But they all have a largest and smallest possible value, as I have already indicated.
On Sun, Oct 02, 2005 at 04:35:02PM +0200, Lennart Augustsson wrote: > Not all FP representations have infinity, and even if > they do, they might only have one infinity. > > -- Lennart > > Frederik Eaton wrote: > >I've previously mentioned that I would like to see an 'instance > >Bounded Double' etc., as part of the standard, which would use 1/0 for > >maxBound, or the largest possible value (there must be one!) for > >platforms where that is not possible. I don't see a problem with > >looking at Double values as if they were bounded by -infinity and > >+infinity. > > > >On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 09:11:25PM +0300, Yitzchak Gale wrote: > > > >>Hi Jacques, > >> > >>Thanks also to you for a most interesting reply. > >> > >>This same discussion has taken place on the > >>discussion list of every modern general-purpose > >>programming language. > >> > >>The same points are always raised and argued, and > >>the conclusion is always the same: floating point > >>exceptions should raise exceptions. Programs that > >>are so sensitive that the tiny overhead makes a > >>difference should use numeric libraries, unboxed > >>types, FFI, and the like. > >> > >>In Haskell also, it looks like the infrastructure > >>was already laid in the Control.Exception module. > >>I hope we will soon be using it. > >> > >>I personally would like also to see alternative > >>functions that return values in the Error monad. > >> > >>Regards, > >>Yitz > >> > >>On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 03:13:27PM +0300, Jacques Carette wrote: > >> > >>>The IEEE 754 standard says (fairly clearly) that +1.0 / +0.0 is one of > >>>the most 'stable' definitions of Infinity (in Float at least). > >>>Throwing an exception is also regarded as a possibility in IEEE 754, but > >>>it is expected that that is not the default, as experience shows that > >>>that is a sub-optimal default. Mathematical software (Maple, > >>>Mathematica, Matlab) have generally moved in that direction. > >>> > >>>Almost all hardware implementations of float arithmetic now default to > >>>IEEE 754 arithmetic. Having the arithmetic do 'something else' involves > >>>more CPU cycles, so users should generally complain if their system's > >>>arithmetic differs from IEEE 754 arithmetic without some deep reason to > >>>do so [there are some; read and understand William Kahan's papers for > >>>these]. > >>> > >>>Jacques > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>Haskell mailing list > >>Haskell@haskell.org > >>http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell > >> > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Haskell mailing list > >Haskell@haskell.org > >http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell > > > _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list Haskell@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell