On 10/13/2011 10:06 AM, Jim Jewett wrote:
I think that
range(3) < range(10)is obviously true
Based on what property? Is that because:
a) len(range(3)) < len(range(10))
b) max(range(3)) < min(range(10))
c) ((min(range(3)) < min(range(10))) and (max(range(3)) < max(range(10)))
I guess your argument is that in this degenerate case, all of these properties are true so it is "obviously true". Personally, if I can't pin-point the exact reason that "x < y", then it's not obvious even if for every definition of "<" I can come up with it is a true statement, because there is not one obvious definition that is true. In other words, I don't know what "x < y" means for ranges in general so I can't reason about it in general, therefore this special case is not useful or obvious. In the absence of explicit arguments to the "<" operand, I would be baffled as to what to expect as the result.
However, I can understand the desire to test for range equality, and the definition for that is significantly more obvious.