[Haskell-cafe] instance Enum Double considered not entirely great?

[John Lato]

> From: Casey McCann <cam at uptoisomorphism.net>

>        <CAJ5riwLLu=wAFXm8VPnqRG2Daxxgf=UpgxzCHydMeBGNgixTFQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Daniel Fischer
> <daniel.is.fischer at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> However, nowadays I tend to think that making the Eq and Ord instances
>> well-behaved (wrt the class contract) and having separate IEEE comparisons
>> would overall be preferable.
>> There is still the question whether all NaNs should be considered equal or
>> not [and where Ord should place NaNs].
>
> IEEE semantics are incompatible with Ord regardless. The problem can
> be fixed by changing Ord, removing the instance completely, or
> changing the instance to ignore the IEEE spec. I think the latter is
> the least bad option in the big picture.
>
> I still don't see why it makes sense to add separate IEEE comparisons
> instead of just adding a standard partial order class, though. Surely
> posets are common enough to justify the abstraction, and it surprises
> me that one isn't already included. No doubt there are at least three
> or four different partial ordering classes on Hackage already.

I agree with this already, and will agree more strongly if
ConstraintKinds become widely available.

>
>> Google suggests "Exception for NaN" from May.
>
> Ah, yes, wherein someone suggested that comparing to NaN should be a
> runtime error rather than give incorrect results. A strictly more
> correct approach, but not one I find satisfactory...

I would consider this better than the current situation.  At least
your sets wouldn't be silently corrupted.

John L.