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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site looking.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.lang,uw.lang
Subject: Re: x < y < z  using user-defined types and overloading
Message-ID: <684@looking.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Oct-86 20:20:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.684
Posted: Fri Oct 17 20:20:37 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 03:01:56 EDT
References: <7934@watdaisy.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: net
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.lang:2698 uw.lang:6
Summary: 

In article <7934@watdaisy.UUCP> gvcormack@watdaisy.UUCP (Gordon V. Cormack) writes:
>There has been discussion in the net on languages that allow the
>notation                   x < y < z
>as a shorthand for         x < y  and  y < z
>
>With user-defined types and overloaded operators (like in Ada)
>this is easy to set up (I will spare you the tedious Ada Syntax).
>
>Aren't data types wonderful?
>-- 
>Gordon V. Cormack      CS Department, University of Waterloo

Sure, but I have been wondering what all the fuss is.  x < y < z
is not all that exciting, and not much shorter than what it is
supposed to shorten.  Certainly I don't see compilers generating
better code from it.

There are lots of valuable things you can do with more general
languages, but I don't think this is one of them.  I can't imagine
a language designer deliberately complicating things just to support
this one.


-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473