[Python-Dev] Adventures with Decimal

[Michael Chermside]

[Tim and Raymond are slugging it out about whether Decimal constructors
 should respect context precision]

Tim, I find Raymond's arguments to be much more persuasive. (And that's
even BEFORE I read his 11-point missive.) I understood the concept that
*operations* are contex-dependent, but decimal *objects* are not, and
thus it made sense to me that *constructors* were not context-dependent.

On the other hand, I am NOT a floating-point expert. Can you educate
me some? What is an example of a case where users would get "wrong"
results because constructors failed to respect context precision?

(By the way... even if other constructors begin to respect context
precision, the constructor from tuple should NOT -- it exists to provide
low-level access to the implementation. I'll express no opinion on the
constructor from Decimal, because I don't understand the issues.)

-- Michael Chermside