Re: [R] a < b < c is alway TRUE

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From: Till Baumgaertel (till.baumgaertel@epost.de)
Date: Sat 07 Jul 2001 - 01:16:50 EST 

Message-id: <3B45F282.14605.E53C8A@localhost>

> Because it leads to absurdities like this whole thread has been discussing!
i think this is a misunderstanding: this thread is not from absurdistan but
from userland.

> What should they have done? They should have done what Fortran,
> Pascal, etc. do, and have a separate logical or boolean type that
> isn't automatically converted to a numerical type.
in my understanding R compares better to an comuter algebra system like
mathematica than to a programming language like pascal or so.

i don't know the mathematica-syntax for the natural "3 < 2 < 1", but i think
it's a BAD idea to force *users* to write something weired like "ord(3 < 2) <
1".

in an *application-oriented* statistical software-system natural syntax should
be preferred to a "programmological"-syntax. thus it would be more user-
friendly to re-write the parser/scanner parts of R in a way that "3 < 2 < 1" is
naturally-correct evaluated to FALSE.

on the other hand, r is open-source and i could do it myself...

cu
till 

--
"I have seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack-ships  on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched seabeams glitter in the dark near the 
Tannhauser gate.
All  those  moments  will  be lost in time like
tears in rain. Time to die."              (Roy)
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