On Saturday, 28 June 2014 at 14:01:13 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
On 6/28/14, 3:42 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
Inverting matrices is commonplace for solving N equations with
N
unknowns.
Actually nobody does that.
Also, one consideration is that the focus of numeric work
changes with time; nowadays it's all about machine learning
It's the most actively publicised frontier, perhaps, but there's
a huge amount of solid work happening elsewhere. People still
need better fluid, molecular dynamics etc. simulations, numerical
PDE solvers, finite element modelling and so on. There's a whole
world out there :)
That doesn't diminish your main point though.
For better or worse modern computing units have focused on 32-
and 64-bit float, leaving 80-bit floats neglected. I think it's
time to accept that simple fact and act on it, instead of
claiming we're the best in the world at FP math while everybody
else speeds by.
Andrei
+1
