This math scares me

[Grant Edwards]

In article <98ohuc$du9$1 at news.udel.edu>, Terry Reedy wrote:

>> Bill Gates got this right in the early days, delivering two Basic
>> interpreters:  binary floating point for speed, and decimal floating
>> point for money and such
>
>If one counts pennies instead of dollars, then 32 bit ints (+- $20 million)
>will serve for many purposes.   Exact, faster, and more widely available
>than BCD

In fiancial calculations you also need to represent numbers
that aren't amounts of money.  Interest rates for example.

-- 
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