From: Vincent Fourmond <vincent.fourmond@9online.fr>
Date: 2006-10-07T20:26:51+09:00
Subject: Re: In the year 2525, afloat

David Vallner wrote:
> Suraj N. Kurapati wrote:
>> Furthermore, what about automatic Float -> BigDecimal conversion?
> 
> Wouldn't that only be possible if the processor reports if an IEEE
> floating-point conversion / operation was inprecise / innacurate (can't
> for the heck of it remember which term applies here.)
> 
> Even if that was the case, that means that say a floating point division
> would take would take one attempt, report that, convert the floating
> point numbers to BigDecimals, and then perform the division in Ruby.

  I think that basically every operation on a number which doesn't have
a natural writing in base 2 would trigger the conversion. That is,
unless you do 2 * 0.5, you'll switch automatically to BigDecimal. Bad
idea. Why don't you use BigDecimal systematically, if you're really
worried about precision ?

  Cheers !

	Vince