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Quite so - all solid, topical articles earn pennies[1], but some earn more
pennies than others. In other words, the analogy holds (thus far).
| Quote: | I have in mind the mini-essays from Chris
Torek which in the real world should worth 20 times more than the
average on-topic posts (in terms of the post-to-pennies ratio).
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At the very least.
[1] What do you mean, you haven't been getting your cheques? Take it up with
your ISP.
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously) |
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Ronald Bruck
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:31 pm Post subject:
Re: floating point problem
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In article <ohuvb2ho3aa3aimshus9piuep5p48ljt74@4ax.com>, Mark McIntyre
<markmcintyre@spamcop.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On 20 Jul 2006 08:33:57 -0700, in comp.lang.c , "Ancient_Hacker"
grg2@comcast.net> wrote:
Richard Heathfield wrote:
Um, that is totally and utterly irrelevant to my point, which is that with
32 bits you only have 2^32 bit patterns so you can only represent 2^32
different values,
One might suspect most programmers are aware it's impossible to
represent an infinite number of distinct states in a computer.
One might, but one would be disappointed. An alarmingly large number
of computer programmers seem to think that computers are exact.
--
Mark McIntyre
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan
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Or as Scotty put it on Star Trek, "The more complicated you make the
plumbing, the easier it is to stop it up." (Or something like that.)
Kernighan's is the, er, more polite of the two... And I wanted Mark to
know SOMEBODY, at least, appreciates his digging it out.
Sorry for the off-topicality...
--
Ron Bruck
Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
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** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
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http://www.usenet.com |
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Dik T. Winter
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 23 Feb 2005
Posts: 327
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:56 pm Post subject:
Re: floating point problem
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In article <1153409637.447697.200250@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> "Ancient_Hacker" <grg2@comcast.net> writes:
| Quote: | Richard Heathfield wrote:
Um, that is totally and utterly irrelevant to my point, which is that with
32 bits you only have 2^32 bit patterns so you can only represent 2^32
different values,
One might suspect most programmers are aware it's impossible to
represent an infinite number of distinct states in a computer.
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Ah, but Richard is incorrect here. 2^32 bit patterns can represent *at
most* 2^32 different values. There can be different representations that
represent the same value.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/ |
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neutron*star
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Posts: 2039
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| Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:35 am Post subject:
Re: floating point problem
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Dik T. Winter said:
| Quote: | In article <1153409637.447697.200250@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com
"Ancient_Hacker" <grg2@comcast.net> writes:
Richard Heathfield wrote:
Um, that is totally and utterly irrelevant to my point, which is that
with 32 bits you only have 2^32 bit patterns so you can only
represent 2^32 different values,
One might suspect most programmers are aware it's impossible to
represent an infinite number of distinct states in a computer.
Ah, but Richard is incorrect here.
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I beg to differ...
| Quote: | 2^32 bit patterns can represent *at
most* 2^32 different values. There can be different representations that
represent the same value.
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....but I'll settle for "insufficiently precise". :-)
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously) |
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