News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on 9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0. Parent comment

Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by int_19h on Saturday January 05, 2019 @08:30PM (#18835719)
A lot of real-world data is already in base-10 for obvious reasons, and so an arrangement that lets you add, subtract and multiply those without worrying is worthwhile, even if it can't handle something more exotic.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by smallnamespace on Sunday January 06, 2019 @01:53AM (#18836990)
Would you really call 'any rational with divisible factors other than 2 and 5' to be 'exotic'?

Maybe we really should move back to base-60 like the Babylonians used, then you could at least divide by 3.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by int_19h on Sunday January 06, 2019 @08:54PM (#18842143)
Because humans standardized on base-10, and computers are ultimately for humans to use?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:9999999999999999.0 – 9999999999999998.0 by MauranKilom on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @07:38PM (#18861271)
Maybe we should also add data types to every language that can convert exactly between inches, feet, miles and every other non-base-10 unit?

The argument "we want to look at base-10 in the end so it should be the internal representation" is really weak and ignores basically every other practical aspect.

[ Parent | on HN ]