Re: demonic numbers !

From: Christophe Turle (cturle_at_nospam.com)
Date: 02/07/05 

Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 23:44:29 +0100

"jayessay" <nospam@foo.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
m3pszcj80d.fsf@rigel.goldenthreadtech.com...
> "Christophe Turle" <cturle@nospam.com> writes:
>
>> "Rahul Jain" <rjain@nyct.net> a écrit dans le message de news:
>> 87wttl6fr0.fsf@nyct.net...
>> > "Christophe Turle" <cturle@nospam.com> writes:
>> >
>> >> Yes, i know it's not lisp code. And this is in fact my problem, why IN
>> >> lisp,
>> >> .1111 is read as a float ? yes, the spec is the spec. But for this
>> >> point,
>> >> imho the spec is not good.
>> >
>> > As you've been told, this point was debated when the spec was being
>> > drawn up, but making .1111 read as a rational would break too much
>> > existing code.
>>
>> Once again this old good reason (like with all in upper case) ;)
>
> So, if things were bent to your own idiosyncratic will, all
> programming languages would interpret something like .1111 as
> 1111/10000, i.e., it should be ensured that they all have such
> semantics with this sort of number representation. Since none of them
> currently do this, you believe that they should be changed

no. I'm not interested in changing low-level languages.

> and further
> imply that citing "would break too much code" is insufficient reason
> to not make the change. Even if your idea made some sense (or had any
> CogSci validity, which frankly it doesn't) you seem to believe that
> making this change is more important than not breaking all existing
> code. It is no wonder if you are beginning to be viewed as a raving
> lunatic.

First, you and others telling "He don't care about compatibility" please
read the posts of this thread. It is at least the third time that i say that
all i want* is a special variable like *decimal-notation-as* defaulting to
:rational :

so to be compatible, we can use :

(let ((*decimal-notation-as* :float))
  (read ...) )

So please, no more backward compatibility or language interface reasons.

>> >> I can't satisfy myself thinking that in Lisp .1111 does not mean .1111
>> >> (from
>> >> human readers point of view)
>> >
>> > Humans don't read code. Computers read code. :)
>>
>> sorry, but humans read and write code a lot ;)
>
> Only that subset known as "programmers". Which is to say that the
> only "human readers" involved here are programmers. Now, other than
> yourself, how many _programmers_ do you think would read .1111 as you
> are suggesting they will? In my experience the number is exactly 0.

Our experience are not the same...

* : what i think should be a cool add to Lisp implementation. But with
william Bland trick, and that's what is wonderful with Lisp, i don't have to
convince all others nor to wait for them to make it work for me. Only future
will tell who was right.

I think we have close the circle for now, so thx to all who participated in
this thread. 

-- 
___________________________________________________________
Christophe Turle.
sava preview http://perso.wanadoo.fr/turle/lisp/sava.html
(format nil "~a@~a.~a" 'c.turle 'wanadoo 'fr)

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