Re: [boost] Please don't define a fake"operator<"just for ordered containers

From: Sebastian Redl (sebastian.redl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-12 08:38:56

Paul Giaccone wrote:

>There is a very good reason why the "rule" (actually a 
>relation) is absent in mathematics: namely that it cannot be defined in 
>a meaningful, useful way, as others have already demonstrated. If it 
>can't be done meaningfully in mathematics, it can't be done meaningfully 
>in computer science either.
>  
>
That's not true. An ordering cannot be defined for the mathematical 
construct "complex number" that is meaningful and useful to 
mathematicians. That doesn't mean that the same applies to computer 
scientists - it is very well possible to define an operator < for 
std::complex that is useful (allows using the class itself, as well as 
tuples containing it, to be easily used in sorted containers) and 
meaningful (it's lexicographical - it certainly has meaning, even if 
that meaning doesn't make sense to mathematicians).

Sebastian Redl