Re: Fw: Useless sNaNs... or useful?
> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:00:46 -0400
> Subject: Re: Fw: Useless sNaNs... or useful?
> From: Lee Winter <lee.j.i.winter@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: Dan Zuras Intervals <intervals08@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Ian McIntosh <ianm@xxxxxxxxxx>, stds-1788@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Dan Zuras Intervals
> <intervals08@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> Subject: Fw: Useless sNaNs... or useful?
> >> . . .
> >>
> >> One important use is to initialize all floating point variables to
> >> signaling NaNs. If they are inadvertently not properly initialized la=
> >>
> >> . . .
> >>
> >> - Ian McIntosh IBM Canada Lab Compiler Back End Supp=
> >>
> >
> > I know of no companies doing this today.
>
> It is not up to companies. It is up to software implementors.
>
> . . .
>
> >
> > Please name them.
>
> Lee Winter
It doesn't matter.
Just name them.
If my tone sounds challenging, that is only
partially true.
What you & Ian probably don't know is that
I, along with Prof Kahan & Bob, advocated
for consistent behaviors for signalling NaNs
that would permit exactly this application.
As it happened there were sound technical
reasons for features that made it infeasible.
All of which were thought to be more important
than this application. All of which I can
describe for you in detail but hesitate to do
so in this forum.
So if there are people out there doing this,
I want to know who they are. Others will
want to know as well.
Who are they?
Dan