> Well, doubles can represent all the numbers a 52 bit int can, so there's not a huge reason to not use doubles for whole numbers.
Not exactly.
> It also means that new programmers don't get confused when they do 1/3 and get 1
Is this (actually, getting 0 from 1/3) really more surprising than doing 2+2 and getting 3.9999999999999?
Floats are mostly inexact and introduce errors with almost every operation. It's something you have to constantly keep in mind when doing any kind of math with meaningful comsequences. I for one think that exact types are both more useful for many practical cases, as well as significantly simpler in use.
All floating point integer operations with values smaller than 252 are exact. Most floating point operations with small values with few significant figures are precise.
Fraction, and there are fractions like 1/10 that cannot be represented precisely in base two, much like 1/3 cannot be represented precisely in base 10.
Beyond that, there's the usual issue of pushing out the least significant bits, but that's insurmountable while working in finite precision.
Not exactly.
> It also means that new programmers don't get confused when they do 1/3 and get 1
Is this (actually, getting 0 from 1/3) really more surprising than doing 2+2 and getting 3.9999999999999?
Floats are mostly inexact and introduce errors with almost every operation. It's something you have to constantly keep in mind when doing any kind of math with meaningful comsequences. I for one think that exact types are both more useful for many practical cases, as well as significantly simpler in use.