dec64 decimal floating point type

[Alix Pexton]

On 13/04/2014 4:29 PM, Francesco Cattoglio wrote:

> I don't quite see the point in this, when there is already a standard
> for floating point decimals
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal64_floating-point_format
> I really should take a deeper look at this, it might be more interesting
> that I am expecting.

The talk I watched only touched on the motivation for a new format very 
briefly, but the gist was that the existing offerings were too 
computationally expensive to emulate in software and hardware support is 
not forthcoming. My understanding is that this format is designed around 
what can be done efficiently with the instructions that are available in 
hardware today.

A...