5 ms·

Are there any mainstream languages that consider a decimal number to be a primitive type? I feel like floating point numbers are far less meaningful in every da

Are there any mainstream languages that consider a decimal number to be a primitive type? I feel like floating point numbers are far less meaningful in every day programs. Even 2d graphics would be easier with decimal numbers. Unless you're using numbers that scale from very small to very large, like 3d games or scientific calculations, you don't actually want to use floating point.

deleted 8y ago
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mschuetz 8y ago
> Are there any mainstream languages that consider a decimal number to be a primitive type Mathematica. But it's not particularely fast. > Unless you're using numbers that scale from very small to very large, like 3d games or scientific calculations, you don't actually want to use floating point. Unfortunately, we can sometimes only use floats in 3D graphics and floats aren't even good for semi-large to large 3D scenes. Unity is a particular bad offender. It's not even necessary for meshes but having double precision transformation matrices would make life so much easier. Could simply use double precision world and view matrices, then multiply them together and the large terms would cancel out in the resulting worldView matrix, which can then by cast back to single precision floats.
- MauranKilom 8y ago
  Not to mention z-fighting for distant objects.
misterdoubt 8y ago
Depends how you define 'primitive type.' A decimal number is built-in for C# and comes along with the standard libraries of Ruby, Python, Java, at least.
lozenge 8y ago
Cobol?
twtw 8y ago
Julia has built in rationals (as do a few other languages). I'm not aware of any language (other than Wolfram) that defaults to storing something like 0.1 as 1/10 - i.e. uses the decimal constant notation for rationals, rather than having some secondary syntax or library.
- rurban 8y ago
  In Common Lisp it's even standardized. Arithmetic is too important to be left to wrong CPU intrinsics.
- kccqzy 8y ago
  Even in Wolfram, 0.1 is not the same as 1/10. In[1]:= Precision[0.1] Out[1]= MachinePrecision In[2]:= Precision[1/10] Out[2]= \[Infinity]
  - twtw 8y ago
    Ah, thanks for the correction. I don't currently have a license, so out of curiosity is 0.3 == 3/10 in wolfram?
    - kccqzy 8y ago
      Yes that's true. According to the documentation of Equal†, > Approximate numbers with machine precision or higher are considered equal if they differ in at most their last seven binary digits (roughly their last two decimal digits). Which is why in Mathematica, 0.1+0.2==0.3 is also True. If you need a kind of equality comparison that returns False for 0.3 and 3/10, use SameQ. Funnily, SameQ[0.1+0.2,0.3] is also True, because SameQ allows two machine precision numbers to differ in their last binary digit. †: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Equal.html https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Equal.html
- sgt101 8y ago
  Yes, but the Julia REPL produces 2.0 as an answer and casting both these to BigInt doesn't work either.
jimhefferon 8y ago
Racket: https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/numbers.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/numbers.html
lalaithion 8y ago
There are plenty of languages without the concept of a primitive type...
ummonk 8y ago
Do you mean some fixed point decimal number? Cause the normal way to do decimal numbers would still be floating point.
- derefr 8y ago
  They mean arbitrary-precision decimal arithmetic (i.e. a struct containing bignum x and integer y where the connoted value is x*10^y, such that multiplication can be defined simply as the independent multiplication of the value parts and of the exponent parts.)
kccqzy 8y ago
There are issues with arbitrary precision decimal numbers. For one, you can't deal with things like 1/3: these are repeating decimals so they need infinite memory to represent.
mongol 8y ago
Bc?
softawre 8y ago
C# https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/keywords/decimal https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-refe...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mschuetz 8y ago

> Are there any mainstream languages that consider a decimal number to be a primitive type Mathematica. But it's not particularely fast. > Unless you're using numbers that scale from very small to very large, like 3d games or scientific calculations, you don't actually want to use floating point. Unfortunately, we can sometimes only use floats in 3D graphics and floats aren't even good for semi-large to large 3D scenes. Unity is a particular bad offender. It's not even necessary for meshes but having double precision transformation matrices would make life so much easier. Could simply use double precision world and view matrices, then multiply them together and the large terms would cancel out in the resulting worldView matrix, which can then by cast back to single precision floats.

MauranKilom 8y ago
Not to mention z-fighting for distant objects.

misterdoubt 8y ago

Depends how you define 'primitive type.' A decimal number is built-in for C# and comes along with the standard libraries of Ruby, Python, Java, at least.

lozenge 8y ago

Cobol?

twtw 8y ago

Julia has built in rationals (as do a few other languages). I'm not aware of any language (other than Wolfram) that defaults to storing something like 0.1 as 1/10 - i.e. uses the decimal constant notation for rationals, rather than having some secondary syntax or library.

rurban 8y ago
In Common Lisp it's even standardized. Arithmetic is too important to be left to wrong CPU intrinsics.
kccqzy 8y ago
Even in Wolfram, 0.1 is not the same as 1/10. In[1]:= Precision[0.1] Out[1]= MachinePrecision In[2]:= Precision[1/10] Out[2]= \[Infinity]
- twtw 8y ago
  Ah, thanks for the correction. I don't currently have a license, so out of curiosity is 0.3 == 3/10 in wolfram?
  - kccqzy 8y ago
    Yes that's true. According to the documentation of Equal†, > Approximate numbers with machine precision or higher are considered equal if they differ in at most their last seven binary digits (roughly their last two decimal digits). Which is why in Mathematica, 0.1+0.2==0.3 is also True. If you need a kind of equality comparison that returns False for 0.3 and 3/10, use SameQ. Funnily, SameQ[0.1+0.2,0.3] is also True, because SameQ allows two machine precision numbers to differ in their last binary digit. †: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Equal.html https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Equal.html
sgt101 8y ago
Yes, but the Julia REPL produces 2.0 as an answer and casting both these to BigInt doesn't work either.

jimhefferon 8y ago

Racket: https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/numbers.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/numbers.html

lalaithion 8y ago

There are plenty of languages without the concept of a primitive type...

ummonk 8y ago

Do you mean some fixed point decimal number? Cause the normal way to do decimal numbers would still be floating point.

derefr 8y ago
They mean arbitrary-precision decimal arithmetic (i.e. a struct containing bignum x and integer y where the connoted value is x*10^y, such that multiplication can be defined simply as the independent multiplication of the value parts and of the exponent parts.)

kccqzy 8y ago

There are issues with arbitrary precision decimal numbers. For one, you can't deal with things like 1/3: these are repeating decimals so they need infinite memory to represent.

mongol 8y ago

Bc?

softawre 8y ago

C# https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/keywords/decimal https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-refe...