Re: Plans for gnuplot version 5

[Philipp K. J. <ja...@ie...>]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:20:27 +0000
Tait <gnu...@t4...> wrote:

> 
> This just occurred to me. One thing that hangs up more new users than
> anything else is that these days everyone assumes automatic promotion
> of numeric types. And to a lesser degree, on-demand infinite-precision
> math, but that's another topic. The question of why "1/2" is zero
> instead of a half misleads more than a few users into believing that
> gnuplot is fundamentally broken. They don't know or understand the
> underlying data types or their limitations, so these seem like arcane
> gotchas when everything else they've ever used does the promotion
> transparently.

I would like to question the general statement
that "today's users don't understand integer
arithmetic no more". Can you support that claim?

As counter-example, consider Python (as a contemporary,
dynamically-typed language, popular with the current 
"data" crowd), which is similarly finicky about integers 
as gnuplot.

I am not (at this point) arguing for or against making
a change (in fact, I frequently find gnuplot's 1/2 == 0 
behavior rather annoying), but I want to make sure that
there is good reason/evidence that would demand such a
fundamental change.

> 
> I don't think we're supporting any systems or OSes without an FPU
> anymore, right? And memory or CPU are not nearly the limitations they
> once were (at that level). Maybe v5 is the time gnuplot should stop
> treating integer-looking numbers like integers unless requested
> explicitly via int()?
> 
> 
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