Fast forward-backward (write-read)

[Paul Rubin]

Tim Chase <python.list at tim.thechases.com> writes:
> Again, the conversion to/from decimal hasn't been a great cost in my
> experience, as it's overwhelmed by the I/O cost of shoveling the
> data to/from disk.

I've found that cpu costs both for processing and conversion are
significant.  Also, using a binary format makes the file a lot smaller,
which decreases the i/o cost as well eliminating the conversion cost.
And, the conversion can introduce precision loss, another thing to be
avoided.  The famous "butterfly effect" was serendipitously discovered
that way.