[m-dev.] proposal: user-defined equality predicates
Fergus Henderson
fjh at cs.mu.oz.au
Fri Jun 27 15:26:35 AEST 1997
Tyson Richard DOWD, you wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Tyson Richard DOWD wrote:
> >
> > > I thought standard equality was syntactic?
> >
> > Functions put an end to that.
>
> So did overloading.
Not really. In a type-correct program with overloading, equality can
still be syntactic, so long as you don't have functions.
For example, `foo = foo' is always true, if type-correct;
overloading just introduces the possibility of ambiguity errors.
--
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au> | "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh at 128.250.37.3 | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
More information about the developers
mailing list