Re: (< complex) and friends

[Jon Wilson]

Here's a different way to think about it that makes the (<) case, as 
well as perhaps (< 2 1 "hi"), make sense quite naturally.  < is a 
procedure that returns #f if any of its arguments is less than or equal 
to the preceding argument.  Otherwise, it returns #t.

This definition makes the case (< a b) extend quite naturally to (< a b 
c ...), as well as to (< a) and (<).

And anyway, what harm does (<) really do?  Why do you think that it is 
"broken"?

Many functions which expect a list (fold, map) or a number of arguments 
(+, *) accept an empty list or no args as degenerate cases, and give 
sensible results.  When you write a procedure which expects a list or 
uses a rest arg, you generally handle the degenerate cases gracefully 
(instead of raising an error).  Why should < not be the same?

Bill Schottstaedt wrote:
> A couple similar cases:
>
> guile> (< 2 1 "hi") 
> #f
>
> guile> (* 0 "hi")     
> 0
>
> On the (apply < ...) business, I'd rather get an error than have something
> broken go by just because "it is prettier".  That null list is going to trip 
> you...