Numerical C

[mark at elsie.UUCP]

<>
>>I would not use C as a numerical language, because of the way it promotes
>>float to double with reckless abandon. I can only assume that someone had
>>a very touching faith in double precision when making that design decision;
>>it's a major loss, and I hope that the ANSI standard gets rid of it.

At the recent UNIFORM (DC) meeting it was indicated that the double-precision
only feature of C would *not* be part of the ANSI standard. Those of us with
32 bit machines and numerical problems will be glad to here that, though it
will be many years befor all compliers will adhere to the standard.

BTW: What is the origin of the double-precision only nature of C? I've heard
three differing, but non-conflicting reasons:
1.) PDP-11's did all floating point calculations in double (is this true?)
    anyway, so why not.
2.) C was written as a systems language which required little little use of
    floats, so they were added only as an afterthought.
3.) The compilers are much easier to write if one doesn't have to worry
    about two or more types of float.

Do any of the old timers out there know the correct answer(s).

-- 
Mark J. Miller
NIH/NCI/DCE/LEC
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