Floating-point arithmetic is quite different from the arithmetic on integers or the one of real numbers. In particular, most transformations, simplifications that can be done on integers are invalid when done on floats. For example: - associativity doesn't hold - distributivity doesn't hold - comparison is tricky & complex This is because (among others things): - limited precision, rounding everywhere - presence of signed zeroes - presence of infinities - presence of NaNs (signaling or quiet) - presence of numbers without inverse - several kind of exceptions. Since they don't follow the same rules as their integer counterpart, better to give them a specific opcode instead of having to test the type of the operands at each manipulation. Signed-off-by: Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@gmail.com>