Re: Floating Point?

[David Allouche]

On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 09:52:26AM +0200, address@hidden wrote:
> No. Arbitrary precision is for integers (it's impossible to do general
> arbitrary precision for reals). Floats in Guile are just machine floats
> (properly wrapped as SCMs, which might make them a tad `slower', though).
> 
> If I see right, they are just machine doubles, referenced indirectly
> through the SCM object (thus the unwrapping costs you a dereference).

Just an idea...

Python had a similar problem: the language overhead dominated
computing time in number crunching applications. This problem was
solved by the implementation of a fast (written in C) matrix crunching
library. The basic idea is "to add 1000 FP numbers, add two matrices
and let the looping be done in C instead of in Scheme". Of course, the
usual collection of algebra is also a nice bonus.

Now, Python, though well known as a generally slow language is
successfully used in many demanding number-crunching applications.

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