Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: damerell@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk (RHBNC)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Floating-point bench tests
Keywords: Software
Message-ID: <8905091926.AA20047@rice.edu>
Date: 16 May 89 21:02:48 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 13
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Tue, 9 May 89 11:48:14 BST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 289, message 7 of 18

There has been a lot of discussion about the speed of floating-point
calculations, but I havent seen any mention of accuracy. Suppose you 
have two routines, both called  "sin":

1:  sin(x) as accurately as the hardware allows,
2:  sin(x) with error about 100 x the error of 1.

I would expect 2 to run about twice as fast as 1, besides being easier to
program. But CPU time is cheap and wrong answers can be very expensive.

I maintain that any worth-while bench test must check the accuracy of the
results as well as speed. 
mark.