As a scientist, I'm always irritated when numbers are given to an unnecessary and meaningless degree of accuracy. In your June issue, for instance, the BYTE Benchmarks are quoted to six figures of accuracy (1 part in a million). The difference between an Integer index of 0.933050 and an index of 0.933051 would be just 1 second after running continuously for 12 days! Few physical quantities can be meaningfully measured to this accuracy. The weight of a computer, for instance, is usually quoted as something like 6.6 pounds, rather than as, say, 6.60123 pounds.
Bill Appelbe
Associate professor
College of Computing
Georgia Tech
bill@cc.gatech.edu
Appelbe is correct. Future versions of the benchmarks will be reporting to three figures of accuracy.--Rick Grehan
Flexible C++
Matthew Wilson
My approach to software engineering is far more pragmatic than it
is
theoretical--and no language better exemplifies this than C++.
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A Benchmark Peeve
