Roger and Eric have referred to NaN in their messages.  I suggest
that this usage should be avoided.

NaN is meaningful only in reference to the IEEE floating-point
spec.

J is above that.  J deals with numbers.  Floating-point is an
implementation detail that should not be alluded to in the
description of the language.

_. is indeterminate.  It is not NaN.  For one thing, it is
a number (at least it used to be - I haven't had the courage
to move to rbeta yet), while NaN is explicitly not a number.
And, there are many values and kinds of NaN, but only one
indeterminate.

So, NaNs in external sources produce unpredictable results.
Use of _. produces unpredictable results.  But they are
not the same things.

Henry Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Iverson
> Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 9:37 AM
> To: Beta forum
> Subject: Re: [Jbeta] issues not yet resolved
> 
> I am sorry to say that we won't get fixes for these two 
> problems into this 
> release. We have just run out of time and need to get this 
> release out so we 
> can clear the decks for the next round of activities. The NaN 
> problem turned 
> into a surprisingly difficult mess and took much longer than expected.
> 
> Your two bugs will be at the top of the list for 602.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "bill lam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Beta forum" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 12:05 AM
> Subject: [Jbeta] issues not yet resolved
> 
> 
> > [Jbeta] for-loop, continue, switch-case  30 Sep 2007
> > http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/beta/2007-September/002383.html
> >
> > [Jbeta] m&i. and boxed unicode 30 Sep 2007
> > http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/beta/2007-September/002382.html
> >
> > Will they be fixed?
> > 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > For information about J forums see 
> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see 
> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm

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