On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 21:05:00 -0300, Clark Morris wrote:
>
>A more important reason was that addition of mixed case in either
>ISO/ASCII changed a compare from a simple Compare Logical Character
>into a subroutine.  While this was always true if a true dictionary or
>phone book sort is wanted, this would make it true for virtually all
>compares.  Should A = a?  If not should the sequence be A,a,B,b ....?
> 
IBM 7030 did something like the latter, but neither is right; it's worse.
An example:
    1234
    camel
    Camel
    CAMEL
    canary
    Canary
    CANARY
    cat
    Cat
    CAT

... Note that "CAMEL" comes after "Camel" but before "canary".  So you can't
simply say either that A<a or A>a.

But would you argue that computers should scorn English lexical conventions?

-- gil

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