Float vs Int? [ WAS: Re: RFC: Hello World 2000 Benchmark ]

[Joshua Chamas <jo...@chamas.com>]

Joshua Chamas wrote:
> 
> Hey,
> 
> I'd like some comments on the Hello World 2000 benchmark that
> I am creating.  One of the great failings of the Hello World
> benchmark is that it doesn't address the runtime execution
> of various web application environments.
> 

It seems that the assumption of a perl type rand() float was 
wrong cross language... perl has it, but PHP doesn't, to get a 
rand() float in PHP, one seems to need to:

  $rand = rand(0,1000) / 1000;

So I wonder, if this rand token that gets inserted into the
HTML like 

  $var = $i+$j+$rand; ?>
  <? echo($var) ?> Hello World Hello World Hello World 

should be an int or a float?  Personally, I can't remember
the last time I needed floating point logic in an HTML template,
so it seems that I maybe I should stick with ints.  Note that I 
believe perl handles floats better than Java or PHP, so this 
decision affects the results of the benchmark.  I think floats
should be part of a general language test, but this one?

Your comments would be appreciated.

--Josh