Re: Packaging and importing

[Philippe Lhoste <PhiLho@...>]

Rici Lake wrote:
> For what it's worth, I still think min and max should be primitives 
> rather than part of the math package. They are perfectly well defined 
> for anything for which < or <= is a total-ordering, or something close 
> to a total ordering. [2]

I don't disagree with you, but what are the use-cases? I mean, are they 
that much used that they need a special treatment over other math/string 
functions?

I don't use min and max much in my programs, that's why I ask. Of 
course, I don't much pow/^ either... But perhaps I am either missing 
opportunities, or I am just not in the "right" programming domain.

> [1] I ran into this in the Allegro faq 
> <http://alleg.sourceforge.net/faq.html> this morning, and it charmed me 
> enough that I reproduce it here:
>
> Q: Why is it considered good coding practice to define PI as a 
> constant, rather than just using the value 3.141592 in my code?
>
> A: It simplifies the maintenance of your program, in case the value of 
> PI ever needs to be changed. Also it will make your program more 
> portable to other compilers that use different values of PI.

Very nice, they have thought of everything, including compilers using PI 
as 22/7 or those living near black holes or on a non-euclidian world.

I would have written that it is more terse than giving the numerical 
values, and less prone to errors, but it is too practical...

--
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
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