Decimal() instead of float?

[Steve Holden]

Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-11-13 at 03:45 -0600, Steve Holden wrote:
>> Michael B. Trausch wrote:
>> > Is there a way to use Decimal() by default in Python instead of float?  
>>
>> No. You'll just have to be explicit.
>>
> 
> That's kinda what I figured.  :-(
> 
> It /would/ be nice to see Decimal() become the default.  I cannot 
> imagine why in an otherwise "human enough" language, math wouldn't be 
> included in that without going out of one's way to do it.  :-)
> 
Speed has a lot to do with it. Have you timed some decimal operations 
against their floating-point counterparts? It might be possible to build 
a version of Python that used decimal instead of floating-point but it 
certainly wouldn't be trivial: consider the use of C language libraries 
that know nothing of Python's decimal representation.

regards
  Steve
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