code not true?

[Michal Wallace (sabren)]

On Sun, 23 Apr 2000, Kragen Sitaker wrote:

> In base 3, one third is 0.1.  Two thirds is 0.2.

hey, I was right! :)

[snipped analogy of why 0.1 in base 3 is hard to write
in decimal]
 
> That said, it *is* just a speed issue --- there are representations
> other than floating point, like the ordered-pair rational-number
> representation, that give the right answer but are slower to work
> with.

But... Python is a scripting language.. It's okay to be slow.  From
what I'm hearing, many people on this list shy away from floats simply
because of the innacuracy.. Why don't we use the way that gets the
right answer?

Isn't unicode much slower to work with than regular strings? But
the benefit outweighs the cost.

Other than speed, is there a pro side to floats? Would switching
to altnerate representations break people's code?

I'm just wondering... :)

Cheers,

- Michal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.manifestation.com/         http://www.linkwatcher.com/metalog/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------