How about moving the discussion here: https://github.com/tbreloff/Unums.jl/issues/2
On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 1:09 PM, Jeffrey Sarnoff <jeffrey.sarn...@gmail.com> wrote: > +1 for "grain of salt" > > > On Saturday, July 25, 2015 at 9:11:54 AM UTC-4, Job van der Zwan wrote: >> >> So I came across the concept of UNUMs on the Pony language mailing list >> <http://lists.ponylang.org/pipermail/ponydev/2015-July/000071.html> this >> morning. I hadn't heard of them before, and a quick search doesn't show up >> anything on this mailing list, so I guess most people here haven't either. >> They're a proposed alternate encoding for numbers by John L. Gustafson. >> This presentation by him sums it up nicely: >> >> http://sites.ieee.org/scv-cs/files/2013/03/Right-SizingPrecision1.pdf >> >> “Unums”(universal numbers) are to floating point what floating point is >>> to fixed point. >>> Floating-point values self-describe their scale factor, but fix the >>> exponent and fraction size. Unums self-describe the exponent size, fraction >>> size, and inexact state, and include fixed point and IEEE floats as special >>> cases. >>> >> >> The presentation can be seen here, provided you have the Silverlight >> plugin: >> >> >> http://sites.ieee.org/scv-cs/archives/right-sizing-precision-to-save-energy-power-and-storage >> >> Now, I don't know enough about this topic to say if they're a good or bad >> idea, but I figured the idea is interesting/relevant enough to share with >> the Julia crowd. >> >> I'm also wondering if they could be implemented (relatively) easily >> within Julia, given its flexible type system. If so, they might provide an >> interesting advanced example, no? >> >
