They might seem dumb, but on closer look IEEE754 (which is what you probably mean when you say float) is a pretty clever piece of engineering. Here's a great b

They might seem dumb, but on closer look IEEE754 (which is what you probably mean when you say float) is a pretty clever piece of engineering. Here's a great bit of info, interviewing professor Kahan (one of the principals behind it) http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/ieee754status/754story.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/ieee754status/754story.ht... Believe me, they might be painful, but they're definitely one of the least painful ways to handle non-integer values.