[Shootout-list] What people say about shootout (correct answers)

[Bengt Kleberg]

skaller wrote:
...deleted
> In general, requiring exact answers would make
> it impossible to compare results across languages
> and machines which may use different floating point
> operations for the same formula.

this i understand. the result of floating point operations differ 
between languages.

however, i still think that the observable result for a shootout 
benchmark should be the same for all languages. ie,

	| A - C | < epsilon

is true for all correct languages, even if A - C is different. so the 
benchmark should check if | A - C | < epsilon, not what A - C is.

if this is impossible i apologise for my lack of knowledge. it would be 
nice if somebody could point me to a ''floating point for dummies''.


bengt