On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Ben Smith-Mannschott <bsmith.o...@gmail.com > wrote:
> > 2 Make NaN contagious > --------------------- > > Define min and max to return NaN if and only if at least one of their > arguments is NaN. This seems most in keeping with the (admittedly > perverse) behavior of NaN as specified. > > The behavior isn't perverse- there's a difference between numerical comparisons and ordering. To see why this is so, consider the case should NaN = NaN. For ordering (sorting, etc.), this makes perfect sense. Numerically, however- sqrt(-1) = NaN, and sqrt(-2) = NaN as well, so if NaN = NaN, then sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-2). It's easy to get from there to all sorts of fun conclusions, like 1 = 2, and so on. The IEEE spec implements (to the extent it can) *numerical* equality. What most people want is ordering (unless the want numerical equality). Pretty much every language ever screws this up. Brian -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
