From: Matthew Smillie Date: 2006-01-29T06:08:12+09:00 Subject: Re: nil != [] On Jan 28, 2006, at 20:51, Alex Polite wrote: > OK. Here's my second stupid question for today. > > What's the rational behind having 0, [] and "" evaluate to true? "" > and [], I could kind of see. But 0, how on Gods earth can 0 true? 0 *the integer* is only false by convention, and it's a convention confined to programming, originating (unless I'm mistaken) from languages which didn't define specific 'true' and 'false' logcial values separate from integer math. 0's used in some logical notations as a symbol for 'false', but it's unlikely that anyone familiar with formal logic will tell you those 0's are the same 0's you get from "2 - 2". There's no doubt that the convention's been made very useful, but there's really no logical basis for equating any particular symbol to true or false truth values over any other. matthew smillie.