From: Mark Wilson Date: 2002-12-28T04:12:56+09:00 Subject: Re: 1210 / 100 = 12? what? [Flame talk follows] From those who have studied the topic so extensively, I would rather hear a contribution to the learning part of the discussions on ruby-talk, such as why one might want to use fixed point rather than floating point arithmetic, rather than lamentations about the state of computer education at colleges and the weaknesses (temerity?) of those who are self taught, like me. :-) In any event, no matter their educational background, I would think any good programmer should be largely self taught. [Flame talk ends] On the substance, my understanding is that fixed point arithmetic is much faster on any computer than floating point arithmetic and is therefore preferred if floating point arithmetic is not needed. Also, in some programming languages, you can use fixed point division to get a whole number of units (such as gallons) and the modulus operator to get the separately named fraction of such units (such as quarts) that is the remainder of the integer division operation. Are there any other reasons one might want to use fixed point arithmetic? Or to separate the result of integer division from the remainder? On Friday, December 27, 2002, at 10:58 AM, Lloyd Zusman wrote: > Dossy writes: > >> On 2002.12.28, Lloyd Zusman wrote: >>> >>> Do they even teach these basics any more? >> >> They do, in some schools. Hell, I learned this stuff when I studied >> Computer Science in /high school/. Seeing it again in college was >> a boring repeat, but they at least taught it. > > How long ago was that? > > >>> I'm not trying to disparage anyone here; if something hasn't been >>> taught, then no one can be expected to have learned it. >>> >>> But it's disturbing to me to see the number of people who are >>> posting in >>> this and other newsgroups in recent years who haven't been exposed to >>> the concepts of fixed-point and floating-point arithmetic. This >>> indicates to me that there are many schools these days which don't >>> make >>> the effort to teach these basic concepts to their computer science >>> students. The fault is with these schools, and that's sad. >> >> What's sad is that many computer "professionals" are "self-taught" and >> they didn't bother to teach themselves the fundamental basics, and >> have >> no idea how much of a pretty vast body of knowledge they're missing. > > So true. And there's a mountain of "how to" books out there these days > which never mention these basics, which many of today's "professionals" > have used to "learn" their "skill". > > >> My excuse? My brain runs a pretty aggressive garbage collector. I >> get >> to truthfully say that I've forgotten more than some folks have ever >> learned. :-) > > Yeah, me too. They say that the memory is the second thing to go. > > Question: "But what's the first thing?" > > Answer: "I forgot." > > > > >> -- Dossy >> >> -- >> Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com >> Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/ >> "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own >> folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70) >> > > -- > Lloyd Zusman > ljz@asfast.com >