Re: Lua minus null (-0)

[Dirk Laurie <dpl@...>]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2011 at 01:47:09AM +0200, Martin Guy wrote:
> It's bizarre to expose such an esoteric implementation detail so
> baldly. Only an IEEE validation suite specialist would be worried
> about seeing the "-"; for normal people, the "-" contains no
> information and is just surprising/worrying.

It's not whether you are a specialist or normal: it's whether the
minus sign is relevant to your application or not.  For example,
you may be planning to calculate 1/x some time later.  Knowing whether
you're going to get -Inf or +Inf may well be useful even for normal
people.  

Lua is about keeping types and keywords few and far between, and 
semantic rules short and simple.  They don't come any shorter and
simpler than "as in C".  Unfortunately, the implications of that rule
may often be accessible to experts only.  

Dirk