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Why Perl 6 isn’t COBOL nor Python nor Java (or… having fun with Rats)

• al2o3cr 8y ago
  Rationals are an interesting default choice, since they can have nasty performance corner-cases related to finding GCDs for large integers. For instance, note that the numerator & denominator of the rational results are both growing at (roughly) an order of magnitude per iteration.
  • raiph 8y ago
    The default rational type isn't unlimited precision. See my comment at https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/93dabg/perl_6_small_stuff_4_why_perl_isnt_cobol_nor/e3e21s4 https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/93dabg/perl_6_small_s... for an explanation and demonstration of P6's approach.
• nwatson 8y ago
  >> Statistics and ML/AI math is all the rage these days. What they depend on is correct math. Statistical applications might benefit from more precise rational numerics, but machine learning and AI are piles of imprecise heuristics ... There is no benefit to using slower and more precise numerics there.
  • raiph 8y ago
    You've written precisely what I thought about that...