Re: One more oddity with gcc and vax floats...

Paul Koning <[email protected]> Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:22:56 -0400
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.ports.vax
Message-ID <[email protected]>

> On Jun 10, 2026, at 1:08=E2=80=AFPM, John Klos <[email protected]> wrote:
>=20
>> docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html says that python
>> numbers.Real "represent machine-level double precision floating-point
>> numbers", going on to say "You are at the mercy of the underlying
>> [hardware/software implementation] for the accepted range and =
handling
>> of overflow".  If the test suite still fails on VAXen, I would say =
it's
>> broken to the point that filing a bug report against the test suite =
is
>> appropriate.
>=20
> Perhaps the gatekeepers represent a small, vocal minority, but a few =
of the Python folks got VERY upset at the idea of supporting non-IEEE =
floating point.
>=20
> It might be worth trying again. Perhaps they've forgotten me by now, =
or someone else can suggest having the option to skip NaN / infinity =
tests. We could say it's for an embedded environment with software =
floating point so we don't upset the gatekeepers.

That's odd.  I wonder what Guido says about this.  After all, he comes =
from a place where floating point was very different from what IEEE =
created.

	paul