[Curious] Integer division => fraction
Diego Gomez Deck
diegogomezdeck at consultar.com
Thu Jun 12 08:05:46 UTC 2003
Hi Andreas,
I found Fractions not only great for every-day use, but also a great
entry-example for newbies.
Everytime I had to present Smalltalk to an audience, the 1 / 3 and
1000 factorial examples are included.
Also I used to explain double-dispatch using the coercion mechanism
behind the Number operations.
> Are you personally surprised if you get a fraction back?
Yes... and I use this "surprise" to show (in a nutshell) some of the
strengths of Smalltalk.
My $ 1/50,
Diego
> Hi Guys,
>
> Just had an interesting discussion with Dean (over on e-Lang) about
integer
> division semantics. He pointed out (and I agree) that most people
tend to
> find it it confusing that "3/4" results in a fraction rather than
coercing
> to Float by default.
>
> My questions: What do you think about this issue? Are you personally
> surprised if you get a fraction back? Has it bitten you in
unexpected
> places? Have you actually ever had the need for coercing to
fractions
> instead of floats? Can you think of "typical" applications that
would be
> harmed by coercing to floats?
>
> Thanks for any info you can share.
>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas
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