Isn't "transitive" the wrong word?

Janice Caron caron800 at googlemail.com
Fri Apr 4 02:23:01 PDT 2008


Sorry to go all grammar/mathematics nit-picky, but isn't "transitive"
completely the wrong word?

The word "transitive" applies to binary relations, like less-than. A
relation R is transitive if

    (a R b) and (b R c) implies (a R c)

For example, less-than is transitive, because

    (a < b) and (b < c) implies (a < c)

But the word "transitive" has no meaning when applied to a unary type
constructor like const().

No, methinks the word you're looking for here is RECURSIVE. Const in D
is recursive, not transitive.

Should we change all the documention, or is this some new definition
of "transitive" which is in common use in some field of which I am
unaware?



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