On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Erik Huelsmann ehuels@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Alan Ruttenberg alanruttenberg@gmail.com wrote:
On Apr 25, 2010, at 6:55 AM, Tobias C. Rittweiler wrote:
I think that's past Alan's point which, from my understanding, is simply "Java enums should be comparable by EQL." Makes perfect sense as EQL is for object identity.
Yes, and Java "objects" too.
I've read this thread, the thread on c.l.l regarding EQUAL and the definitions of EQ and EQL. The following is my interpretation of it all:
- Our Java side JavaObject class is merely a box for a Java instance
value (a pointer to a Java object, if you will) 2. The definitions of EQ and EQL talk about Objects, but I interpret them to refer to the first meaning in [1], not to instances of lisp classes 3. Our JavaObjects have not been defined in the (Common) Lisp spec; they don't adhere to the object-instantiation protocol nor are they any of any one of the predefined built-in classes and therefore can't be taken to be "Lisp Objects" in that sense of the word 4. From point (1) and the definitions of EQ and EQL, I concur with Alan that "raison d'etre" of EQL should equally apply to JavaObjects 5. From ponits (2) and (3) and the discussion on #lisp and c.l.l, I conclude that we're basically free to extend the meaning of EQL here: the JavaObject values were not in the spec to begin with: they're not Lisp class instances, they're not symbols, numbers nor characters
The only objection there is from both #lisp and c.l.l is that EQ, EQL and EQUAL shouldn't start to behave unpredictably regarding defined behaviour. For all the spec cares, we would have generated an error when EQ-comparing 2 java objects...
Agreed?
I agree almost completely, but I'd like to add that:
1. if EQL is modified, then EQUAL must be modified as well because (eql x y) should always imply (equal x y) 2. if we have freedom to modify EQL and EQUAL, then I'd say that EQUAL should call Object.equals(), but I know this is controversial 3. in any case, hash functions must be modified as well to respect the behavior of EQL and EQUAL.
What do you think?
-- Alessio