Pierre Denis <pie.de...@skynet.be> added the comment:

> So this justifies things like `sqrt(-0.0)` giving a zero result (rather than 
> being considered invalid)

Well, I didn’t noticed that the wolf was already in the henhouse! This choice 
seems disputable for me because it is precisely a case where f(-0.0) should NOT 
behave as f(+0.0). The treatment of functions like atan2 and 1/x lets me think 
that the standards tend to follow the results of one-sided limits. So, I’m 
surprised that pow and sqrt functions in IEEE754/C99 standards are treated in 
this unfettered way.

That being said, I’m not involved at all in IEEE/C99 standards; that’s probably 
why I look at this from a pristine point of view. Provided that I accept the 
"axioms" of these standards, the explanations you both give are very 
convincing. I understand well that self-consistency is utmost important, maybe 
even above consistency with mathematical rules. Also, I concede that the 
standards are well-established and considerable efforts have been made to 
validate their different implementations (including Python).

BTW, congratulations to you guys that made the effort to understand the 
standards and rigorously implementing them in Python!

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<https://bugs.python.org/issue32171>
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