←back to thread

Uncertain<T>

(nshipster.com)
444 points samtheprogram | 1 comments | 28 Aug 25 17:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.228s | source
Show context
layer8 ◴[28 Aug 25 19:19 UTC] No.45055943[source]▶
Arguably Uncertain should be the default, and you should have to annotate a type as certain T when you are really certain. ;)
replies(2): >>45056272 #>>45056582 #
nine_k ◴[28 Aug 25 20:17 UTC] No.45056582[source]▶
Only for physical measurements. For things like money, you should be pretty certain, often down to exact fractional cents.

It appears that a similar approach is implemented in some modern Fortran libraries.

replies(4): >>45057007 #>>45057078 #>>45057151 #>>45060359 #
1. XorNot ◴[28 Aug 25 21:02 UTC] No.45057007[source]▶
Money has the problem that no matter how clever you are someone will punch all the values into Excel and then complain they don't match.

Or specify they're paying X per day, but want hourly itemized billing...but it should definitely come out to X per day (this was one employer which meant I invoiced them with like 8 digits of precision due to how it divided, and they refused to accept a line item for mathematical uncertainty aggregates).