[2001-11-19] The Perils of Floating Point

A programme I've been working on for some time now is being butchered by floating-point rounding errors. I need to either fix it or work around it real soon now, or I'll lose whatever is left of my sanity!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, do take a look at the excellent article “The Perils of Floating Point”. If you're interested, you might also want to take a look at Section 4.2.2 of Donald Knuth's “The Art of Computer Programming, Volume II: Seminumerical Algorithms”, Third Edition. And while you are at it, see also Goldberg's “What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic”. Finally, if you feel like doing something about it, take a look at “Adaptive Precision Floating-Point Arithmetic”.

I have finally acquired Riven, the second title in the excellent Myst series of games. It is supposed to be the toughest in the series and I hope to dive into it as soon as I finish my current project.

Other Posts from 2001