Re: >= and <= for string comparison

[Peng Yu]

On 1/18/23, Lawrence Velázquez <vq@larryv.me> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023, at 8:52 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
>> In terms of real cases, because of the lack of the feature, you would
>> never find a real use for it. However, without the feature available,
>> you would never know.
>
> Oh, please.  We're not talking about a paradigm-changing feature
> that would enable previously intractable use cases.  Your proposal
> is equivalent to constructs that already exist.  Despite your evident
> hatred for them, those constructs are simple enough that they are
> surely *already* being used in the same way your proposal would be.
> So it's entirely fair to ask what those current uses might be and
> whether we think they merit syntactic sugar.
>
>> So I don't think that is a valid question to ask.
>
> You cannot simply dismiss a question as invalid just because you
> don't want to answer it.

This is nonsense. Using your logic, then I can ask for each feature of
bash before they were implemented, what were their use cases? Can you
tell all of them? If you can not tell all of them, then having real
cases is not a strict requirement before a feature can be introduced.

Given the fact that string comparisons are allowed by bash, anybody
should legitimately use string comparisons less-then and greater-then
if available. Even if I don't use it, can you prove that others will
never need it, given there are many things that can be done with
string comparisons? If you can not prove it, then my specific
applications really do not matter for the discussion of whether <= >=
should be introduced.

-- 
Regards,
Peng