[racket-dev] nan?, infinite? and regular-real? [Was: Latest Plot Package]

I would keep finite? for the semantics associated with the name even if it
is just a renaming of rational?. Particularly since you can't just use (not
(infinite? x)) when NaNs are a possibility. [I personally don't like using
rational? for an abstraction that includes irrational numbers.]

On Friday, November 18, 2011, Matthew Flatt <mflatt at cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> Except for `finite?' (which seems to be covered by `rational?'), these
> additions sound fine to me.
>
> I'm not sure whether they should go in `racket/math' or `racket/base',
> though. Although it feels wrong to keep adding to `racket/base', two
> thoughts make me lean in that direction:
>
>  * It will be confusing to have bindings such as
>   `exact-nonnegative-integer?' in `racket/base', while binding such as
>   `nonnegative-real?' are in `racket/math'. Putting all of those
>   functions in the same place seems more consistent.
>
>  * Adding things to `racket/base' probably leads to fewer compatibility
>   issues. That's because `racket/math' could be explicitly imported
>   into a module that defines `nonnegative-real?', leading to an
>   import--definition conflict. If `racket/base' as a module language
>   provides nonnegative-real?', then a module's own definition of
>   `nonnegative-real?' can shadow it without conflict.
>
> At Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:47:16 -0700, Ryan Culpepper wrote:
>> On 11/18/2011 12:34 PM, Neil Toronto wrote:
>> > On 11/18/2011 12:22 PM, Ryan Culpepper wrote:
>> >> On 11/18/2011 12:13 PM, Neil Toronto wrote:
>> >>> I've moved this to dev from a private discussion with Doug, who has
just
>> >>> tried the nightly build.
>> >>>
>> >>> On 11/18/2011 11:43 AM, Williams, Doug wrote:
>> >>>> 2) The plot/utils has nan? and infinite?, which are also exported
from
>> >>>> the science collection and I had to explicitly exclude them in the
>> >>>> require. Can we talk to the powers that be and see about getting
them
>> >>>> (and finite?) moved to racket/math? Then we can both remove them
from
>> >>>> our code. [I'm not sure about any interaction with the r6rs
functions.]
>> >>>
>> >>> Powers That Be, Doug and I would like `nan?' and `infinite?' to be in
>> >>> `racket/math'.
>> >>>
>> >>> I made an exact equivalent of Doug's `finite?', but called it
>> >>> `regular-real?'. I use it in all kinds of function contracts (it
returns
>> >>> #f for non-reals). We would also like that one, with either name, in
>> >>> `racket/math'.
>> >>
>> >> How does 'finite?' differ from 'rational?'?
>> >
>> > Whoa! It doesn't!
>> >
>> >> If we're making a wishlist, I'd really like
>> >> '{positive,nonnegative}-{real,rational}?'.
>> >
>> > For use or for contracts? For contracts, we already have `>/c', `</c',
>> > `>=/c' and `<=/c', which can do the same as `positive-real?',
>> > `negative-real?', `nonnegative-real?' and `nonpositive-real?' if
applied
>> > to 0, and are arguably easier to read.
>>
>> I'd argue that they're less easy to read. Also, despite their
>> availability, I've still seen contracts that say 'real?' even when they
>> mean '(>=/c 0)', etc. (Or possibly 'nonnegative-rational?'.)
>>
>> > For the `*-rational?' ones, would they identify only exact rationals?
>> > Because that would be inconsistent with `rational?'.
>>
>> No, they should be consistent with 'rational?' and accept inexacts.
>>
>> > If we *are* making a wishlist, I'd like to add exact-round,
exact-floor,
>> > exact-truncate and exact-ceiling. I rarely need to chop off fractional
>> > parts without also making the result exact.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> Ryan
>
> _________________________________________________
>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>  http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev/archive/attachments/20111119/58cae475/attachment.html>