Mailing List Archive: Python: Bugs

[issue7389] Make decimal floating point be default, remove binary floating point

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Nov 24, 2009, 3:05 AM

Post #1 of 2 (147 views)
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[issue7389] Make decimal floating point be default, remove binary floating point

New submission from Retro <vinetouu [at] gmail>:

The Python interpreter should have the decimal type built into its core.
The mechanism for dealing with decimal numbers should be handled by the
decimal type and not by the processor which spits binary floats. The
time is now. But ask yourself these questions:

Is this doable? If yes:
Would it break anything? If yes, note that:
Python 3.1 opposed to Python 3.0 also had major changes that break the
two appart.

I say go for revolutional change in Python 3.2. But the call is yours.

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components: Interpreter Core
messages: 95668
nosy: Retro, gvanrossum
severity: normal
status: open
title: Make decimal floating point be default, remove binary floating point
type: feature request
versions: Python 3.2

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report at bugs

Nov 24, 2009, 3:24 AM

Post #2 of 2 (142 views)
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[issue7389] Make decimal floating point be default, remove binary floating point [In reply to]

Mark Dickinson <dickinsm [at] gmail> added the comment:

I think the bug tracker is the wrong place to discuss such a wide-
ranging and (currently) ill-specified change. The python-list or
python-ideas mailing lists might be better places.

Decimal in the core is out of the question for Python 3.2, thanks to PEP
3003. What *is* feasible at this stage is to replace the current slow
Python implementation of the decimal module with a C version; there's
some ongoing work on that.

Removing binary floats from the core entirely sounds like a bad idea to
me, for performance reasons. And it probably couldn't be done before
Python 4.x without breaking backwards compatibility.

I'm closing this for now; if you're interested in this, please take the
discussion to python-list or python-ideas.

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nosy: +mark.dickinson
resolution: -> later
status: open -> closed

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