From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!128.39.3.168!uninett.no!news-feed.ifi.uio.no!ifi.uio.no!not-for-mail From: Erik Naggum Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Numbers in Lisp (was: macros vs HOFs) Date: 17 Sep 2002 13:53:24 +0000 Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 41 Message-ID: <3241259604149116@naggum.no> References: <3D7CB8DF.8050108@pontos.net> <3240690993463545@naggum.no> <3240773995474691@naggum.no> <3240847754703746@naggum.no> <3240932601351524@naggum.no> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: maud.ifi.uio.no 1032270805 10658 129.240.64.16 (17 Sep 2002 13:53:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ifi.uio.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Sep 2002 13:53:25 GMT Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:41061 * Alexander Schmolck | How does knowing that 'a' is of type rational completely determine the return | type of (sqrt a)? Please try to understand. The argument to `sqrt´ is of type `number´, and the return value is of type `number´. | What makes you think I disagree with this? Your repetitive argument about division. | I'm not. Sometimes, other people are better judges of such things than oneself. | I'm simply interested in the practical experiences [...] But you cannot do that usefully without understanding the theory. | I still think trying to draw from the practical expertise of other people is | often vastly superior to trying to derive something from first principles or | just adopting what is most common. Sure, but you need to understand fully what they have practical expertise in. | It is of course possible that what I want to know about is really to | imprecise or otherwise unsuitable to be properly answered in that way. It has appeared to me that you lack foundation in your quest for knowledge and thus that there is a high risk of leading you astray given truth that you will misinterpret. | If you mean of the first: (expt 27 1/3), (log 8 2) etc. I meant specifically the compatibility problems you alluded to. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.