On Sep 18, 2008, at 5:13 PM, Mark S. Miller wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Brendan Eich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
-0 and 0 are not the same "given floating point number". 1/-0 vs.
1/0 and Math.atan2(-0,0) vs. 0,0 are but two examples.
Yes, I understand their operational difference. Whether that
difference means they are not the same number depends on how you
define "number". I would have defined "representing the same number"
by correspondence to the reals. YMMV.
But the mathematical behavior of floating point numbers is not the
same as that of the reals. Not just because of -0. See <http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html
>
Floating point numbers are a useful rough approximation of the reals
for many practical calculations, but treating them as if they were in
fact a subset of the reals is not mathematically sound.
In any case, my question is, does there exist any similar
operational difference between decimal floating point values that
are considered to be in the same cohort? If not, then I back Sam's
proposal without compareTotal().
I assumed not, but it would be nice to hear from an expert.
If there is an operational difference (in the sense you helpfully
expressed in more precise form) then I tend to think it undermines the
notion of cohort.
Regards,
Maciej
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