[Numpy-discussion] Speeding up Numeric

[Norbert Nemec]

Am Samstag, 22. Januar 2005 20:16 schrieb Tim Hochberg:
> I don't have a good feel for the NaN/Inf checking. If it's possible to
> hoist the checking to outside all of the loops, then the above arguments
> probably apply here as well. If not, this might be a candidate for an
> 'unsafe' library. That seems more reasonable to me as I'm much more
> tolerant of NaNs than segfaults.

Why do we need NaN/Inf checking anyway? The whole point of IEEE754 is to give 
operations on NaNs and Infs clearly defined results, eliminating many 
unnecessary checks.

I think, it was one of the fundamental flaws in the design of Python not to 
include IEEE754 from the very beginning. Leaving the details of floating 
point handling completely to the implementation calls for incompatibilities 
and results in a situation where you can only work by trial and error instead 
of relying on some defined standard.

-- 
_________________________________________Norbert Nemec
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