News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on 9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0. Parent comment

Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by mabbo on Saturday January 05, 2019 @11:52AM (#18832645)
The point is to illustrate a simple fact that most of us know- but maybe some don't.

https://m.xkcd.com/1053/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by twtw on Saturday January 05, 2019 @11:57AM (#18832677)
It doesn't even illustrate that particularly well. As is, the page just seems to be pointing at floating point and yelling "wrong", with no information on what's actually happening.

By all means embrace the surprise and educate today's 10,000, by why not actually explain why these are reasonable answers and the mechanics here behind the scenes?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by jacobtwotwo on Saturday January 05, 2019 @12:26PM (#18832870)
I was one of those people today! This intrigued me enough to learn more about IEEE 754.

Thank you for the relevant xkcd!

[ Parent | on HN ]