From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed.esat.net!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nloc2.kpnqwest.net!nloc.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!nreader2.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: MD5 in LISP and abstraction inversions References: <87lmhrznup.fsf@Samaris.tunes.org> <2hadxn7vp2.fsf@dslab7.cs.uit.no> <9t1pbp$njh$1@rznews2.rrze.uni-erlangen.de> <3214932822476660@naggum.net> <3214959235586413@naggum.net> <3bf8590e$0$25391$edfadb0f@dspool01.news.tele.dk> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3215132108468905@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 18 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 04:15:09 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@KPNQwest.no X-Trace: nreader2.kpnqwest.net 1006143309 193.71.66.49 (Mon, 19 Nov 2001 05:15:09 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 05:15:09 MET Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:20343 * Bruce Hoult | No, there is a third possibility: i and 0 compare equal using "<" | | e.g. you can define (a + bi) < (c + di) to be a < c. It may make sense to allow < to work on complex numbers whose imaginary part is zero. Some implementations of complex numbers do not turn these into or consider them reals, but for all relevant purposes, they are. If this is the case, then specifying that < is implementation-dependent is simply the wrong place to do it, because the implementation-dependency lies in whether a complex number with a zero imaginary part _is_ a real. /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.