Numerical C

[Ed Nather]

[so eat, already]
	I can't speak to the historical aspects of the "all double"
nature of floating point operations in C, but I was impressed when I first
encountered it, because it meant:

	1. I didn't have to have both single and double precision routines
	present if I managed to mix operations -- as I was want to do;

	2. I wouldn't encounter the round-off error that is all too common
	using single (32-bit) precision;

	3. I wouldn't be tempted to "gain a little speed" using single
	precision and then find, as I often did, that it was *both* slow
	and lacking in needed precision.

I, for one, will be sorry to see it go.  Maybe we should work a bit harder
and get fast 64-bit hardware --

                32  B I T S   I S  N O T   E N O U G H !

-- 

                                       Ed Nather
                                       ihnp4!{ut-sally,kpno}!utastro!nather
                                       Astronomy Dept., U. of Texas, Austin