A partial order would not be sufficient to implement some algorithms, such as a sorting algorithm. Since a partially ordered set does not necessarily define a relationship between all elements of the set, how would you sort a list of two items that do not have an order relationship within the partial order?
This is certainly going to make it easier to write a correct operator than rolling it yourself. I’d say only consider a different approach if profiling shows the comparison operation to be a time-consuming part of your application. Otherwise the ease of maintaining this should outweigh any possible performance concerns.
strict weak ordering This is a mathematical term to define a relationship between two objects. Its definition is: Two objects x and y are equivalent if both f(x, y) and f(y, x) are false. Note that an object is always (by the irreflexivity invariant) equivalent to itself. In terms of C++ this means if you … Read more