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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.javascript
Subject: Re: IE and IEE 754
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 23:41:36 +0100
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"Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> writes:

> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote on 28 aug 2014 in 
> comp.lang.javascript:
>> You mean "yes, but..." surely?  You did not say that that they cannot be
>> *trusted* to be exact, you said that they can't ever be exact.
>
> Wow, are you still in kindergarten?

I'd like to try to unravel this.  I don't think I am wrong to say that
0.5 can be converted to a binary floating point value exactly, and I
don't think you disagree on that point, but can you see that what you
wrote:

  "... the binary converions of floting point fractional decimal values
  NEVER can be right"

does seem to suggest otherwise?  I even suggested that there was a
communication problem:

  "What about 0.5 or 0.25?  Why can't these ever be right?  Did you mean
  that *all* decimal fractions can't be correctly converted?  That's
  certainly the case.  The way you worded it sounds like none of them
  can be."

But that was not, it seems, what you wanted to say.

When you rejected my examples of 0.5 and 0.25 you said the conversion
could not be trusted to be exact (correct me, if I've misunderstood that
as well).  That sounded exactly like a "yes they can be exact, but they
can't be trusted to be exact".  If you weren't saying "yes, but" what
were you saying?  "No, they can't be exact and in addition they can be
trusted to be exact"?  That doesn't sound right.

If you think my pointing this out was childish, or the way in which I
did so was childish, then I am genuinely sorry about that.  I certainly
don't want to appear childish, but I am now a little lost about what it
is you are saying.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.