PNWS 2014 - Unruly Creatures: Strategies for dealing with Real Numbers
Channel: Confreaks
Date: 2014-12-15

By, Erik Osheim

If computers are supposed to be good at math, then why is it so hard to do math correctly with computers? We have trained programmers to reach for floating point types, and to deal with the fallout using some combination of profanity, resignation, and numerical analysis.

We will explore alternatives, focusing on computable real numbers as implemented in Spire, as well as discussing alternatives such as Algebraic numbers and Continued fractions. The focus will be on practical use cases, as well as the benefits of laziness and functional programming when implementing and using these exotic types.

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