Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!Kenny%his-phoenix-multics.arpa@BRL.ARPA From: Kenny%his-phoenix-multics.arpa@BRL.ARPA Newsgroups: net.micro.cpm Subject: Re: Turbo Pascal--first impressions Message-ID: <16901@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Feb-84 16:11:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.16901 Posted: Sat Feb 18 16:11:00 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 12:48:49 EST Lines: 23 From: Kevin KennyMy apologies for flaming; my last message was written fairly late on a very bad day. I, too, am primarily interested in getting the job done, which involves selecting the right tool to do it. For doing taxes or balancing bank accounts I'd use scaled fixed-point arithmetic, which gets the pennies right, and not worry about whether it's decimal or binary internally. Funny, do you suppose that's why COBOL was designed that way? For engineering work, I want floating point sometimes (although the more you use it, the less you trust it), and (by preference, not necessity) binary arithmetic. On nearly all machines, binary is faster; the analysis of computation errors is easier, too. For systems programming, I don't give a damn, since it's non-numeric anyway. A language trying to serve every application's needs can't do them all right without falling into the trap of gigantism (_vide_ PL\1). I think Turbo has made the right decision, though I recognize that I'm personally biased toward engineering and away from finance.