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From: Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>
Date: Mon,  3 Oct 2011 07:39:16 -0700
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] circular fonctions: precision?
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On Oct 3, 2011, at 4:41 AM, tlaronde@polynum.com wrote:
>>=20
> But to come back to programming, when calculus is the crux, the more
> common/known even new! programming languages are not great tools, and
> "portability" i.e. proved accuracy of the implementation for a wide
> range of hardware/software is fuzzy. And it's amazing to see how one can
> rapidly face errors even with very basic computations. And even with
> integer arithmetic, not much help is guaranteed by languages.

Integer & rational arithmetic is guaranteed in Scheme and some other languag=
es. In an R5RS compliant Scheme implementation you have for example (/ 5 7) =3D=
> 5/7. (If only people get over their irrational fear of prefix syntax they w=
ould discover a great little language in Scheme.) But most prog. languages d=
o not specify minimal required accuracy on standard floating pt. functions. M=
ay be because most language hackers are not numerical analysts!=20=