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Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types!

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From Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types!
Date Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:59:16 +0000
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On 24/02/2012 16:23, Michael Torrie wrote:
> On 02/24/2012 08:34 AM, Rick Johnson wrote:
>> Yes i could write my own implementation of INFINITY if i wanted,
>> although i would have returned True and False as apposed to 1 and 0
>> AND used the identifiers Infinity and Infinitesimal, but i digress :-
>> P.
>>
>> However, INFINITY is something i believe a language should provide;
>> which python does, albeit inconsistently.
>
> How do you represent infinity as an binary integer number?  Or are you
> suggesting that the integer type (class) be modified to allow an
> "infinity" state that really isn't a number at all (could not be stored
> as a integer in C)?

The C integer bit doesn't matter since e.g.
 >>> 
a=10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
 >>> a
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000L

And no, I'm not going to calculate how much memory I'd need to store a 
string that's this long :)

> Float is a different story because IEEE does define a binary
> representation of infinity in the floating-point specification.
>
> I know of no language that has any form of representation of infinity
> for integers mainly because there's no way to represent infinity as a
> standard twos-compliment binary number.  In a language that deals
> directly with types in memory such as C, having an infinity
> representation would be possible but would make simple math really hard,
> and much slower.
>
> All this reminds me of the original cray supercomputers.  They didn't
> use twos compliment for integers so they had two representations of zero
> (+0 and -0).  Made programming a bit tricky.  When asked why the cray
> didn't just do two's compliment like everyone else, Seymour Cray
> responded that when the computer was designed he simply didn't know
> about twos compliment.

-- 
Cheers.

Mark Lawrence.

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Thread

PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 05:37 -0800
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-02-24 13:55 +0000
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 06:14 -0800
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2012-02-24 14:25 +0000
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 07:25 -0800
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Devin Jeanpierre <jeanpierreda@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 12:32 -0500
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 18:26 -0700
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Miki Tebeka <miki.tebeka@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 06:39 -0800
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 07:18 -0800
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Mel Wilson <mwilson@the-wire.com> - 2012-02-24 10:21 -0500
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-24 15:31 +0000
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 07:34 -0800
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 09:23 -0700
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-24 22:45 +0000
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-02-24 16:59 +0000
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 16:16 -0700
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 11:09 +1100
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-02-25 00:35 +0000
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 12:25 -0800
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2012-02-25 00:37 +0000
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 17:32 +0200
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Fayaz Yusuf Khan <fayaz.yusuf.khan@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 06:52 +0530
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-25 01:50 +0000
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 12:29 -0800
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2012-02-26 18:32 -0800
          Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-27 03:51 +0000
            Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-02-27 14:59 +1100
            Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2012-02-26 22:49 -0800
  Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Wolfgang Meiners <WolfgangMeiners01@web.de> - 2012-02-25 09:18 +0100
    Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2012-02-25 17:54 +0000
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2012-02-25 12:35 -0800
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Wolfgang Meiners <WolfgangMeiners01@web.de> - 2012-02-26 14:16 +0100
          Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Wolfgang Meiners <WolfgangMeiners01@web.de> - 2012-02-26 14:38 +0100
            Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Arnaud Delobelle <arnodel@gmail.com> - 2012-02-26 13:44 +0000
          Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-26 13:50 +0000
          Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2012-02-27 12:25 +0000
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2012-02-27 12:55 +0100
      Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Wolfgang Meiners <WolfgangMeiners01@web.de> - 2012-02-26 12:56 +0100
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-02-26 23:52 +1100
          Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Wolfgang Meiners <WolfgangMeiners01@web.de> - 2012-02-26 14:32 +0100
        Re: PyWart: Language missing maximum constant of numeric types! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2012-02-26 13:19 +0000

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