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William D Clinger <will@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Mike Sperber wrote: >> >> - Is there any particular reason for the naming---i.e. why DIV and QUO >> are named DIV and QUO and not QUO and DIV? Do these go back to some >> convention? > > Not so far as I know. Egner et al used DIV and MOD, and > SRFI 77 just copied that paper. I chose QUO and REM just > to have different names that parallel DIV and MOD. OK, so in a sense the naming is ad-hoc. That's fine, but it is a problem that the names don't tell you which is which. At least naming them DIV+, MOD+ & DIV- and MOD- (or something like that) would give you a hint. At this point, the character after the "DIV" is the same as the sign of the second argument of DIV+MOD in the current SRFI 77 draft, so arguably the current DIV+MOD is slightly more mnemonic than what you suggest. The potential for confusion is there, but the discussion has shown that use of these operations requires significant care, anyway. (At least as soon as negative numbers come into play.) So I can't fault your argument, but I really am not sure which version (DIV+MOD which switches behavior depending on the second argument, or separate DIV+MOD and QUO+REM) would be easier to remember or less confusing. It would help, if more people on this list could chime in. -- Cheers =8-} Mike Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla