4 ms·

I think this is a bit different. Pony's div is total, and in order to be total div by 0 is 0, which is not a particularly absurd idea. That said, I do feel tha

I think this is a bit different. Pony's div is total, and in order to be total div by 0 is 0, which is not a particularly absurd idea. That said, I do feel that Pony should have added a 'panic' concept and then forced actors to handle panics, but that's me.

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kibwen 5y ago
> which is not a particularly absurd idea It's not completely untenable, but it's still kinda janky. I've never heard of any mathematical argument that justifies division by zero yielding 0; contrast 0^0, which at least has an argument for yielding 1: http://mathscitech.org/articles/zero-to-zero-power http://mathscitech.org/articles/zero-to-zero-power
- duskwuff 5y ago
  > I've never heard of any mathematical argument that justifies division by zero yielding 0 0/x = 0 for all x except zero; defining 0/0=0 removes that exception.
  - AlbinNP 5y ago
    x/x = 1 for all x except 0; defining 0/0 = 1 removes that exception.
    - hwayne 5y ago
      Split the difference, 0/0 = 0.5
      - ben_w 5y ago
        It gets worse: differentiation would be 0/0 if you went straight to the limit rather than just approaching it, so 0/0 can be any differentiable function, not just a value. (Caveat: I’m probably being slightly imprecise with my language here)
- staticassertion 5y ago
  I think it's worth all getting on the same page on the fact that math is fake and stupid. If it's more useful for 0/0 to == 0, that's justification enough imo.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- remexre 5y ago
  https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/divide-by-zero/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/divide-by-zero/
- noswi 5y ago
  From programming perspective, there's nothing sufficiently preposterous in the idea of dividing by zero that would require bringing the whole world to a low-level halt just for attempting that by default. You tried to calculate the average value of what turned out to be an empty list? Go suffer the most severe exception, like the ones reserved for those reading from nonexistant memory.
  - Asraelite 5y ago
    Another common case is adjusting some value according to a spatial vector's magnitude, like normalizing a vector or scaling gravitational attraction according to the distance between two points. In the majority of these cases the most reasonable answer is 0.
- dataangel 5y ago
  Maybe the best argument is that the average of zero items should be zero?
  - housecarpenter 5y ago
    But then why should the average of zero items be zero? It still seems like just an arbitrary choice to me.

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kibwen 5y ago

> which is not a particularly absurd idea It's not completely untenable, but it's still kinda janky. I've never heard of any mathematical argument that justifies division by zero yielding 0; contrast 0^0, which at least has an argument for yielding 1: http://mathscitech.org/articles/zero-to-zero-power http://mathscitech.org/articles/zero-to-zero-power

duskwuff 5y ago
> I've never heard of any mathematical argument that justifies division by zero yielding 0 0/x = 0 for all x except zero; defining 0/0=0 removes that exception.
- AlbinNP 5y ago
  x/x = 1 for all x except 0; defining 0/0 = 1 removes that exception.
  - hwayne 5y ago
    Split the difference, 0/0 = 0.5
    - ben_w 5y ago
      It gets worse: differentiation would be 0/0 if you went straight to the limit rather than just approaching it, so 0/0 can be any differentiable function, not just a value. (Caveat: I’m probably being slightly imprecise with my language here)
staticassertion 5y ago
I think it's worth all getting on the same page on the fact that math is fake and stupid. If it's more useful for 0/0 to == 0, that's justification enough imo.
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remexre 5y ago
https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/divide-by-zero/ https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/divide-by-zero/
noswi 5y ago
From programming perspective, there's nothing sufficiently preposterous in the idea of dividing by zero that would require bringing the whole world to a low-level halt just for attempting that by default. You tried to calculate the average value of what turned out to be an empty list? Go suffer the most severe exception, like the ones reserved for those reading from nonexistant memory.
- Asraelite 5y ago
  Another common case is adjusting some value according to a spatial vector's magnitude, like normalizing a vector or scaling gravitational attraction according to the distance between two points. In the majority of these cases the most reasonable answer is 0.
dataangel 5y ago
Maybe the best argument is that the average of zero items should be zero?
- housecarpenter 5y ago
  But then why should the average of zero items be zero? It still seems like just an arbitrary choice to me.