[boost] Re: operator< for points (geometry classes)

From: Dave Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-01-09 12:59:21

> Points in the plane are complex numbers.  There is no algebraic less
> for complex.  Is there a meaningful geometric less for points?

Another way to ask this: is your definition of < actually useful for
anything? I think not. If you want to use it for sorting, I'd be inclined to
do as Valentin Bonnard suggested for shared_ptr: leave out op<, since it is
not useful or meaningful, and just specialize std::less (for broken
compilers we may need to define op< instead, but using it would not be
supported. Perhaps we could make it private and grant friendship to
std::less).

-Dave