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Re: NaN semantics

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From:
Tim Conrow
Date:
October 9, 2001 11:47
Subject:
Re: NaN semantics
Message ID:
3BC3465B.768EEFBC@ipac.caltech.edu
Damian Conway wrote:
> 
> Sigh. I *do* see your point of view (Laziness), but I still have immense
> difficulty with the notion that:
> 
>         $x == NaN
> 
> doesn't return true if $x contains NaN.

I *like* the proposed Perl6 semantics; it's DWIMier. The problem is just the
name collision. Why not 'inval' (for invalid), or some such (badval?). This
would preserve NaN in its IEEE sense for the numerical algorithm crew to use.

I see the next problem, though; profusion of 'false' values. 0, "", undef,
inval, NaN, ... ??? There was a long thread that touched on this in the context
of tristate logic in discussion of and around RFC 263, I think.

--

-- Tim Conrow         tim@ipac.caltech.edu                           |

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