[Info-vax] VMS Software Q1 '23 Update

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] a "small" (absolute) difference between two values. [...]


> Absolute difference is sensitive to the scale
> of the data.

   _My_ "absolute" was in the sense of "absolute value", as in
Math.Abs().  Any dependence on the scale was built into '"small"', not
"absolute".  Hence the quotation marks around '"small"'.


> Consider the case where the numbers represent money.

   Who cares what the numbers represent?  For example, if you round to
the nearest integer, then 1.49999 and 1.50001 differ by only 0.00002,
but one rounds to 1, and the other to 2, so the lame test says that
they're "unequal".  And 1.50001 and 2.49999 differ by 0.99998, but they
both round to 2, so the lame test says that they're "equal".  Any test
which treats a difference of 0.00002 as significant, and a difference of
0.99998 as negligible, is, I claim, (obviously) a bad test, regardless
of what the numbers might represent.