Bert Freudenberg <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de> is widely believed to have written:

> On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 danielv at netvision.net.il wrote:
> 
> > Haha, that's nice...
> 
> Indeed. I wonder if this behaviour is actually defined somewhere? It's at 
> least counter-intuitive.
[snips]
> > > | m n |
> > > n _ 2.
> > > m _ 3.
> > > n _ m + (m _ n)
That's a very polite way of putting it!

Looking at the bytecodes of the method clearly show why it happens and
I think it must count as a pretty nasty bug. You can also quite clearly
see that some (maybe?) simple improvements to the compiler might provide
considerable improvements in performance without any other changes to
the system. Those of you with experience in compiler writing might like
to consider the possibilities.

tim
-- 
Tim Rowledge, tim at sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
Fractured Idiom:- APRES MOE LE DELUGE - Larry and Curly get wet