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From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: a < b < c revisited
Message-ID: <1918@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 91 18:58:54 GMT
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In article  <3195@enea.se> Erland Sommarskog writes:
]
](4)     IF a /= b /= c THEN
]
]But, wait, is that really the same thing? Well, with the definition
]above it is the same thing, but would we expect it to be the same
]thing? No. (3) is true if a = c, but we would expect (4) to say
]false in this case.

I wouldn't expect (4) to say false.  Frankly, I wouldn't know what to
think of such an expression unless I had a clear definition like the
one you gave -- which strikes me as a perfectly sound one.

The definition

  a <op1> b <op2> c   ==>   a <op1> b & b <op2> c

gives the correct meaning for transitive relations and a consistent
(but otherwise arbitrary) meaning for non-transitive relations.  Since
I can't think of any non-arbitrary meaning for that construct for
non-transitive relations, I see no problem with the def above.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman