On Mon, Jun 02, 2008 at 11:50:20AM -0700, Jon Lang wrote: > TSa wrote: > > John M. Dlugosz wrote: > >> The sqrt(2) should be a Num of 1.414213562373 with the precision of the > >> native floating-point that runs at full speed on the platform. > > > > That makes the Num type an Int with non-uniform spacing. E.g. there > > are Nums where $x++ == $x. And the -Inf and +Inf were better called > > Min and Max respectively. IOW, the whole type based aproach to Inf > > is reduced to mere notational convenience. > > Please give an example value for a Num where $x++ == $x. Other than > Inf, of course.
All floats run out of integer precision somewhere, e.g. in p5 $ perl -le '$x=1; while($x+1 != $x) { $x *= 2; } print $x' 1.84467440737096e+19 Arbitrary precision mantissas aren't practically useful, since they have a strong tendency to consume all memory in a few iterations. -ryan