Don't get me wrong. I avoid _. too. I _thought_ my code never produced _. , but when I upgraded to 6.02 I found that I was wrong. Now the only question is, how many other places was I wrong?
It's for this reason - so that switching releases won't be a dangerous gamble - that the behavior of _. needs to be frozen. And then, as long as it's frozen, it might as well be documented. And finally, it wouldn't hurt if it followed some logical rules like those that Mark & I & others have mentioned. But I would be happy if I could get a run-time error if my code ever created _. . That's how far _I_ want to get from _. ! Henry Rich > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kip Murray > Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 11:54 PM > To: Beta forum > Subject: Re: [Jbeta] Another incompatibility: _ >. _. WAS: _ <. _. > > In addition to John Randall's reference to > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number#Generalizations_and_e > xtensions > > there is a comment by Walter Rudin, Arithmetic in [0,infinity], > Section 1.22 of his Real and Complex Analysis, Third Edition: > > "It may seem strange to define 0*infinity = 0. However, one verifies > without difficulty that with this definition the commutative, > associative, and distributive laws hold in [0,infinity] without any > restriction. > > "The cancellation laws have to be treated with some care ..." > > Sorry, Henry. I'm getting as far away from _. as I can! > > Kip Murray > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.math.uh.edu/~km > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
