Incongruent hash

Bruce Cohen cohenb at gemstone.com
Tue Feb 10 21:43:30 UTC 1998


Mike Klein <mike at twinsun.com> asks:
>> Numbers (or any objects) CAN be sorted in some such way.
>> The question is SHOULD they be intrinsicly ordered?

My opinion is that they should not be *intrinsically* ordered, anymore
than SortedCollection has only one possible sort algorithm.  They should be
*orderable*; for points or complex numbers this means something a little
different from reals or integers: there is more than one sort dimension.

>> I think the length of this thread indicates that
>> a *significant* number of are surprised by the
>> intrinsic ordering of Points, 1 at 1 = 1, etc.
>> 
>> On this basis alone, I'd rather these things not be
>> implicit in the class.

I agree; I just don't want to throw sortability out with the surprise.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"'Bother,' said Pooh, as Cthulu rose up and ate him."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Cohen,                               |  email: cohenb at gemstone.com
GemStone Systems, Inc.                     |  phone: (503)533-3602
20575 NW Von Neumann Drive                 |  fax:   (503)629-8556
Beaverton, OR USA 97006                    |  web:   http://www.gemstone.com





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list