Playing with the bits of floats

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <284 at bgalli.UUCP> bga at bgalli.UUCP (Billy G. Allie) writes:
>You are right, C is not the 'One True Programming ...'.  BUT - it does let
>me get ``under the hood'' and play `dirty' (I question the use of the word
>"dirty") tricks.  This is the reason I started using C and it is the reason
>I will continue to use C.

C is good for that, but experience has shown that the vast majority
of the time, portable C coding practice suffices, and it has the
benefit of reducing the amount of work over the long run.  Necessary
non-portabilities can virtually always be isolated in a small section
of code, with the rest system-independent.  Unnecessary non-portabilities
are best avoided altogether.