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From: beyer@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (jean-david.beyer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Fast conversions, another urban myth?
Summary: As a former scientific computer user...
Message-ID: <4125@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 89 12:53:40 GMT
References: <832@dms.UUCP> <688@UALTAVM.BITNET> <136@bbxsda.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 27

In article <136@bbxsda.UUCP>, scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes:
> 
> If I may throw in my $.02 worth:  Decimal arithmetic is alive and
> well and not merely an artifact of old COBOL implementations.  We
> do everything in C and require decimal arithmetic because of the
> business nature of our applications.  It is a constant disappointment
> when the scientific-oriented hardware industry forgets that some of
> us need to have 100 pennies == 1 dollar.  Interest calculations

As a former scientific computer user, I hardly consider that the
computer hardware industry is scientific-oriented. Shrinking wordsize
from 36 bits to 32 bits, screwing up round-off algorithms for a long time,
and so on. Begrudgingly adding floating-point operations to obviously
business-oriented machines. I do not know who the machines are really
designed for. (I recognize that some manufacturer may make machines
suited to the needs of the user, but why do they seem to be the exceptions.)


I have never done business-oriented calculations, but  it seems to me,
as an outsider, that calculating everything in pennies solves the round-off
problems (but perhaps no others), doesn't it?

-- 
Jean-David Beyer
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733
attunix!beyer