On Friday, 26 August 2022 at 16:28:32 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>On 8/25/22 9:01 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>On 8/25/2022 10:38 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>0 is no better here but also no worse.
0 is equal or worse than NaN. It is true that sometimes 0 is equal. But it is never better.
I fully don't ever expect any changes to come from this discussion. But just to continue the point here, yes, it's slightly better in some cases. The question to answer is how many cases, and is the pain caused by having to go correct problems that should never have existed in the first place worth fixing those few cases where it actually helps.
At the end of the day, the answer is: Default initializing floats to NaN is (very) arguably important to the niche high-expertise line of work Walter engaged in, and fairly annoying to the vast sea of untapped market potential and prospective programmers D may or may not sorta-kinda-hope to snag a share of someday, as its figurative hairline gradually recedes trying to determine how best to balance being the greatest wisest language in the world at certain arbitrary vanishingly minor daily debugging issues while still providing users with countless ways to freely shoot themselves in the foot and crash their planes on weekends.
It's all a weighting issue, and the weight has been placed on the importance of the niche work over the some small percentage of grumbling and stubbed toes the different-from-how-everyone-else-does-it change incurs.