&gt; A language storing big numbers in non-native formats, like your Rakudo example, is irrelevant to the parent&#x27;s point.<p>I thought being able to store an up to 8 digit integer in a float was an interesting tidbit. I already knew it but others might not. However, it was also completely irrelevant to a discussion of why 0.1 + 0.2 equals 0.3 in Perl 6 and, imo, even to my (slight over) emphasis that a float is for (efficient) storage and processing of approximations, not exact numbers.<p>&gt; 0.1 isn&#x27;t past any &quot;point&quot; (whatever that means).<p>Precisely. I was directly responding to &quot;And [floats] can store binary fractions exactly up to a point.&quot; What does that mean? &quot;up to a point&quot; is highly ambiguous. The fact that 0.1 isn&#x27;t stored exactly is completely unambiguous.<p>&gt; It just isn&#x27;t representable without recurrence in base 2 much like 1&#x2F;3 isn&#x27;t in base 10.<p>So what? It <i>is</i> representable without recurrence in a pair of base 2 numbers, eg 1 (numerator) and 11 (denominator) for 1&#x2F;3.<p>&gt; Your post could do without &#x27;duh&#x27;<p>OK. I considered that and thought it was OK, all things considered, given that it wasn&#x27;t prominent and succinctly expressed my reaction. But I hear you that even such a gentle &#x27;duh&#x27; is problematic and will be even more careful about how I express myself at HN in future.<p>&gt; and the like as well.<p>Would you be willing to be specific? While I recognize the &#x27;duh&#x27; is edgy, I&#x27;ve reread the rest of what I wrote and don&#x27;t understand what you think I got wrong.