On 12 Jan 2007 19:41:52 GMT, Nick Maclaren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sigh. I was hoping not to have that myth perpetrated again. > > Financial calculations need decimal FIXED-point, with a precisely > specified precision. It is claimed that decimal FLOATING-point > helps with providing that, but that claim is extremely dubious. > I can explain the problem in as much detail as you want, but would > very much rather not.
Sorry, Nick, you might have to. ;-) I'm not educated in these matters, so I'd genuinely like to know why you say that. Not educated, but I do have some experience; I've used both fixed and floating point Decimal types extensively, and I've found floating types superior. More fiddly, certainly, 'cos you have to explicitly round back down to the precision that you want when you want. But explicit is better than implicit - the number of subtle rounding bugs that I've had to fix 'cos someone didn't realise where rounding was occurring is, uh, well, it happens from time to time. ;-) What am I missing? -- Cheers, Simon B [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
