Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!usc!ginosko!uunet!mcsun!sunic!enea!sommar
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: a < b < c
Message-ID: <239@enea.se>
Date: 29 Aug 89 21:56:03 GMT
Organization: Enea Data AB, Sweden
Lines: 23

Bertrand Meyer (bertrand@eiffel.UUCP) writes:
>	It may be that the reason why no mainstream language has included the
>form suggested by Mr. Sommarskog is that people feared ambiguity.

As I said in my first article it's more likely intertia as
correspondent said to me in mail.

>	At first (and second) sight this seems to be the kind of extension
>that only has advantages. It should find its way into version 3.

I'm pleased to hear to contributed to Eiffel's development. There
is one more detail to think of though:

     a < b < f()

Should the language guarantee that f is called? Or should the compiler
be allowed to skip the call if a >= b? My view is the latter, and a
quick glance in OOSC doesn't say that Eiffel has a differnt philosophy.
As the Ada LRM would say: a program that relies on a expression being
computed in any particular order is erroneous.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
The law of gravity should be forbidden execpt in downhills.