3 ms·

>But as both datums were stored as floating point numbers, which they always would be, in any reasonable implementation It doesn't strike me as inherently unre

>But as both datums were stored as floating point numbers, which they always would be, in any reasonable implementation It doesn't strike me as inherently unreasonable to use fixed point. At any rate, there are languages with built-in unit systems, so you could declare something like float length = 4.5 <m> and get an error if you try to add it to something in a different unit without having to roll your own dimensional analysis framework.

bjourne 3y ago
Of course, fixed point would have been a reasonable choice too. But here is my point. Someone who likes testing could say "This bug would have been caught with better testing". Someone who likes static typing could say "This bug would have been caught if they had used an esoteric type system with support for physical quantities." ... Which no one uses. Thus, you have an argument between something real and realistic, and something imagined and unrealistic.
- thfuran 3y ago
  That you aren't familiar with something hardly makes it imaginary. That exact formulation of unit system is, I think, pretty uncommon, but there are widely used languages (vhdl) where uniting is more directly part of the type system and widely used uniting systems as libraries (boost) where it is not directly a language feature.
  - bjourne 3y ago
    VHDL physical types are nothing more than annotated integers. Making them completely useless for general arithmetic. You could not use them for converting from say Celsius to Fahrenheiht. It's cute that you bring up Boost which contains everything and the kitchen sink as evidence of "widely used". Show me a 3d engine that uses physical units for distance calculations. No one does it because it is a horrible idea.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  How about "This bug would have been caught if instead of storing the distance in a float, they stored it in a struct/class that also contained an enum defining the units". Just about any language could handle that.

bjourne 3y ago

Of course, fixed point would have been a reasonable choice too. But here is my point. Someone who likes testing could say "This bug would have been caught with better testing". Someone who likes static typing could say "This bug would have been caught if they had used an esoteric type system with support for physical quantities." ... Which no one uses. Thus, you have an argument between something real and realistic, and something imagined and unrealistic.

thfuran 3y ago
That you aren't familiar with something hardly makes it imaginary. That exact formulation of unit system is, I think, pretty uncommon, but there are widely used languages (vhdl) where uniting is more directly part of the type system and widely used uniting systems as libraries (boost) where it is not directly a language feature.
- bjourne 3y ago
  VHDL physical types are nothing more than annotated integers. Making them completely useless for general arithmetic. You could not use them for converting from say Celsius to Fahrenheiht. It's cute that you bring up Boost which contains everything and the kitchen sink as evidence of "widely used". Show me a 3d engine that uses physical units for distance calculations. No one does it because it is a horrible idea.
HideousKojima 3y ago
How about "This bug would have been caught if instead of storing the distance in a float, they stored it in a struct/class that also contained an enum defining the units". Just about any language could handle that.