PEP0238 lament

[Michael Abbott]

Duncan Booth <duncan at NOSPAMrcp.co.uk> wrote in
news:Xns90E959B81DE49duncanrcpcouk at 127.0.0.1: 

> When it comes down to it, real beginners (5 to 7 years old?) will have
> been told that if you divide 9 by 2 you get 4 with 1 left over. Which
> is EXACTLY what you get at present. Floating point is a MUCH more
> sophisticated concept which, as has been shown repeatedly on this
> newsgroup, is hard even for most programming professionals.
> 

Hear hear!

Floating point isn't even associative; there seems to be a real 
misconception that by making all results floating point then all numerical 
problems will magically vanish.  Far from it.

And I'm afraid that going to rational numbers (as has been suggested in a 
number of places) only puts the problem off a little.