Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.comics.strips,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: xkcd: Day Counter Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:13:50 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 21 Message-ID: <87mrzhp0tt.fsf@example.invalid> References: <10qq170$d49s$2@dont-email.me> <10qtr82$1f4di$2@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2026 21:13:54 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="6b6f48aebff07aa40fb45671206b9bec"; logging-data="1774440"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18gKJGXdzwfbwffpCKgskya" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:f2WJUol6JjbnZBqDX8uXmG/Pj/8= sha1:v8R7+tBziNeS6x8/vi4nsg32ihQ= Xref: csiph.com rec.arts.sf.written:655818 rec.arts.comics.strips:67115 comp.lang.fortran:126582 comp.lang.c++:123666 Chris Ahlstrom writes: > Lynn McGuire wrote this screed in ALL-CAPS: > >> xkcd: Day Counter >> https://xkcd.com/3228/ >> >> Yes, floating point errors are the bane of my life ! Not so much now >> with double precision but the single precision days were nightmares. > > Well these days we have long double. C has had long double as a standard type since the original 1989 ANSI C standard. (K&R1, 1978, didn't have long double.) But wider floating-point types don't eliminate rounding errors. [...] -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */