Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!wyse!weitek!pyramid!prls!philabs!micomvax!ray
From: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: How not to write a loop
Message-ID: <947@micomvax.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 88 22:44:55 GMT
References: <296@draken.nada.kth.se> <64400004@convex> <7409@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. (TDS - Montreal) St. Laurent P.Q., Canada
Lines: 16

In article <7409@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>
>This is of course wrong.  Floating-point imprecision is not due
>simply to float<->double conversion, but is inherent in the
>whole approach.

Yup.  Interestingly, this is one of the very first things I can remember
being taught in "computer science" - NEVER test "reals" against absolute
values - choose a precision and test against values +/- that precision.

Mind you, that was in "autocoder", on a Ferranti Sirius, and the year was
1964.

Ah well,  yawn....

Ray Dunn.  ..{philabs, mnetor, musocs}!micomvax!ray