Autzoo.1627
net.unix-wizards
utzoo!henry
Tue May  4 15:44:18 1982
10.0 * 0.1 =?= 1
A friend of mine once made a very true comment:  "floating point is an
analog box anyway".  To my mind, the only thing one is justified in
assuming about floating-point arithmetic is that the result is somewhere
near what it should be.  Assuming that 0.5 * 2 == 1 is just as foolish
as assuming 10.0 * 0.1 == 1;  there will always be some machine where
it's not, for one reason or another.  Pray for machines which can support
efficient interval arithmetic.

This is not to dispute that {x *= y} != {x = x * y} is wrong code.

                                               Henry Spencer
                                               decvax!utzoo!henry

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