5 ms·

What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic

2 points by DanielRibeiro 15y ago

ColinWright 15y ago
You may not get many comments because lots of people here have seen this before. Here are some of the previous submissions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=687604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=687604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746797 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746797 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982332 <-- comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2614330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2614330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3428112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3428112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3681116 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3681116 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771674 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771674
- DanielRibeiro 15y ago
  Thanks Colin! You have been very helpful on keeping me on my toes. I'll be working on a tool to prevent me from making such mistakes again.
  - ColinWright 15y ago
    Hey Daniel, Problem is that from some points of view it's not really a mistake. We are encouraged to submit things we find that are expected to be of interest to hackers, and this certainly should be. The lack of a comprehensive duplicate detector and the fact that items do fade into obscurity together mean that repeats like this are inevitable, and not necessarily "wrong." I'd love to see a solution to this niggle. Others say it's not a problem, and I've even had some rather unpleasant emails over the issue, but I maintain that repeats like this show the need for a companion site with "Classic News" (whatever that may mean) I started to develop one, but life took over, and I don't have the skills to knock up web prototypes quickly, so it languishes, unloved. Maybe one day something will be done to create a resource that preserves the knowledge and judgment implicit in these resubmissions.

2 points by DanielRibeiro 15y ago

You may not get many comments because lots of people here have seen this before. Here are some of the previous submissions: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=453396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=687604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=687604 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746797 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746797 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1937182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982332 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1982332 <-- comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051062 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2614330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2614330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684497 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3428112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3428112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3681116 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3681116 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771674 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771674

DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Thanks Colin! You have been very helpful on keeping me on my toes. I'll be working on a tool to prevent me from making such mistakes again.
- ColinWright 15y ago
  Hey Daniel, Problem is that from some points of view it's not really a mistake. We are encouraged to submit things we find that are expected to be of interest to hackers, and this certainly should be. The lack of a comprehensive duplicate detector and the fact that items do fade into obscurity together mean that repeats like this are inevitable, and not necessarily "wrong." I'd love to see a solution to this niggle. Others say it's not a problem, and I've even had some rather unpleasant emails over the issue, but I maintain that repeats like this show the need for a companion site with "Classic News" (whatever that may mean) I started to develop one, but life took over, and I don't have the skills to knock up web prototypes quickly, so it languishes, unloved. Maybe one day something will be done to create a resource that preserves the knowledge and judgment implicit in these resubmissions.