From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 07:18:03 +0800
To: bryce@digicash.com
Subject: Re: The Crisis with Remailers
In-Reply-To: <199605221708.TAA00752@digicash.com>
Message-ID: <199605221731.NAA23607@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



bryce@digicash.com writes:
> > It is true enough that *rates* can be stored as floats if you want,
> > but never actual sums.
> 
> That's interesting.  Because rates never approach 2^23, and 
> because you never need that much precision with rates?  It seems
> like a bad idea to me anyway.  Why not just use an Int32 if you 
> don't need that much precision?

I only report the news. I have occassionally seen floats in rates, I
have never seen them used in accounting.

I will also note that rates do indeed get astonishingly precise --
five significant figures.

In any case, however, I have never seen accounts done as floats --
never.

.pm