proposal-decimal

There is a decimal proposal for JS. It almost certainly won't use normal operators though because of the JIT implementor complaints about adding BigInt (not to mention recently dropping the record/tuple proposal over `===`). https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

> - Where are decimals, to avoid things like `parseInt(0.00000051) === 5`? There is a draft proposal for this: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal Additionally, BigInt has been available for years: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe... (unfortunately does not serve as a u64 / i64 replacement due to performance implications and lack of wrapping/overflow behavior) > - Why are inbuilt globals allowed to be modified? > Error/null handling are still haphazard things. How would you suggest addressing these in a way that is backwards compatible with all existing web content?

The only mainstream language I'm aware of which supports high / arbitrary precision decimal numbers as a language feature is C#. Java, Python and Ruby have them as libraries included with the standard distribution, but to my knowledge they don't have any capabilities you couldn't implement yourself in a library. Regardless, there is an active proposal to add a 128-bit decimal type to JS: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

Bloomberg are currently sponsoring Igalia to work on adding native Decimal number support to JavaScript. https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal This is an active proposal and was last discussed in the September 2023 meeting.

would it be possible, for example, to access the standard decimal library of C# or Python via Javascript, thus not having to wait for the TC39 spec / implementation? [1] [1] https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

given the popularity of javascript, it's about time we had better native tools for dealing with numbers in general, but it seems like the discussion is very slow on this front. for instance, the decimal proposal is still at stage 1 [1]. and no, BigInt does not solve that. [1] https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

There is a stage 1 proposal for BigDecimal. https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

There's a proposal to add a decimal type to the spec, too. https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal Seems like it's a long ways away from being available, though.

From what I’ve read, TC39 acknowledges that this is important and is working on fixing JavaScript’s deficiencies in this area: – BigInts (arbitrary precision integers) were a recent addition: https://exploringjs.com/impatient-js/ch_bigints.html – A proposal for `Decimal` (base 10 floating point numbers with arbitrary precision) is currently at stage 1: https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal

JS urgently needs support for decimals [1] and thus be able to enter sectors such as scientific and financial. V8 + dynamic language + better math support = perfect environment for many applications out there [1] https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decimal