Some of the complexity that comes with this really comes from the complexity of IEEE734 itself, plus the fragmentation of alternatives at lower precision.

I would have loved if the article mentioned the efforts at integrating Posits [0] in risc-v. While IEEE734 compatibility will obviously be necessary for any foreseeable future, it would be nice if the industry could settle on a better alternative which avoids many of the flaws with IEEE floats.

[0] https://github.com/andrepd/posit-rust