Happy Happy Joy Joy (was: On to Hydro)

[Mark S. Miller]

At 01:08 PM 8/19/00 , Ben Laurie wrote:
>I can live with that! I guess there's a certain sense in saying that if
>it is comparable, then its a number (so infinity is a number). OTOH, if
>I can't do arithmetic on it...

But you can, for some definition of arithmetic:

    ? def Inf := 1.0/0.0
    # value: Infinity
    
    ? Inf + 1.0
    # value: Infinity

Likewise, you can do arithmetic with NaNs, which is why they exist.
(OTOH, I exist because a condom broke.  That lowly NaN has a better 
justification than I.)


>Isn't life interesting?

As in the Chinese curse and blessing.  Blessing?  Everyone knows the curse.  
The corresponding blessing is:

     May you live to tell of interesting times.

A widely deployed secure programming language may help bring this about ;)


         Cheers,
         --MarkM