Because 8 is a perfectly good floating point number.

Let's generalize the concept of math.ceil to include a "digits" parameter; that is, you get to choose the number of digits after the decimal point that you want to keep. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds; the Round function already has this ability.

By this new definition, Math.Ceil(12.755, 2) would return 12.76, which you wouldn't be able to return as an int. The only values that could be returned as int would be those of the form Math.Ceil(x, 0), but it probably doesn't make much sense to have a function that returns a different type based on the value of one of its input parameters.

Anyway, it's more convenient to stay in the floating-point realm for working with these numbers, especially since any subsequent math on the returned numbers is almost certainly going to involve floating point anyway.

Because 8.0 is a perfectly good floating point number.

Let's generalize the concept of math.ceil to include a "digits" parameter; that is, you get to choose the number of digits after the decimal point that you want to keep. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds; the Round function already has this ability.

By this new definition, Math.Ceil(12.755, 2) would return 12.76, which you wouldn't be able to return as an int. The only values that could be returned as int would be those of the form Math.Ceil(x, 0), but it probably doesn't make much sense to have a function that returns a different type based on the value of one of its input parameters.

Anyway, it's more convenient to stay in the floating-point realm for working with these numbers, especially since any subsequent math on the returned numbers is almost certainly going to involve floating point anyway.

Because I'm already working in floating point, and 8 is a perfectly good floating point number.

Let's generalize the concept of math.ceil to include a "digits" parameter; that is, you get to choose the number of digits after the decimal point that you want to keep. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds; the Round function already has this ability.

By this new definition, Math.Ceil(12.755, 2) would return 12.76, which you wouldn't be able to return as an int. The only values that could be returned as int would be those of the form Math.Ceil(x, 0), but it probably doesn't make much sense to have a function that returns a different type based on the value of one of its input parameters.

Anyway, it's more convenient to stay in the floating-point realm for working with these numbers, especially since any subsequent math on the returned numbers is almost certainly going to involve floating point anyway.

Because 8 is a perfectly good floating point number.

Let's generalize the concept of math.ceil to include a "digits" parameter; that is, you get to choose the number of digits after the decimal point that you want to keep. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds; the Round function already has this ability.

By this new definition, Math.Ceil(12.755, 2) would return 12.76, which you wouldn't be able to return as an int. The only values that could be returned as int would be those of the form Math.Ceil(x, 0), but it probably doesn't make much sense to have a function that returns a different type based on the value of one of its input parameters.

Anyway, it's more convenient to stay in the floating-point realm for working with these numbers, especially since any subsequent math on the returned numbers is almost certainly going to involve floating point anyway.