On Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:12:26 -0800 Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> wrote:
On 01/23/2015 07:36 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:40:14 -0800 Chris Barker wrote:
Expected Uses =============
The primary expected use case is various forms of testing -- "are the results computed near what I expect as a result?" This sort of test may or may not be part of a formal unit testing suite.
I don't think the proposal fits the bill. For testing you want a function that is both 1) quite rigorous (i.e. checks equality within a defined number of ulps) 2) handles all special cases in a useful way (i.e. zeros, including distinguishing between positive and negative zeros, infinities, NaNs etc.).
I disagree -- this function is not meant for mathematicians, but for the non-maths person who needs something that works.
In which use case would a "non-maths person" (what exactly does that mean?) need "something that works"? I haven't seen any serious analysis of use cases. Guido talks about the Newton algorithm but I can't understand why a "non-maths person" would want to write one implementation of that - apart from recreation or educational purposes, that is. Regards Antoine.