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It is time to put a dent in the floating point "problems" encountered by many in LV. Due to the (not so?) well-known limitations of floating point representations, comparisons can often lead to surprising results. I propose a new configuration for the comparison functions when floats are involved, call it "Compare Floats" or otherwise. When selected, I suggest that Equals? becomes "Almost Equal?" and the icon changes to the approximately equal sign. EqualToZero could be AlmostEqualToZero, again with appropriate icon changes. GreaterThanorAlmostEqual, etc.
I do not think these need to be new functions on the palette, just a configuration option (Comparison Mode). They should expose a couple of terminals for options so we can control what close means (# of sig figs, # digits, absolute difference, etc.) with reasonable defaults so most cases we do not have to worry about it. We get all of the ease and polymorphism that comes with the built-in functions.
There are many ways to do this, I won't be so bold as to specify which way to go. I am confident that any reasonable method would be a vast improvement over the current method which is hope that you are never bitten by Equals?.
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