Integer division

[Gene Ward Smith]

In article <4917 at alice.UUCP> td at alice.UucP (Tom Duff) writes:
>standard, and Fortran is probably a Good Thing for a computer to support --
>certainly more important than niggling know-nothing number-theoretic nonsense.

 Personally, I think we should do everything the way Cobol does it, and
to hell with niggling nonsense about the "right" way to do numerical 
computations. So what if floating point arithmetic gets a little screwed
up, as long as you can do double entry bookkeeping.

>Why does Fortran do it that way?
>Probably because the IBM 701 did it that way.  Why did the IBM 701
>do it that way?  Well, at the time people thought that a divide
>instruction that satisfied certain identities was more important
>than mod function behavior.  Certainly in most of the applications
>for which Fortran was designed (i.e. engineering numerical calculations)
>the behavior of the mod function is of minimal interest. [DUFF]

  And this attitude shows; what do you think we are complaining about?

>
>On a higher level of discourse, this writer (Matthew P Whiner) seems
>to think that mathematicians enjoy some sort of moral and intellectual
>superiority to engineers and computer scientists.  Usually, this
>attitude is a symptom of envy, since mathematicians are so hard to
>employ, can't get decent salaries when they do find work, and have
>a much harder time raising grant money.  The smart ones embrace
>computer science rather than denigrating it.  The dull ones just
>say ``Computer Science? Pfui: that's not mathematics,'' thus demonstrating
>their lack of understanding of the nature of mathematics and of
>computer science.

  What are you trying to do here -- prove yourself wrong by self-referential
example? Do you really think those mathematicians (the vast majority, I
assure you) who think there is some kind of difference between mathematics
and Computer Science are wrong? If so, why are you attacking mathematicians
but not Computer Scientists? Do you make as much money as your doctor? What
about your lawyer?
>In summary:
>	It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than
>to speak up and remove all doubt.

  Tell me the truth -- is this a gag or are you serious???

  To everyone else but Tom Duff -- thank you for letting me blow off years
of accumulated steam. To Tom Duff -- thank you for letting me feel that
mathematicians *really are* a little bit better than Computer Scientists/
Engineers (in fact, I never thought this before, and I probably won't think
it next week).

ucbvax!brahms!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
ucbvax!weyl!gsmith      "When Ubizmo talks, people listen."