Performance optimization for minElement and maxElement

[Ali Çehreli]

Since the minimum and maximum values of fundamental types are known, can 
minElement and maxElement shortcut and return that value immediately?

I think such an optimization may break existing code because it may not 
consume ranges in old code, which may be surprised by it. (?)

I ask because the documentation says "O(n) Exactly n - 1 comparisons are 
needed."

Ali

P.S. I decided to use my own function instead of minElement; I return 0 
immediately on a range of size_t elements.