From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA11454; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:38:03 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA12000 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:38:02 +0100 (MET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id fA2Ec1j16242; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:38:01 +0100 (MET) Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id PAA12089; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:38:01 +0100 (MET) From: Pierre Weis Message-Id: <200111021438.PAA12089@pauillac.inria.fr> Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Sorting In-Reply-To: <200110311342.OAA0000020573@beaune.inria.fr> from Damien Doligez at "Oct 31, 101 02:42:22 pm" To: damien.doligez@inria.fr (Damien Doligez) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:38:01 +0100 (MET) Cc: caml-list@inria.fr X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk > >What are advantages and disadvantages in parametrizing either by '<' > >or by the 3-way comparison? > > It's better because it is more modern :-) [...] > -- Damien Wao! I love this argument, thank you Damien! Just for fun, I would like to help with a small figure that will even enforce this definitive argument. Consider the following figure 1 that has to be read horizontally as well as vertically, and where vertical arrows have to be interpreted as semantics equivalence, as opposed to horizontal arrows which are used to designate mere opposition (or ``semantical'' contrary), as typographical difference between horizontal and vertical arrows emphasizes. Hence, the diagram has not to be confused with a categorical commutating diagram: even if the vertical commutation is granted, the horizontal commutation does not apply. In particular, you cannot deduce from the figure that modern is equivalent to function, but you can take it for granted that object is new, good, and modern. Note that this figure summarizes also some fruitful guidelines for programming language designers :). Note also that you can add new balloons to the figure in order to help you to explain your point of view to others during discussions; for instance consider adding balloons for syntax and/or semantics proposals/extensions for Caml, or also new semantics fields such as classic, revised, obsolete, pure, hot, {\it ad libitum}... |--------| |-------------| | modern | <---------> | traditional | |--------| |-------------| ^ ^ | | | | v v |--------| |-------------| | good | <---------> | bad | |--------| |-------------| ^ ^ | | | | v v |--------| |-------------| | new | <---------> | old | |--------| |-------------| ^ ^ | | | | v v |--------| |-------------| | object | <---------> | function | |--------| |-------------| Fig. 1, semantical fields associations and equivalences I hope nobody will take this as a personnal attack, but as a kind of funny reminder that we should try to do our best to avoid using words with strong connotations out of our field: it is too easy to generate flamewares this way! In my opinion, we should prefer technical terms and arguments directely borrowed from computer science, either from theory or from practice... Hope this will help, Pierre Weis INRIA, Projet Cristal, Pierre.Weis@inria.fr, http://pauillac.inria.fr/~weis/ ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr