The real numbers BTFO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXdFGbuAoF0&feature=youtu.be
I know it's old but it's still gold and he's right with every word - I'd even say with every letter coming out of his mouth and I'm not exaggerating.
If you thing "there is nothing wrong with R" or "R is a solid concept" then go and fuck yourself so hard I can't even find words for it.
An argument: The hand-wavy definition of R allows throwing together complex algorithms which erases the chance of finding relationships between them. F.e. there are many algorithms that generate Pi yet Pi is just a number in R and NOT A FUCKING COLLECTION OF ALGORITHMS WHICH IS ACTUALLY IS.
Why does it matter? - When you have a function that takes a long time to calculate and you want to write it more efficent it can often help to have an approximation of pi as a finite sum of rational numbers because then you can find relations of the rational elements of the finite sum and the rest of the numbers in your calculation - then you can cancel them out and make the code more efficient.
But thanks to R and fancy computers we just use a constant like 3.1415926535... that hides a lot of critical information about what is actually going on, destroying any hope in finding realations and creating something more efficient.
Yes the concept is usefull but it destroys a lot of analysability potential.
/thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXdFGbuAoF0&feature=youtu.be
I know it's old but it's still gold and he's right with every word - I'd even say with every letter coming out of his mouth and I'm not exaggerating.
If you thing "there is nothing wrong with R" or "R is a solid concept" then go and fuck yourself so hard I can't even find words for it.
An argument: The hand-wavy definition of R allows throwing together complex algorithms which erases the chance of finding relationships between them. F.e. there are many algorithms that generate Pi yet Pi is just a number in R and NOT A FUCKING COLLECTION OF ALGORITHMS WHICH IS ACTUALLY IS.
Why does it matter? - When you have a function that takes a long time to calculate and you want to write it more efficent it can often help to have an approximation of pi as a finite sum of rational numbers because then you can find relations of the rational elements of the finite sum and the rest of the numbers in your calculation - then you can cancel them out and make the code more efficient.
But thanks to R and fancy computers we just use a constant like 3.1415926535... that hides a lot of critical information about what is actually going on, destroying any hope in finding realations and creating something more efficient.
Yes the concept is usefull but it destroys a lot of analysability potential.
/thread
