News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on 1/0 = 0. Parent comment

Re:1/0 = 0 by pmiller2 on Friday August 10, 2018 @04:29PM (#17736509)
You’re doing something different than real number arithmetic. Saying 1/0 = x, and then treating x like a real number is inconsistent. But just saying “we are going to augment the real numbers with an element x that is not a real number, and then define some properties of x and prove things about it” is not.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:1/0 = 0 by FlipperBucket on Friday August 10, 2018 @04:51PM (#17736640)
> You’re doing something different than real number arithmetic

Computer languages execute on rules that are not utilizing real number arithmetic. I didn't want to mention it, but there's these things called floats...

Edit: Pony took out the "normal" version of division by zero and suggest to write a wrapper to check beforehand.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:1/0 = 0 by pmiller2 on Friday August 10, 2018 @05:00PM (#17736704)
Where did I say anything about computers? I’m referring to real numbers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:1/0 = 0 by FlipperBucket on Friday August 10, 2018 @05:13PM (#17736785)
The topic is a computer language. I'm referring to utility.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:1/0 = 0 by pmiller2 on Friday August 10, 2018 @05:21PM (#17736843)
Floating point is only useful to the extent that it approximates real arithmetic.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:1/0 = 0 by jack9 on Saturday August 11, 2018 @09:09PM (#17742400)
In pony, floating point behaves 1.0/0.0 the way you might expect.
[ Parent | on HN ]