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comparisons between floats and ratios
- To: Gail Zacharias <GZ%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Subject: comparisons between floats and ratios
- From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1986 14:37:00 -0000
- Cc: common-lisp@SU-AI.ARPA
- In-reply-to: Msg of 27 Jan 1986 08:42-EST from Gail Zacharias <GZ%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Is (> a-rational a-float) supposed to err out when (float a-rational a-float)
would overflow? If so, there should at least be some way to tell ahead of time
if that's going to happen, for people who want to write a more careful
comparison routine.
Sounds like a job for the error system (a proposal for which KMP is
supposed to have ready soon). Better to intercept this rare overflow
problem when it occurs, and when you actually care, than to slow down
the universe by trying to prevent it.