
This, to defend myself, was not how it was explained in high school.
No worries. I didn't realize this myself until college; most nonspecialist
teachers just don't know any better. Nor did, it appears, the original
authors of the Haskell Prelude. :)
BTW, this definition of gcd makes it possible to consider gcds in rings that
otherwise have no natural order- such as rings of polynomials in several
variables, group rings, et cetera.
Nathan Bloomfield
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Achim Schneider
Nathan Bloomfield
wrote: The "greatest" in gcd is not w.r.t. the canonical ordering on the naturals; rather w.r.t. the partial order given by the divides relation.
This, to defend myself, was not how it was explained in high school.
-- (c) this sig last receiving data processing entity. Inspect headers for copyright history. All rights reserved. Copying, hiring, renting, performance and/or quoting of this signature prohibited.
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe