From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ik at sjmulder.nl (Sijmen J. Mulder) Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2020 10:40:10 +0100 Subject: [COFF] Fwd: Old and Tradition was [TUHS] V9 shell In-Reply-To: <20200212030152.GJ852@mcvoy.com> References: <20200212030152.GJ852@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20200224104010.2d8510cfe00da71439f5d05e@sjmulder.nl> Larry McVoy wrote: > Fortran programmers are formally trained (at least I > was, there was a whole semester devoted to this) in accumulated errors. > You did a deep dive into how to code stuff so that the error was reduced > each time instead of increased. It has a lot to do with how floating > point works, it's not exact like integers are. I was unaware that there's formal training to be had around this but it's something I'd like to learn more about. Any recommendations on materials? I don't mind diving into Fortran itself either. Background: I've been playing around with actuarial calculations (pensions, life insurance, etc) which involve lots of accumulation over time and I'm finding that, unsurprisingly, different implementations of the same rules yield fairly different outcomes due to accumulated errors. Sijmen