bug#42644: 28.0.50; Please let max and min accept zero arguments

[Stefan Kangas]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> I want to suggest to make the functions `max' and `min' accept zero
> arguments, with
>
>   (max) => negative infinity
>   (min) => positive infinity
>
> That would be mathematically consistent, and would offer an easier to
> remember syntax to specify the infinities (at least for mathematicians).
> I hate the read syntax suggested in the manual, I have to look it up
> every single time.  Ironically, most of the time I use it it's the
> initial value for a max or min number sequence folding.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of this.  Is this common in other languages?

Why not just introduce a new constant `infinity'?  One could then write
`(- infinity)' to get negative infinity.

> `seq-max' and `seq-min' should also support it.

What would the calls look like?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas