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

[Andy Moreton]

On Sat 01 Aug 2020, Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> 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.

A zero argument call to these functions is more likely to be a bug,
which this proposal would make harder to locate.

If the read syntax is obscure, perhaps it would be better to add new
constants e.g. `posinf' and `neginf'.

    AndyM