I was recently surprised to discover that the maximum and maximumBy functions always return the *last* maximum, while minimum and minimumBy return the *first* minimum in the list. The following GHCi session demonstrates this: $ ghci GHCi, version 7.2.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done. Loading package integer-gmp ... linking ... done. Loading package base ... linking ... done. Loading package ffi-1.0 ... linking ... done. Prelude> :module +Data.List Data.Ord Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> let list = [(1, 'B'), (1, 'A')] Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> maximumBy (comparing fst) list (1,'A') Prelude Data.List Data.Ord> minimumBy (comparing fst) list (1,'B') I would normally consider this kind of gratuitous asymmetry a bug, but seeing that these functions' implementations have been specified in the Haskell 98 Library Report, I guess they are now a permanent feature of the language. Can anybody explain the reason for this behaviour?