proposed language change to int/int==float (was: PEP0238 lament)

[Michael Abbott]

Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk <qrczak at knm.org.pl> wrote in
news:slrn.pl.9lrdbk.ae3.qrczak at qrnik.zagroda: 

> Tue, 24 Jul 2001 09:44:57 -0600, Bjorn Pettersen <BPettersen at NAREX.com>
> pisze: 
> 
>> I think perhaps an equally interesting example is something like:
>> 
>>   2L**128/2
>> 
>> which currently gives an exact result, but under the proposed new
>> semantics would give an approximation... 
> 
> That's why I propose rationals.
> 
>> If we're going to change basic behaviors it would be better if we had
>> a consistent semantic model first. 
> 
> In my model there are four builtin numeric types: int, rational,
> float, and complex. The intent is that floats approximate real numbers.

Unfortunately, this isn't really all that consistent.  Consider the 
calculation

    	sqrt(2)**2 == 2

By pretty much the same arguments as have been used elsewhere in this 
discussion, I'm sure that you would expect this to evaluate to true.

Hmm.  Think about it.