e vs exp()?

[Terry Reedy]

"Tim Peters" <tim.one at comcast.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1032550470.8080.python-list at python.org...
> [Terry Reedy]
> > ...
> > On the hypothesis that x**y is calculated as exp(y*log(x)),
>
> Bad hypothesis.  The implementation of a decent x**y function is one
of the
> most difficult tasks in a platform's math library....
>I've written such a beast without benefit of an extended hardware
> precision; I wouldn't want to do it again <wink>.

What was your basic approach?  Power series?  Rational function?
Continued fraction? ???
http://functions.wolfram.com/ElementaryFunctions/Power/
gives 343 formulas (many only relevant to complex domain) but doesn't
seem to indicate which Mathematica actually uses (trade secret I
presume).

Terry J. Reedy