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Yet the Windows 3.1 calculator couldn't subtract properly. While I bring that example up in jest, there are real limitations to how computers do math. The calc
by II2II 2y ago
Yet the Windows 3.1 calculator couldn't subtract properly.
While I bring that example up in jest, there are real limitations to how computers do math. The calculator app may produce correct results for everyday problems. Yet there are many domains where you must know how floating point numbers are handled, how the computer handles trigonometric functions, etc.. It's not that the computer is wrong. There are simply limitations due to how floating point numbers are represented. Even integers can be problematic due to their own limitations.
- ryandrake 2y ago> Yet the Windows 3.1 calculator couldn't subtract properly. OK, but I'm sure that Microsoft treated that as a bug to be fixed, rather than as an inherent limitation of computers that we just need to understand and deal with.
- cageface 2y agoThis would be a useful analogy if Microsoft promoted the calculator as the next epoch-making trillion dollar revolution in computing and then swept aside the numerous mistakes it made on simple inputs as no worse than the average human.