From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Making 'eq' == 'eql' in bignum branch Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:50:39 -0400 Message-ID: References: <29f933ac-a6bf-8742-66a7-0a9d6d3e5a88@disroot.org> <8e0320d9-e0d0-2b57-57cc-2df4399f133c@cs.ucla.edu> <87lgaio7xd.fsf@tromey.com> <877em1cb0i.fsf@tromey.com> <765767b2-d2e5-a9a6-f724-d58ecf4847bb@cs.ucla.edu> <76081b5d-8c10-0a37-2c97-d4864c0faa80@cs.ucla.edu> <09153aed-361d-4f82-d9ac-b502314769ae@cs.ucla.edu> <83lg91dqd4.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1535410440 22512 195.159.176.226 (27 Aug 2018 22:54:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2018 22:54:00 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Cl=C3=A9ment?= Pit-Claudel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 28 00:53:56 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQOS-0005kC-5F for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:53:56 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35412 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQQY-0007YO-CY for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:56:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36305) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQPZ-0006iM-03 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:55:05 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQLJ-0006e4-EF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:50:42 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:55273) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQLH-0006bx-SR; Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:50:39 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1fuQLH-0004sg-Nk; Mon, 27 Aug 2018 18:50:39 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from =?iso-8859-1?Q?Cl=C3=A9ment?= Pit-Claudel on Sun, 26 Aug 2018 18:10:13 -0400) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:228989 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > I usually use 1.0e+INF and -1.0e+INF when I need a neutral element > for min and max respectively, rather than most-positive-fixnum. > Is there anything wrong with that? Only that it is a magic sequence that most programmers won't remember. We could put it in the doc strings and manual. But perhaps nil is better. If not, I think we don't even > need to change min and max at all. Why NOT make nil work here? It would be useful in a number of ways, I think. For instance, you could run mapcar with a function that would produce a number or nil, and nil would mean "ignore this one", then apply max or min. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)