Re: [PHP-DOC] Re: cvs: phpdoc /en/functions math.xml

[Hojtsy Gabor]

> > so no reasons left for not calling a floating point
> > number
> > "float" instead of "double" (double what?)
> 
> double is referred to number that is a floating point
> with double precision, i.e. twice as many bits are
> used to store as it is used for regular floating point
> numbers (called float).
> 
> In fortran (and other langs), float was 16 bit and
> double 32 bit (IIRC). Some newer langs and scripting
> ones use the double width for either.

Erm, Hartmut nows that IMHO :)) He just tried
to impress things from a beginner point of view.
If we call it a double, than there need to be a "single",
but there isn't. So this is one reason we call it float.
There are many others (eg. it presents the type of number
[floating point] we store in it, while the double name
says nothing about this fact)...

Goba