python 2.3.4 for windows: float("NaN") throws exception

[beliavsky at aol.com]

Tim Peters wrote:
>Neither -- all Python behavior in the presence of float NaNs,
infinities, or signed zeroes is a platform-dependent accident.

C99 and Fortran 2003 have IEEE arithmetic. If CPython could be compiled
with a C99 compiler, would it also have IEEE arithmetic? Do Python
number-crunchers think this is important?