[Python-ideas] Floating point contexts in Python core

[Mark Adam]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 6:35 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On 11/10/12 16:45, Greg Ewing wrote:
>> Are you sure there would be any point in this? People who
>> specifically *want* base-2 floats are probably quite happy
>> with the current float type, and wouldn't appreciate having
>> it slowed down, even by a small amount.
>
> I would gladly give up a small amount of speed for better control
> over floats, such as whether 1/0.0 raised an exception or
> returned infinity.

Umm, you would be giving up a *lot* of speed.  Native floating point
happens right in the processor, so if you want special behavior, you'd
have to take the floating point out of the CPU and into "user space".

mark