On Thursday, November 27, 2003, at 09:32 AM, Shriram Krishnamurthi
wrote:
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Matt wrote:
Do we get the .0000000000000003 free in both cases?
This is just the usual floating point noise, right?
ArialG. L. Steele Jr. and J. L.
White. How to print floating-point numbers accurately
. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN '90 Conference on
Programming Language Design and Implementation, pages 112--126, White
Plains, New York, June 1990
Put differently, if I try it (suitably adapted) in Beginner Scheme,
(+ 0.051 0.042
0.042 0.048
0.042 0.042
1.193 0.042
0.042 0.288
1.762)
3.594
Your OS X calculator is similarly using exact rationals (in the form
of fixed-point numbers).
I guess I don't quite understand your question.
Matt, in the first four language levels we read . numbers as rationals
and
compute with them as such. In "real" Scheme, they are read as inexacts
and when you do inexact arithmetic your computer lies. DrScheme warns
you with #i that things are going bad .. most languages just lie.
-- Matthias