Re: Floating-point arithmetic in CL

From: Barry Margolin (barmar_at_alum.mit.edu)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:29:22 -0500

In article <1101151627.050684.134880@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
 "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb+google@tfeb.org> wrote:

> Jens Axel Søgaard wrote:
> > If you want the full explanation see the classic article "What Every
> > Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic":
> >
> > <http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg goldberg.html>
> >
>
> This question (or a variant of it) seems to come up pretty frequently
> in CLL. I can really only see a couple of reasons why:
>
> 1. People attracted to lisp are stupid or uneducated;
> 2. It's possible to become `educated' in computer science while
> having no understanding at all of floating point arithmetic.
>
> I don't believe (1), so I'm left with (2). Is this really the case?
> If it is, then it confirms my view that most people designing computer
> science curricula should be melted down for glue.

Many people who program computers don't have any formal computer science
education at all. Lots of them learn it on their own. 

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***