Why isn't Python king of the hill?

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Edwards" <grante at visi.com> wrote in message
news:slrn9hgpmo.jl.grante at tuxtop.visi.com...
    ...
> _never_ expect an exact result and not to use binary floating
> point if you require an exact result.
>
> You may thing that 1.0 + 2.0 == 3.0 ought to be true, but you

And it is (on any FP system respecting IEEE 754 -- and any
other FP system I've ever heard about).

> should always treat floating point operations as if there are
> small random numbers being thrown in at every step.  So you

I think this is exactly what Kahan describes as one of the
widespread (and false) myths about floating point.


Alex