Re: pi seems not to be a constant

Pierpaolo Bernardi writes:
 > On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 12:28 AM, Don Cohen
 > <[email protected]> wrote:
 > > Pierpaolo Bernardi writes:
 > >  > A typical use case for adjustable precision floats is the following:
 > >  >
 > >  > (setf (ext:long-float-digits) some-appropriate-number-of-bits)
 > >  > (large-body-of-standard-portable-cl-code-using-long-floats)
 > >  >
 > >  > If long-float-digits is changed and the "constants" are not adjusted
 > >  > then STANDARD PORTABLE CL code will break.
 > >
 > > I don't understand what you think will go wrong.
 > > Please specify.
 > 
 > Portable, standard, CL code expects the value of
 > MOST-POSITIVE-LONG-FLOAT to be the most positive long float value.

I already demonstrated that this expectation is violated in clisp
as things are right now.

I didn't actually propose to "fix" that.
I'd rather "fix" the expectations of users/programmers who set
long-float-digits. 

 > With your proposal, the example case I described above won't work.

Your code above does not demonstrate this.  I was asking for such a
demonstration.  How about a demonstration of some code that might
be useful for something other than demonstrating non-compliance?

 > Since I think the above case is an important one, I wouldn't be happy
 > if Clisp changed in this way.

Again I want to see more detail on this important case.

 > OK, I agree.  In fact I think that, if one wants to retain adjustable
 > precision long floats, then any change to the status quo will make
 > things worse.

I'm still waiting to see how my proposed change makes things worse.

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