[Python-Dev] re: division

[Moshe Zadka]

On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Tim Peters wrote:

> Last week I took some time to stare at the ABC manual again, & suspect I hit
> on the cause:  ABC was *aggressively* rational.  That is, ABC had no
> notation for floating point (ABC "approximate") literals; even 6.02e23 was
> taken to mean "exact rational".  In my experience ABC was unique this way,
> and uniquely surprising for it:  it's hard to be surprised by 2/3 returning
> a rational, but hard not to be surprised by 6.02e23/1.0001e-18 doing so.

Ouch. There is definitely place for floats in the numeric tower. It's 
just that those shouldn't be reached accidentally <0.3 wink>

> one-case-where-one-size-doesn't-fit-anyone-ly y'rs  - tim

but-in-this-case-two-sizes-do-seem-enough-ly y'rs, Z.
--
Moshe Zadka <mzadka@geocities.com>. 
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com