[Haskell-cafe] Re: What puts False before True?

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 03:33:41AM +0100,
 PR Stanley <prstanley at ntlworld.com> wrote 
 a message of 19 lines which said:

> The question, however, still remains: why False = 0 and True 1?

Arbitrary decision? On a similar case, the ISO 5218 standard,
representation of human gender
(http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/c036266_ISO_IEC_5218_2004(E_F).zip)
says:

Data elements  Code
Not known      0 (zero)
Male           1 (one)
Female         2 (two)
Not applicable 9 (nine)

and warns:

No significance is to be placed upon the fact that "Male" is coded "1"
and "Female" is coded "2". This standard was developed based upon
predominant practices of the countries involved and does not convey
any meaning of importance, ranking or any other basis that could imply
discrimination.