24 Feb
2020
24 Feb
'20
3:40 p.m.
Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:
Fortran programmers are formally trained (at least I
was, there was a whole semester devoted to this) in accumulated errors.
You did a deep dive into how to code stuff so that the error was reduced
each time instead of increased. It has a lot to do with how floating
point works, it's not exact like integers are.
I was unaware that there's formal training to be had around this but
it's something I'd like to learn more about. Any recommendations on
materials? I don't mind diving into Fortran itself either.
Background: I've been playing around with actuarial calculations
(pensions, life insurance, etc) which involve lots of accumulation over
time and I'm finding that, unsurprisingly, different implementations of
the same rules yield fairly different outcomes due to accumulated
errors.
Sijmen