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From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Subject: Re: Compiler abstractions [was: Wanted: programming language for 9 yr old]
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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 20:52:43 GMT
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hrubin@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

>William D Clinger <will@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
>>No.  Numerical inaccuracy is a direct consequence of finite
>>representations, which are fundamental to computer science and
>>apply equally to hardware and software.
>
>But should this be the case in the software?  The arithmetic taught to
>children of this age already does not have this limitation.  All of the
>programming languages I have seen only discuss directly fixed accuracy
>computation.  

The programming language Goedel provides arbitrary precision integers
and rational numbers. In fact Goedel does not have any
bounded-precision integer type at all, although it does have a
fixed-accuracy floating point type.

In many languages (Haskell and C++, to name just two) it is easy to 
write a library which provides arbitrary precision integers and
rational numbers.

-- 
Fergus Henderson             |  "Australia is the richest country in the world,
fjh@cs.mu.oz.au              |   according to a new system of measuring wealth
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh  |   announced by the World Bank yesterday."
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3 |  - Melbourne newspaper "The Age", 18 Sept 1995.
