On 10/22/2008 11:44 PM, Martin Rubey wrote:
> For empty?, zero? and perhaps also one?, I actually find using these
> clearer than equality, since [], 0 and 1 are really very special
> things.

Do you see a difference between (the constant) "empty" and the function
"bracket" that is called with an empty tuple as argument? Oh yes,
panAxiom doesn't distinguish between constants and nullary function. :-(

> (Note that in written German, there is a rule of thumb saying that
> the numbers from zero to twelve should be spelled out... I think
> that's quite similar)

I wonder whether they had 6 fingers back at the time when they invented 
that rule. ;-)

> Of course, we could also check in "=" whether one of the arguments is
> 0, to do optimisations.

You are, only allowed to do that, if
1) there is a function zero? and
2) zero? and =0 are tightly connected in the obvious way.

If you transform =0 to zero? automagically that would mean another rule 
that is build into the language. (In general I don't like it, but for 0 
an 1 it might be OK, since they are already treated in a special 
way--they are not numbers but special identifiers that do not contain 
alpha-letters.)

Ralf

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