Re: When to use float (in teaching)

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Sun, 17 May 2009 21:32:43 -0400
Message-ID:
<4a10bab9$0$90267$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>
Christian wrote:

Stefan Ram schrieb:

  I teach some properties of the data type ?double?:

public class Main
{ public static void main( final java.lang.String[] args ) {
java.lang.System.out.println( 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 == 0.3 );
java.lang.System.out.println( 1.1 * 1.1 == 1.21 ); }}

false
false

  . I also teach that beginners should not use the data type
  ?float?, because it will only cause trouble.


imho this is a bad thing to tell...
Its like telling "Don't use int because it will only give you trouble ,
always use long"


Given that double over float both increases range and precision, while
long over int only increase range not precision and, and that long can
not be used for several basic things like array index, then that
comparison i snot valid.

For most applications (as in 99% of all I see) float is more than enough
for floating point computations.


That is strange. Double seems to be the standard today in both Java,
C#, C/C++ and Fortran for numerical calculations.

Also a situtation where float is preferred for me to double:
A volatile float is written atomic while a volatile double is not!
Though concurrency is at least here not part of the programming classes...


We believe that. As Lew explained, then volatile double are written
atomic. It is non-volatile double that are not written atomic.

Arne

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