Re: Paul Sephton's article "A Question Of Rounding" in the Linux Gazette

[Thorsten Siebenborn <7_born@xxxxxx>]

Vincent Lefevre schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> Most of you probably aren't aware of Paul Sephton's article
> "A Question Of Rounding" in the Linux Gazette:
>
>   http://linuxgazette.net/143/TWDT.html#sephton
>
> As you can see, most of this article is wrong.

"Most" is a bit harsh. One error is that the value 45.658 of
45.657784532 is accurate to five digits, not three (He obviously meant 
three fractional digits). Then he didn't knew that 2.49999999999992
isn't binary, but must be already approximated. I have seen far worse
articles.

------------------------ Paul Septhon ---------------------------
> However, when formatting numbers for display, it is more desirable to
> accurately represent these same numbers in a consistent way according
> to industry and mathematical standards.

He means "Round away from zero" or according to the Draft standard,
"roundTiesToAway". So his idea of implementing other rounding modes
is in fact already anticipated in the new IEEE 754 R draft.
What is so wrong with the article that it should be killed ?

Best,
Thorsten