Re: Lists composed of equal number and kind of elements

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-07-29, at 04:16, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
> writes:
>
>>>> So he doesn't need a fully general solution.
>>> OK, good point.
>>
>> Not really.
>>
>> I mean, ok, always implementing the most specific
>> solution to customers' request is a good way to
>> ensure job security.

:-)

>> But if your purpose is to change the world really,
>> and not just giving lip service to Silicon Valley
>> mantras, then you will implement the most general
>> solution so you don't have to do anything else when
>> the customer or another comes with a variant of
>> their problem, and so eventually we can leave
>> programs and robots work for us.
>
> The purpose is always to change the world (or some
> part of it, which is the same). But that robot thing
> I don't want ever to happen because then what will *I*
> do all days (and nights)? That would be
> super-depressing!

Yes.

> But in general I agree the most general solution is
> the best, and if specific interfaces are needed, those
> are super-easy to add (especially in Lisp).

No.  Most general might be too expensive (in terms of computer resources
or programmer resources).

> In this case tho it isn't exactly clear what the
> most general solution is. Is it set equality where
> duplicates don't matter, or is it set equality plus
> list-length equality? Pairing both with `and' seems
> the right thing to do - then the only problem is what
> to call the function...

multiset-equal?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiset

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University