by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2006/04/29 11:41 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2006/04/29/586726.aspx
Remember how I have talked in the past about the difference between two different purposes for collation (comparison vs. identity, or alternately the difference between CompareString and EqualString)?
(if not you can follow those links for some of the backstory!)
Over on the BCLTeam WebLog, Krzysztof Cwalina explains about Why IComparable<T> does not extend IEquatable<T>.
Basically the same issue -- in most cases, one does not need to answer both the "which comes first?" and the "are they equal?" questions when two objects of the same type are being looked at.
Even when they are fairly basic items like strings, when both questions are valid in different contexts, the use of the strings themselves often suggests that only one of them is appropriate at a given time....
This post brought to you by "＜" (U+ff1c, a.k.a. FULLWIDTH LESS-THAN SIGN)
referenced by