Math errors in python

[Peter Otten]

Chris S. wrote:

>>>Great, why fix what's broken when we can introduce a new module with an
>>>inconvenient API.
>> 
>> 
>> 1. It ain't broken.
> 
> Call it what you will, it doesn't produce the correct result. From where
>   I come from, that's either bad or broken.

If there is a way to always get the "correct" result in numerical
mathematics, I don't know it. But I'm not an expert. Can you enlighten me?
 
>> 2. What fraction of the numbers in your programs are constants?
> 
> What?

Expressions like a*b+c are not affected by the choice of float/Decimal.
Values are normally read from a file or given interactively by a user. I
supposed that what you called inconvenient to be limited to decimal
constants (Decimal("1.2") vs. 1.2 for floats) and questioned its
significance, especially as scientific users will probably continue to use
floats.

Peter