this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
429 points (96.5% liked)
Programmer Humor
19704 readers
124 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Most languages have decimal libraries to correctly handle floating point arithmetics, where precision is necessary.
They are as incapable of handling one third of a dollar as binary positional notation is incapable of handling one fifth (0.2).
It’s not really a float problem. It’s a positional notation one. Some perfectly rational numbers refuse to squeeze into that mold.
Also decimal system is not exatcly that much better since you also cant write 1/3 in decimal