[Insight-developers] vnl updates : Rounding Test : Performance and Correctness

[kent williams]

> Am I the only programmer who thinks hard about rounding, every time I use it,
> and usually ends up writing my own rounding function so that I know what I¹m
> getting?
> 
> I can¹t think of a case in my own coding where I would trust a
> just_round_it_some_way_or_other function.  But I may not be a Œnormal user.¹
> 
> The fact is that even if the programmer doesn¹t explicitly ask for a
> particular rounding type, they are making some sort of assumption about the
> rounding type.  They¹re likely to be unconsciously making the wrong assumption
> part of the time, which sometimes doesn¹t break anything.  But when it does
> break something, you then spend a lot of time debugging, which is a waste.
> 
> Having clearly labeled rounding functions would be a big win, because it would
> force those hidden assumptions to be explicitly stated. And while I can
> envision algorithms that would work no matter the rounding used, I don¹t think
> they¹re the most likely sort of programming to turn up often.  Usually it
> matters,and sometimes it matters a lot.




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