Re: [boost] New Boost.XInt Library, request preliminary review

Subject: Re: [boost] New Boost.XInt Library, request preliminary review
From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-03-30 19:42:48

Chad Nelson wrote:
> Where am I explaining things wrong, that everyone seems to think that
> any function can randomly return a NaN, and is complaining about it on
> the basis of that misconception?

You stopped reading too soon. In my the next sentence, I said (quoting from 
memory):

"I don't see how checking the result of every operator/ for NaN is better, 
more readable or more expressive than checking the denominator for being 
zero beforehand"

which, as you can see, acknowledges both the rarity of functions returning 
NaN and the fact that they do so under circumstances that are well defined 
and easily checked for.

Besides, the problem introduced by the NaN, that every function taking a 
xint must be prepared to receive it, is not affected by the number of 
functions that produce NaNs.