Some median Python NaNsense [LWN.net]

Some median Python NaNsense

Posted Jan 5, 2020 16:39 UTC (Sun) by scientes (guest, #83068)
Parent article: Some median Python NaNsense

Please use "significand" instead of "matissa".

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Some median Python NaNsense

Posted Jan 6, 2020 13:41 UTC (Mon) by Paf (subscriber, #91811) [Link] (1 responses)

Why should that be preferred?

Some median Python NaNsense

Posted Jan 6, 2020 17:45 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

As I understand it, "significand" is the preferred terminology of IEEE 754. Mantissa is used for logarithms. Because logarithms treat the part after the decimal differently from floating point numbers, they wanted to use a different term.