Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 19:02:44 -0500
   From: Alan Watson <xxxxxx@astrosmo.unam.mx>

   Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote:
   > There is no other model competing for being the default. This means
   > that it's requesting other models which should be explicit.

   I agree.

   Selecting different models becomes quite easy if you push inexacts off
   into the library and have a half-decent module system.

Why is this not equally applicable to IEEE flonum arithmetic?  If what
you *want* is IEEE flonum arithmetic, then by all means say so in your
program; but if you don't care, why should IEEE arithmetic be mandated
as the default, precluding, for example, arbitrary-precision flonum
arithmetic, with some user-frobbable parameter specifying the actual
precision, as I mentioned CLISP & SISC support? or, say, in systems
oriented toward business accounting applications, a ten-based flonum
arithmetic system?