[Curious] Integer division => fraction
Dean_Swan at Mitel.COM
Dean_Swan at Mitel.COM
Thu Jun 12 02:16:41 UTC 2003
Hi Andréas,
>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.
I tend to agree with John Sarkela on this.
Limited precision binary floating point numbers have some
nice properties (i.e. fixed size representation, large
dynamic range, fast hardware implemenations, etc), but they have
their ugly side as well (inexact represenation of some
results like 1 / 3). I think the only reason "most people"
consider floats to be more natural is because they've grown
up with computers that don't favor supporting fractions.
BTW, do they even still teach things like fractions and long
division in grade school?
-Dean
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