In the 40s, floating point numbers were the hot new thing in programing. John von Neumann argued against them, because anyone smart enough to use a computer co

In the 40s, floating point numbers were the hot new thing in programing. John von Neumann argued against them, because anyone smart enough to use a computer could track the exponents in their head. Or so I've heard. This is the classic trade of computer efficiency against human effort. The typical scientific program is run once, so it leaves as much work as possible to the machine. The efficient tradeoff might differ for games and such applications as AutoCAD or Splice.