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I have meet a surprisingly large number of people who think that fixed point arithmetic is the solution to all of their problems (probably because its use is no

I have meet a surprisingly large number of people who think that fixed point arithmetic is the solution to all of their problems (probably because its use is not widespread). The big problem with fixed-point, making them a bad choice for most scientific computation (which is where the design decision for the current dominating system came from) is their lack of resolution. You can represent only a comparatively small interval of numbers and a few division|multiplication will quickly lead to large errors in the output (even if you do not hit underflows/overflows).

mamcx 6y ago
> I have meet a surprisingly large number of people who think that fixed point arithmetic is the solution to all of their problems >a bad choice for most scientific computation Is weird this. Scientific computation is at most a niche. Financial and real-world decimal calculations is the norm. That is why a lot of people could be server better by the use of decimals or fixed point.
- nestorD 6y ago
  It might be me, I work with people doing simulation and ML, not game or web dev. People doing financial computations are using fixed-point for very good reasons but, other than them, the scientific people are the only one that I know of who care deeply for the results of their numerical computations.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  >Financial and real-world decimal calculations is the norm. A significant amount of financial calculation is not in the nature of 'sum this column of numbers'. Most computation in e.g. derivative pricing has a lot more to do with scientific computing than it does with accountancy.