[Python-Dev] Fixed-point numeric type

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Just as data point:

I started developing mxNumber to experiment with fixed point
and rational numeric types (supplied by GMP). My original intention
was to make use of these in mxODBC since databases rather commonly
use DECIMAL as database column type.

The net-interest was next to zero which is why I stopped bothering.
I may still continue due to reasons of roundtrip safety in
database interfacing, but I'm inclined to believe that Python
users in the financial business either have no interest or
have found their own particular solutions to the problem of
dealing with fixed point arithmetic (mostly to store monetary
values) -- provided that rounding pays off for them, I don't
think that they are bothered at all with using floats ;-)

BTW, mxNumber types implement many of Ping's requests. And they
are fast as hell, since the underlying GMP implementation uses
assembler where possible.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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