| > I was assuming two things about equal:
| > - scan of block from left to right
| > - a test on adress equality on pointer before follwing the pointer 
| > (which is now wrong in 3.08).
| 
| That was true of the old implementation, but has never been
guaranteed.

For LCF-style theorem provers, I think it's quite important that when
comparing terms (or similar tree structures) for equality, there should
be a quick "yes" when two high-level subgraphs are pointer eq. For
example,

  Constr(small_1,big) = Constr(small_2,big)

(where small_1 = small_2) should return "true" without recursing down
"big". This often comes up when generic theorems are instantiated and
one then checks that the instantiation does make certain terms match
up.

I guess like Christophe Raffalli I had just assumed this would be
the case based on long experience with ML-family languages, rather than
through any explicit discussion in the documentation. Can you clarify
what we need to do in order to guarantee this behaviour?

John.

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