William Lovas wrote:
> 
> (This argument breaks down in
> the face of code which relies on abstract types to enforce modularity -- in
> such cases, incomparability can become "the rule" rather than the
> exception, putting =, <, etc. on the same footing as +, -, etc.)

In fact, the polymorphic approach would make abstract types comparable 
if their representation is, hence the idea of (non-parametric) 
polymorphic operations of this sort slaps right in the face of type 
abstraction and encapsulation, which are high values of ML.

Cheers,

   - Andreas

-- 
Andreas Rossberg, rossberg@ps.uni-sb.de

Let's get rid of those possible thingies!  -- TB