64-bit computing is reasonably efficient on most 32-bit machines.
Are you sure? Such a needs 4 or 6 32-bit registers (depending on whether you overwrite one of the operands with the answer), and x86 has so few registers that you use them all in a single calculation, meaning that you must push the existing contents of the registers. Unless of course you leave one of the operands in RAM, which really sucks.
And $92,233,720,368,547,758.07 is more than
If I implied that 92 quadrillion isn't enough, sorry. Not my intent.
Still, most (all?) fixed point implementations use a scale of 2, which is adequate most of the time, but not all of the time.
And there's still the problem that Fixed Point is not integrated into any "modern" programming languages (except SQL).
I mean, do you need a cash register than can tally sums > $1000000?
You do realize that there's more to business than cash registers, right?
A 32-bit fixed point number maxes out at 21,474,836.47 which is severely limiting for all but small-sized businesses and tiny governments.
64-bit fixed point number (max 92,233,720,368,547,758.07) are obviously better, but are only efficient on 64-bit machines, which are still a minority of installed machines.
To represent the cents. And possibly to account for whatever sales taxes are relevent in the country.
Stupid responses like this are caused by elistist CompSci professors thinking that it's not really important to remind language creators that accurate decimal math is important.
There is a better way, and it's been around for 45+ years: BCD.
All CISC CPUs had opcodes to do the work, but AFAICT only COBOL (being, of course, a Business Oriented Language) implemented BCD as a primary data type.
Damned shame, too, since it eliminates all the hassle of working with financial software.
Any system adminstrator worthy of the name should be able to do system-level development as well -- debugging everything from applications to drivers and other kernel-level code as necessary.
You're right. That is setting the bar pretty high.
However, one thing that you do learn as you get older is when you feel strong negative emotions towards other people, hiding them is the best first reaction.
Wow, isn't that a change from the let-it-all-hang-out 1960s and 1970s. When did this change occur?
I realise that debian stable release has packages that are very old in order to stay stable. Does this mean that they lack patches later versions of programs use? Or are patches typically backported to the stable release packages?
The Pentagon Papers trial created a fine balance that is worth preserving. The government can keep things secret in the interest of security, but at the same time it's not illegal for the press to print whatever is leaked to it.
That's the difference between the Pentagon Papers and the State Department cracks.
The Papers were leaked by an insider, in the June incident, foreign nationals probably working for a semi-enemy country cracked into goverment computers.
On a desktop machine, program load time and swap space access speed are much more important than data access. Almost all desktop applications perform relatively little data I/O compared to that involved in loading & executing them.
Really? How often do you start up your web browser, email client, word processor, spreadsheet app, bit torrent, etc? Once a day or less, depending on the app. You load them, and they sit there, waiting for you to use them.
Or does Windows suck so bad that you've got to close apps as soon as possible, to free up RAM for other apps?
Slashdot Mirror
One word: Testosterone.
Another word: Adrenaline.
A phrase: fight or flight.
Google for George Orwell's opinions on British Pacifism in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They might be instructive.
Nothing. Have you seen it done, though?
A reference to a Java implementaion would also be tres' useful.
Good to hear.
Unfortunately, ABAP is a pretty specialized language.
Are you sure? Such a needs 4 or 6 32-bit registers (depending on whether you overwrite one of the operands with the answer), and x86 has so few registers that you use them all in a single calculation, meaning that you must push the existing contents of the registers. Unless of course you leave one of the operands in RAM, which really sucks.
And $92,233,720,368,547,758.07 is more than
If I implied that 92 quadrillion isn't enough, sorry. Not my intent.
Still, most (all?) fixed point implementations use a scale of 2, which is adequate most of the time, but not all of the time.
And there's still the problem that Fixed Point is not integrated into any "modern" programming languages (except SQL).
You do realize that there's more to business than cash registers, right?
A 32-bit fixed point number maxes out at 21,474,836.47 which is severely limiting for all but small-sized businesses and tiny governments.
64-bit fixed point number (max 92,233,720,368,547,758.07) are obviously better, but are only efficient on 64-bit machines, which are still a minority of installed machines.
Fixed Point has typically been implemented using 32-bit integers with a scale of 2.
BCD is much more flexible.
Stupid responses like this are caused by elistist CompSci professors thinking that it's not really important to remind language creators that accurate decimal math is important.
There is a better way, and it's been around for 45+ years: BCD.
Argh, "forgot" about RPG.
and probably any compiler for the IBM S/370 line would at least have a library for it,
Having a library isn't the issue. Early versions of TurboPascal also had BCD libraries.
That you used via function calls. Very not useful.
To be practical, a datatype needs to be usable by the 5 base arithmetic operators.
as I believe the IBM mini/mainframe architectures had implemented it in hardware.
The System 3x0 "CPU" is extremely CISC.
usage at a financial institution in my recent past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packed_decimal
All CISC CPUs had opcodes to do the work, but AFAICT only COBOL (being, of course, a Business Oriented Language) implemented BCD as a primary data type.
Damned shame, too, since it eliminates all the hassle of working with financial software.
You didn't RTFA, did you?
Without http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer's_Yeast, there is no beer.
I know, I know. Still, shining the light of critical thought onto Wrong Conventional Wisdom is always a Good Thing.
Bacteria spoils beer, which is a Bad Thing, no?
Have you actually used COBOL in a production environment, or are you just spouting elitist CompSci blather?
In fact, Windows NT did ship for the PowerPC PREP platform
And the Alpha. We (the company I worked for) actually had an AlphaStation 255(?) running Windown 3.51(?).
You're right. That is setting the bar pretty high.
Wow, isn't that a change from the let-it-all-hang-out 1960s and 1970s. When did this change occur?
Programs with bugs. What a fscking novel revelation!
(fork off a child process that sleeps for a bit then overwrites the grade file, then just output whatever)
What that means is that their security process sucks eggs.
That's just about the dumbest thing I've ever read on Slashdot.
Either way? Which ways are that?
Their effort should be spent on increasing the amount of data collected over the globe to have a significant number of datapoints to analyze.
That is certainly a very important key.
A much better understanding water vapor's effect upon weather is also crucial factor.
http://www.debian.org/security/
Security (not feature) patches are backported if possible, and if the patches are too extensive, an upgraded version goes into Stable.
That's the difference between the Pentagon Papers and the State Department cracks.
The Papers were leaked by an insider, in the June incident, foreign nationals probably working for a semi-enemy country cracked into goverment computers.
To Dell/HP/Etc - You must not sell naked or Linux systems or your the price of OEM Windows gets larger.
To my knowledge, Dell does sell naked or Linux systems.
Look harder. In 45 seconds, I found the PowerEdge 850, which comes naked by default, and has options for Win2k3, RHES and NetWare 6.5.
Really? How often do you start up your web browser, email client, word processor, spreadsheet app, bit torrent, etc? Once a day or less, depending on the app. You load them, and they sit there, waiting for you to use them.
Or does Windows suck so bad that you've got to close apps as soon as possible, to free up RAM for other apps?