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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.javascript
Subject: Re: How would you prepare for javascripting interview?
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 21:06:22 +0100
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Doc O'Leary  <droleary@2015usenet1.subsume.com> writes:

> For your reference, records indicate that 
> Scott Sauyet <scott@sauyet.com> wrote:
>
>> Doc O'Leary wrote:
>> > 
>> > People need to stop making this mistaken argument.  This has nothing 
>> > to do with the mathematical sets.  It has to do with a function in a 
>> > library of computer code.  
>> 
>> Sorry, I should have used "list" here rather than "set".
>
> I was taking issue with your whole argument, not the questionable 
> equivalence of sets/lists/arrays.
>
>> I was simply pointing out that if `max([]); //=> NaN`,
>> then we get some awkward behavior, a violation of the law I was proposing.
>
> I know.  Stop proposing that law, because the topic at hand is 
> computer science, not pure mathematics.

I think you've got it backwards.  It's relatively rare for
mathematicians to define max of nothing.  I did not find any, in fact,
(though I am sure there must be some), and had to hunt quite hard to
find a math text that defined sup {} to be -oo and inf {} = oo, but
that's both rare and not quite the same thing to a mathematician.  It's
computer scientists who've generalised max to empty lists.  They do it
for practical reasons.  I don't know why you are determined to reject
the idea that a CS person would want their library functions to follow
simple laws.  It helps write correct programs.

<snip>
> “For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.”
>     Henry Louis Mencken

Which leaves open the possibility of a simple, clean and correct
solution.  Maybe this is one of those problems?

-- 
Ben.