6 ms·
> Because what's going to happen two years down the road when you need to get that code working on a different platform. And what happens when the different pl
by lultimouomo 11y ago
> Because what's going to happen two years down the road when you need to get that code working on a different platform.
And what happens when the different platform handles overflow differently? Or has non-IEEE floats? Or breaks whatever assumption the C standard already makes?
Here's the thing: C is already built on assumptions, which might or might not hold for a specific platform.
Choosing which assumptions we hold true is a pragmatic choice that must be done. C does it, and does it consciously - but it doesn't mean that it nails every choice.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoIf you're in a situation where you need specific implementation details of floating point arithmetic, then may the devil have mercy on your soul, because god certainly won't.
- Solarsail 11y agoWouldn't debugging / testability imply this is a fairly large proportion of programs? Having a calculation give different results on different hardware would make testing difficult: http://yosefk.com/blog/consistency-how-to-defeat-the-purpose-of-ieee-floating-point.html http://yosefk.com/blog/consistency-how-to-defeat-the-purpose...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoYour own link explains how easy it is to get different results even on the same hardware depending on compiler flags.