6 ms·

Other than printing out the numbers, what are the practical applications?

Veedrac 8y ago
Javascript was mentioned in the talk; because of its weak typing and plenty of APIs that take strings, floating point printing is pretty common.
- ris 8y ago
  That's really sad.
  - TheRealPomax 8y ago
    Why? Did you forget to read the implied "just like any other language that's being used in a graphical context, where live numbers need to be shown"?
- 11235813213455 8y ago
  lack of 64bit integer maybe you mean, but all languages need (de)serializations so this problem is very common
- amelius 8y ago
  Often, numbers in JS happen to be just integers. Would the implementation optimize for that case?
  - Veedrac 8y ago
    Javascript JITs specialize for integers already. I don't know if Ryū does specifically though.
    - ulfjack 8y ago
      It doesn't optimize for ints right now. I thought about that, but haven't tried it yet.
RayDonnelly 8y ago
Printing them out quickly?
herodotus 8y ago
Real-time displays often need to show floating point numbers as they change. As a simple example, the time remaining display of a music player ticks down as the music plays. Now in this case, it is easy to fake it by using integers and then placing the decimal point, but if you were controlling something complex in real time you might not be able to do this as easily.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  > it is easy to fake it by using integers and then placing the decimal point That's not "faking it", that using fixed point numbers [1]. They are a great alternative if the numbers stay in roughly the same magnitude, and are much saner when dealing with e.g. money. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_arithmetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_arithmetic
  - herodotus 8y ago
    Good point, and thanks. But if you are doing a real-time display (like an industrial controller, for example), you may not be able to choose a fixed point number as your source. I chose the music time example first because it is a common use of a number that needs to change in (almost) real time.
Kranar 8y ago
Cross platform serialization.
cryptonector 8y ago
I mean, that's a huge practical application!
andromaton 8y ago
Web apis. Eg: json, xml

Javascript was mentioned in the talk; because of its weak typing and plenty of APIs that take strings, floating point printing is pretty common.

ris 8y ago
That's really sad.
- TheRealPomax 8y ago
  Why? Did you forget to read the implied "just like any other language that's being used in a graphical context, where live numbers need to be shown"?
11235813213455 8y ago
lack of 64bit integer maybe you mean, but all languages need (de)serializations so this problem is very common
amelius 8y ago
Often, numbers in JS happen to be just integers. Would the implementation optimize for that case?
- Veedrac 8y ago
  Javascript JITs specialize for integers already. I don't know if Ryū does specifically though.
  - ulfjack 8y ago
    It doesn't optimize for ints right now. I thought about that, but haven't tried it yet.

RayDonnelly 8y ago

Printing them out quickly?

herodotus 8y ago

Real-time displays often need to show floating point numbers as they change. As a simple example, the time remaining display of a music player ticks down as the music plays. Now in this case, it is easy to fake it by using integers and then placing the decimal point, but if you were controlling something complex in real time you might not be able to do this as easily.

wongarsu 8y ago
> it is easy to fake it by using integers and then placing the decimal point That's not "faking it", that using fixed point numbers [1]. They are a great alternative if the numbers stay in roughly the same magnitude, and are much saner when dealing with e.g. money. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_arithmetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_arithmetic
- herodotus 8y ago
  Good point, and thanks. But if you are doing a real-time display (like an industrial controller, for example), you may not be able to choose a fixed point number as your source. I chose the music time example first because it is a common use of a number that needs to change in (almost) real time.

Kranar 8y ago

Cross platform serialization.

cryptonector 8y ago

I mean, that's a huge practical application!

andromaton 8y ago

Web apis. Eg: json, xml