[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
John Stanton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Users love such a number system because it is natural and works like the
Arithmetic they learned in Grade School.
I find the idea of dividing two integers stored in binary form and
getting a gratuitous conversion to floating point ugly and potentially
very annoying.
I admit that it has been 4 decades since I was in grade school,
but back in the 60's we were taught that 5/2 is 2.5. Are they
teaching something different now? Or have I misunderstood the
comment?
You misunderstood the comment. A schoolchild expects to see 5/2 give
exactly 2.5, not an approximate representation of 2.5 in a floating
point number. The schoolchild also expects to see rounding according to
the rules and for the debits to agree with the credits.
I question why we have to use binary integers based on the word size of
particular generations of computers when we are storing data. We have
escaped from 80 column cards and 24X80 screens. Why are we still using
number formats based on the underlying machines rather than on what we
really use in our lives.
--
D. Richard Hipp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
