The current proposal
Siegfried Rump wrote, concerning whether intervals
should or should not contain Infinity as a number:
> Imagine the question "What is the result of -0==0" is at stake.
Good example. There are indeed two ways to look at this, and each
is convenient for some things and inconvenient for others. So 754
picked the one that seems most convenient for most cases -- but ALSO
provides the totalOrder() predicate to accomodate the other cases.
Incidentally, if they/we had made the other choice (-0 != +0), there
would have been a branchless way to compute (x==y) in the (-0==+0)
sense -- i.e. without undue performance penalty: ((x+(+0))==(y+(+0)).
So, with respect to IA, when the decision to chose whether or not
standard intervals can contain infinities comes up for a vote, we
should try to make sure that there are viable constructs to deal
with cases that would have preferred the other approach.
Michel.
Sent: 2009-02-22 19:39:22 UTC