From quite a while back but still very relevant today, especially when debugging problems (most people would post them in the order integers, floats, but Julia did it in the opposite way):
- [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “had a great discussion of how floating point arithmetic can betray you on Mastodon yesterday, there are tons of good examples in the replies”
[Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans: “today I’m thinking about how floating point numbers can be treacherous — what are specific examples of when they’ve betrayed you?so far I have:…” – Mastodon
- [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “examples of problems with integers”
Usually I tend to explain integer versus floating point math as lossless versus lossy data compression (for instance WavPack and FLAC versus MP3 compression of PCM audio data, or BMP versus JPEG compression of 2D digital image data).
Either way: floating point and integer problems cause real harm. One interesting comment illustrating that was [Wayback/Archive] Ian Kirker on Twitter: “@b0rk I didn’t see this one in the list, which sticks in my memory: science.org – Fatal Error: How Patriot Overlooked a Scud”
[No wayback/Archive] Fatal Error: How Patriot Overlooked a Scud | Science
If you like listening instead of reading, then [Wayback/Archive] 452: Numbers on Computers Are Weird — Embedded is a great podcast episode where Julia gets interviewed by Christopher White, and Elecia White which I found via [Wayback/Archive] Julia Evans on Twitter: “was on the @embeddedfm podcast this week talking about our upcoming “How Integers and Floats Work” zine, plus some meta discussion about making zines”
Either way, be sure to read the other replies to b0rk’s posts too as many interesting tidbits did not make it in her underlying blog posts:
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 