Mike Berry wrote:
> 
>         In the float/double question, everybody is making it a real-time vs.
> file-time comparison, which I don't think is totally fair.  CSound,
> however you use it now, was designed as a file-time program.

I'm afraid I have to turn this on its head and say that csound, however
it was designed, is now used both real-time and file-time. Why should
the intended limited scope of a tool outweigh the actual uses people
find for it? I don't think it should. So I disagree with your statement
that:

> ....  Any improvements should be judged first on whether they improve
> file generation (e.g. sound quality) and then on how they impact compile
> times.

I think we should rather, whenever possible, take both into account. If
there is a way to provide options so the user can push csound further in
either direction, then that is what I'm in favor of. A compile-time flag
would do fine for me (I could just have two binaries: a speedier one and
a "better" one).

This is assuming that there is significant speed loss in the actual
performance of the proposed double-precision version, which several
folks have pointed out might not be the case (or at least might not be
that bad). I'm now quite curious to see what actually happens in
practice. It would be pretty funny if all this talk were shown to be
completely irrelevant.