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Does anybody know what is the state of unums? That thing pop up on HN every now and then, but I still can't see it in practice. It is definitely something promi
by haddr 11y ago
Does anybody know what is the state of unums? That thing pop up on HN every now and then, but I still can't see it in practice. It is definitely something promising. Is there any development going on to employ this theory in practice?
- onetimePete 11y agoIts in the same development hell, as all the other great ideas that surface now and then (new programming paradigms etc.). Its ready to use, but the world refuses to use because the cost of transition from the c/c++ Codebases or in this case the software/hardware ieee float standard is just to high. If any of these is ever to succeed it will not be by superiority of concept, but by backwards compatibility - as in either being just another extension to the existing ieee floats or by offering proofen automatic port-functionality for a existing codebase. Its a shame, as many superior innovations basically remain sidelined, but the pre-existing infrastructure is in production and you never change a running system. You would need a easy integrate able hardware option, that allows a simple auto-conversion of a preexisting codebase and which would then run in parallel for quite a while, to even just be considered :(