Ask HN: Ruby, not loosely typed enough?

1 points by seasoup ↗ HN
I've spent a half day debugging a ruby on rails app having to figure out where to put the .to_f so it doesn't screw things up (in more then one place in the code).

Why does Ruby have explicit integer and float classes instead of just one numeric class? I understand the precision has to cut off somewhere, but having to handle this int vs float is just silly.

1 comment

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because integer and float math are very different.

because for some, 1/3 should not be a float but a ratio. if precision matters, you need ratios not floats. however if you just want speed, you want floats.