[Edu-sig] RE: Long Boolean expressions
Jeremy J. Sydik
jsydik@virtualparadigm.com
Tue, 06 Jun 2000 12:23:46 -0500
Even with this consideration, I would have to disagree, ESPECIALLY if we're
looking at the pedagogical issues of educating programmers. I agree with
your intent that > 0 makes more sense in some cases, but probably not these.
The first case is a comparison of len(str), which should ALWAYS be a
natural number. To me, != should be used whenever the comparison is against
a singleton set (in this case 0). In the other case, the discussion is
about numbers in Z/mod N. Again, I think we're looking at the "single"
congruence class 0 mod N, and it should IMO be remembered that -a mod N has
it's own meaning.
I'll just toss the 0.02 in the don't jar
Jeremy J. Sydik
John Posner wrote:
. . .
> My one (slight) objection is your wanting to change:
>
> * the comparison operation "> 0", which is firmly in the numerical realm
>
> * to the comparison operation "!= 0", which is more in the logical realm
> ("not equal to FALSE")
>