[IEEE 1788] Motion P1788/M0004.01_Keep_to_754 three week formal discussion begins
P1788 members:
Since the motion has been made and seconded, the three
week formal discussion period has begun. At this time, arguments
for and against may be posted, and amendments (friendly and
otherwise) will be accepted.
This discussion period will end after April 30, after which there
will be a three-week formal voting period. Amendments will
not be accepted during the voting period, but reasons accompanying
any "no" votes (i.e. amendments that would change a "no" vote
to a "yes" vote) will be strongly encouraged.
For convenience, I append the motion.
Sincerely,
Ralph Baker Kearfott
Acting chair, IEEE P-1788
===============================================================
===Motion P1788/M0004.01_Keep_to_754===
Proposer: John Pryce
Seconder: Dan Zuras
===Motion text===
P1788 says nothing about interval arithmetic on computer architectures that
are not 754-compliant.
===Rationale===
This motion is in support of KISS: "Keep It Simple, Stupid". It delimits
1788's responsibilities. It limits and simplifies our work in that our
design decisions may freely assume the existence of NaN (and possible
payload), the sign-exponent-significand layout, etc.
The question has been asked: If 1788 says nothing about non-754
architectures, does that mean that any interval implementation on such
an architecture is automatically 1788-compliant?
This IMO is not a question about the motion but about what
standard-compliance means. My understanding is that an implementation is
compliant with a standard iff it obeys every normative clause in that
standard.
Therefore it is *conceivable* that an implementation on a non-754
machine can be made 1788-compliant -- in the unlikely case that 1788
actually makes no 754-specific decisions!
In practice, presumably, that will not be so. Then, someone may consider
that 1788 should define a "lower tier" of compliance for intervals on
non-754 machines. They may wish to move a suitable amendment to this
motion.
===============================================================
--
---------------------------------------------------------------
R. Baker Kearfott, rbk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (337) 482-5346 (fax)
(337) 482-5270 (work) (337) 993-1827 (home)
URL: http://interval.louisiana.edu/kearfott.html
Department of Mathematics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
(Room 217 Maxim D. Doucet Hall, 1403 Johnston Street)
Box 4-1010, Lafayette, LA 70504-1010, USA
---------------------------------------------------------------