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Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

It's a correct description. (Perhaps further refined as "technically correct".) The following are not exact values of π or τ, only approximate ones:

  >>> import math
  >>> math.pi
  3.141592653589793
  >>> math.tau
  6.283185307179586

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The effort wanted to replace all uses of Pi (including the ones in math formulas) and not just their use in (floating-point) computer programs where we implement approximations of those formulas.

Sure.

But just because there was {a lot of work to replace all uses of pi with tau} doesn't mean there wasn't {a lot of work to replace all approximate uses of pi with approximate uses of tau in computer programs}.

Right, which makes it an effectively incorrect description. It is like if I said I wanted to change all green fruits to orange ones and you reported that as "my undertaking to change green apples to orange apples." It's the truth, but it's not the whole truth.

As I noted parenthetically: Perhaps further refined as "technically correct".

Nothing in the rest of the article deals with pi or tau as transcendental numbers, only about a bit patterns and (implicitly) floats or doubles.

If your focus is IEEE 754 apples, then perhaps other sorts of fruit aren't so important?

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