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From: nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Numerical C
Message-ID: <204@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 28-Apr-84 01:42:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.204
Posted: Sat Apr 28 01:42:47 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 2-May-84 04:19:26 EDT
References: <882@elsie.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Astronomy Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 25

[so eat, already]
	I can't speak to the historical aspects of the "all double"
nature of floating point operations in C, but I was impressed when I first
encountered it, because it meant:

	1. I didn't have to have both single and double precision routines
	present if I managed to mix operations -- as I was want to do;

	2. I wouldn't encounter the round-off error that is all too common
	using single (32-bit) precision;

	3. I wouldn't be tempted to "gain a little speed" using single
	precision and then find, as I often did, that it was *both* slow
	and lacking in needed precision.

I, for one, will be sorry to see it go.  Maybe we should work a bit harder
and get fast 64-bit hardware --

                32  B I T S   I S  N O T   E N O U G H !

-- 

                                       Ed Nather
                                       ihnp4!{ut-sally,kpno}!utastro!nather
                                       Astronomy Dept., U. of Texas, Austin