[Info-vax] VMS Software Q1 '23 Update

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/28/2023 3:01 PM, Steven Schweda wrote:
>> [...] 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"'.

Yes.

But it can be difficult to determine upfront what a good value
for small it with absolute if one does not know the magnitude of
the numbers up front.

Relative difference is much more robust for that problem.

But relative difference has a problem with numbers
close to zero.

Arne