develooper Front page | perl.perl6.language | Postings from October 2001

RE: NaN semantics

Thread Previous | Thread Next
From:
Damian Conway
Date:
October 7, 2001 14:06
Subject:
RE: NaN semantics
Message ID:
200110072106.HAA53770@indy05.csse.monash.edu.au
 
   > His point was that the NaN IEEE came up with is defined to have NaN !=
   > NaN, and that it might be confusing if Perl's behavior wasn't consistent
   > with that.  Not that I think NaN != NaN is a particularly good idea, but
   > consistency with other languages may be.  If NaN != NaN, then his
   > example is correct.

Sorry. I was focused on the Perl 6 semantics and missed that implication.

Let me make it clear: AFAIK Perl NaN's will not be IEEE 754 compliant.
That was certainly my intention in suggesting them to Larry. I share the
view of a number of other language designers that the non-self-identity
of IEEE NaN is (to slightly misquote Tim) "ugly, non-intuitive and ugly; and
non-intuitive too".

;-)


   > P.S. Congratulations to you and Larry for waking up perl6-language.  I
   > had seen almost no traffic on it in weeks, and was starting to get a bit
   > worried that thoughts on the languages were coughing, sputtering and
   > dying.  :^)

Just one of many eyes in Hurricane Perl, I assure you! ;-)

Damian

Thread Previous | Thread Next


nntp.perl.org: Perl Programming lists via nntp and http.
Comments to Ask Bjørn Hansen at ask@perl.org | Group listing | About