[PRL] Programming Languages in the Code of Federal Regulations

[David Herman]

I think that was Paul's point.

Dave

On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:36 PM, Pete Manolios wrote:

> Following the IEEE 754 floating-point spec is not easy. For example,
> see "The pitfalls of verifying floating-point computations" by David
> Monniaux. Even if floating point is handled in a reasonable way, it is
> still floating point, so many "obvious" properties, like associativity
> of addition, do not hold. That is, there is no way to satisfy
> Matthias' criterion number 2 if we use floating point (unless
> "intended mathematical meaning" below means IEEE floating point).
> 
> 2 Programs should have the intended mathematical meaning.
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Paul Steckler <steck at stecksoft.com> wrote:
>> R6RS suggests, but doesn't require, that Scheme implementations follow
>> the IEEE 754 floating-point spec.
>> So you don't get behavior guarantees simply by choosing "Scheme" as
>> your language.
>> 
>> Years ago, Turbo Pascal had a binary-coded decimal (BCD) type that was
>> especially suited for doing
>> financial calculations, avoiding some of the representational problems
>> of IEEE 754.  Something like
>> that might figure in a DSL for the feds.
>> 
>> -- Paul
>> 
>> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Matthias Felleisen
>> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Following Jay's and Jordan's example I have submitted my own response. A
>>> scribbled version is available at:
>>> 
>>>  http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Thoughts/Python_for_Asset-Backed_Securities.html
>>> 
>>> Thanks for all the feedback -- Matthias
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Pete Manolios
> Northeastern University
> http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete
> 
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