On Feb 18, 2006, at 11:22 AM, William D Clinger wrote:

>> 8.  Integer Divison.
>> (a) I think it is a really bad design to have the basic
>> operation of div+mod change when the second argument changes sign.
>
> I don't have much problem with that.  These mathematical
> operations aren't defined at zero, so they have to compare
> against zero anyway.  To quote Egner et al, "the sign of
> the modulus y determines which system of representatives
> of the residue class ring Z/yZ is being chosen, either
> non-negative (y > 0), symmetric around zero (y < 0), or
> the integers (y = 0)."  Using the sign of y is ad hoc,
> but it's an ad hoc choice anyway.

For now, let me just point out

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.scheme/msg/32949cdfdda958f8?

where either you pulled one over on me that I didn't realize, or you
didn't know what MODULO meant in 1996.  I think introducing this
operator will make things very much worse.

Brad