[Python-Dev] Re: Rich comparisons (original) (raw)

Edward Loper edloper at gradient.cis.upenn.edu
Tue Mar 30 12:25:01 EST 2004

Tim Delaney's suggestion [1] seemed pretty reasonable. In particular:

- Ensure that NaN is a singleton (like True and False). I.e., the float constructor checks if the float is NaN, and if so returns a singleton. And we do that... how, exactly?

[...]

Without wanting to sound patronizing or rude -- but risking it anyway -- you're not giving the impression of understanding these issues any more than I do, and I know I don't understand them well enough to get them straight.

You're right -- I apparently don't understand the issues well enough. And (worse) I didn't understand how far my understanding went. I was basing my proposal on Tim Delaney's suggestion and on a couple quick experiments on my 2 machines. Given that things aren't as simple as I had hoped they were, I guess I'll leave it up to people who know more to figure it out.

But I'm not particularly happy about the fact that you have to be an expert to understand the intricacies of basic arithmetic with floats (not that I have a way to fix it).

-Edward

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