> >the $c will be an NV of of 5.000000000000000, or thereabouts, een
> >while $a and $b are IVs.
> 
> Note: integers have an exact representation in floating point. There is

...as long as they are [minint, maxint].

> no "thereabouts". It is exactly 5.000000000000000.

Yeah, bad example.  Yours is slightly better.  I think I was thinking
something like computations losing precision.

> However, 0.2 + 0.3 is not exactly 0.5, because 0.2 and 0.3 are both
> approximations. 0.5 has an exact representation in FP, as has 1/1024.
> 
> Since FP calculations on modern processors are at least as fast as
> integer calculations, there is hardly any reason to prefer integers to FP.

...if one is concerned only about speed.

> Bigints, that's another matter.

Yes, let's not sacrifice precision.

-- 
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen

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