[Python-Dev] Mixing float and Decimal -- thread reboot (original) (raw)

Alexander Belopolsky alexander.belopolsky at gmail.com
Wed Mar 24 19:55:53 CET 2010

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 2:36 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote: ..

Probably because we were blindly following the IEEE standard without understanding it in every detail.

Are you talking about "accidental" support for NaNs in older versions of Python or about recent efforts to support them properly in math and decimal modules?

I feel you are too harsh on the developers that worked in this area. I dare to suggest that the current situation is not due to lack of understanding of the standard, but due to pragmatic decisions made in early development and desire for backward compatibility in the recent versions.

Is this an area where design changes are feasible? IIRC, NaN support was never "officially" in the language, but it may have changed with the decimal module.

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