From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2012-01-24T02:45:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Microrant on Ruy's Math Skills

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 07:33:20PM +0900, Peter Vandenabeele wrote:
> 
> Feature request:
> 
> Based on this discussion, it would actually be useful to me if I could
> shorten this:
> 
>   amount = BigDecimal.new("15.5")
> 
> to
> 
>   amount = 15.5B
> 
> Then we could also answer future questions about
> 
> "How come  1.1 - 1.0 != 0.1 ??"
> 
> with
> 
> "1.1B - 1B == 0.1B"

Even that and the '1.1'.to_dec option mentioned elsewhere seem pretty
cumbersome when working with a lot of numbers.  How difficult would it be
to change the way Ruby parses 1.1 within a given program so it just
automatically uses BigDecimal rather than Float?  That way, one could
just tell Ruby to use BigDecimal instead of Float by default at the top
of the program file and go forward confident that Float errors will not
creep into the program (unless using a library that explicitly uses
floating point numbers within itself).

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]