[Alex]
FWIW, when accuracy is an issue, I use:
sum(sorted(data, key=abs))
...and you may still lose a LOT of accuracy that way:-(.
Raymond, you technically reviewed the 2nd ed Cookbook -- don't you recall the sidebar about why partials are the RIGHT way to do summations? I was SO proud of that one, thought I'd made the issue clearest than anywhere previously in print...
No doubt about it. Partials are superior. My little snippet meets my needs with no fuss -- my usual situation is many small values whose accuracy gets clobbered upon encountering a handful of large values. In the draft statistics module, nondist/sandbox/statistics/statistics.py , I used yet another approach and tracked a separate error term. The advantage is adding precision while still keeping O(n) summation speed. Of course, we can always use the decimal module to add as much precision as needed. Raymond