[Haskell-cafe] Ord type on lists

[Lloyd Smith]

Hi everyone, I defined my own list datatype and then tried to declare
it as an instance of type class Ord. However when I test it with

Nil > Cons 1(Nil)
I get an "ERROR - Control stack overflow"

I am under the impression that the ord class defines default
implementations of (<=), (>),(>=) so that I only have to supply the
implementation of (<) shown below. Can some one tell me why this does
not work the way I expect it to?

My very own list data type

> data List a = Nil
>           | Cons a (List a)
>             deriving (Show)


Derive the equality type for list.

> instance (Eq a) => Eq (List a) where
>     Nil == Nil                          = True
>     Nil == Cons y ys              = False
>     Cons x xs == Nil              = False
>     Cons x xs == Cons y ys  = (x == y) && (xs == ys)

Derive the ordered type for list

> instance (Ord a) => Ord (List a) where
>     Nil < Nil                    = False
>     Nil < Cons y ys       = True
>     Cons x xs < Nil       = False
>     Cons x xs < Cons y ys = (x < y) && (xs < ys)


-- 
Lloyd G Smith