On Mon, Jun 02, 2008 at 11:50:20AM -0700, Jon Lang wrote:
> TSa wrote:
> > John M. Dlugosz wrote:
> >> The sqrt(2) should be a Num of 1.414213562373 with the precision of the
> >> native floating-point that runs at full speed on the platform.
> >
> > That makes the Num type an Int with non-uniform spacing. E.g. there
> > are Nums where $x++ == $x. And the -Inf and +Inf were better called
> > Min and Max respectively. IOW, the whole type based aproach to Inf
> > is reduced to mere notational convenience.
>
> Please give an example value for a Num where $x++ == $x. Other than
> Inf, of course.
All floats run out of integer precision somewhere, e.g. in p5
$ perl -le '$x=1; while($x+1 != $x) { $x *= 2; } print $x'
1.84467440737096e+19
Arbitrary precision mantissas aren't practically useful, since they have
a strong tendency to consume all memory in a few iterations.
-ryan
