From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id b145aa15 for ; Sun, 17 Nov 2019 18:13:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 2040D9C5F9; Mon, 18 Nov 2019 04:13:27 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D77889C5DB; Mon, 18 Nov 2019 04:12:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id EEFD19C5DB; Mon, 18 Nov 2019 04:12:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.bitblocks.com (ns1.bitblocks.com [173.228.5.8]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5017F9C2EF for ; Mon, 18 Nov 2019 04:12:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from bitblocks.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.bitblocks.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE91A156E80B; Sun, 17 Nov 2019 10:12:28 -0800 (PST) To: Larry McVoy In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 16 Nov 2019 21:50:58 -0800." <20191117055058.GB23794@mcvoy.com> References: <201911112110.xABLAQfW004396@skeeve.com> <20191111223129.GB23273@mit.edu> <20191117055058.GB23794@mcvoy.com> Comments: In-reply-to Larry McVoy message dated "Sat, 16 Nov 2019 21:50:58 -0800." From: Bakul Shah MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <11708.1574014348.1@bitblocks.com> Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2019 10:12:28 -0800 Message-Id: <20191117181235.AE91A156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com> Subject: Re: [TUHS] History of m6? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Sat, 16 Nov 2019 21:50:58 -0800 Larry McVoy wrote: Larry McVoy writes: > On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 04:30:15PM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Nov 2019, SPC wrote: > > > > >My first FORTRAN textbook was titled "FORTRAN with WATFOR and WATFIV". It > > >had a long print run as well. > > > > Now *that* brings back memories (not necessarily pleasant). WATFOR was as > > ugly as sin > > I'm pretty sure that was the Fortran I learned. Yeah, it was not C. But > it was math. I spent a bunch of time learning accumulated errors and > more time on floating point numbers. My dad was a theoretical physics > guy so I did some coding for him. I respected Fortran for what it could > do but I developed a hate for floating point. In my mind, floating > point numbers meant you couldn't handle the world you were working in. > It just felt like you could shift the domain you were working in so > integers could work. If you couldn't do that, you were admitting that > you were not accurate. Many numbers can't be represented perfectly using integers or rationals (a pair of integers) but can be computed using a series expansion to arbitrary precision. I thought FP numbers were a clever & practical compromise that worked quite well. David Goldberg's "What every computer scientist should know about floating-point" is worth reading. https://www.itu.dk/~sestoft/bachelor/IEEE754_article.pdf Earlier I remember reading the "Numerical Recipes" books by Press, Teukolsky, Vetterling & Flannery. IIRC, the original version used Fortran. They also had versions using Pascal and C (I finally bought the C version in '80s though never used it). Note that Scheme & CL have a full complement of numeric types: big nums, rationals, reals and complex numbers. At least some versions of CL have arbitrary precision FP numbers. What I really want is a programming language with support for symbolic manipulation of formulas!