(** However, while the boolean and propositional formulations of a
    claim are equivalent from a purely logical perspective, they need
    not be equivalent _operationally_.  Equality provides an extreme
    example: knowing that [beq_nat n m = true] is generally of little
    direct help in the middle of a proof involving [n] and [m];
    however, if we convert the statement to the equivalent form [n =
    m], we can rewrite with it.

    The case of even numbers is also interesting.  Recall that,
    when proving the backwards direction of [even_bool_prop] (i.e.,
    [evenb_double], going from the propositional to the boolean
    claim), we used a simple induction on [k].  On the other hand, the
    converse (the [evenb_double_conv] exercise) required a clever
    generalization, since we can't directly prove [(exists k, n =
    double k) -> evenb n = true].

    For these examples, the propositional claims are more useful than
    their boolean counterparts, but this is not always the case.  For
    instance, we cannot test whether a general proposition is true or
    not in a function definition; as a consequence, the following code
    fragment is rejected: *)

Fail Definition is_even_prime n :=
  if n = 2 then true
  else false.(** Coq complains that [n = 2] has type [Prop], while it expects an
    elements of [bool] (or some other inductive type with two
    elements).  The reason for this error message has to do with the
    _computational_ nature of Coq's core language, which is designed
    so that every function that it can express is computable and
    total.  One reason for this is to allow the extraction of
    executable programs from Coq developments.  As a consequence,
    [Prop] in Coq does _not_ have a universal case analysis operation
    telling whether any given proposition is true or false, since such
    an operation would allow us to write non-computable functions.

    Although general non-computable properties cannot be phrased as
    boolean computations, it is worth noting that even many
    _computable_ properties are easier to express using [Prop] than
    [bool], since recursive function definitions are subject to
    significant restrictions in Coq.  For instance, the next chapter
    shows how to define the property that a regular expression matches
    a given string using [Prop].  Doing the same with [bool] would
    amount to writing a regular expression matcher, which would be
    more complicated, harder to understand, and harder to reason
    about.

    Conversely, an important side benefit of stating facts using
    booleans is enabling some proof automation through computation
    with Coq terms, a technique known as _proof by
    reflection_.  Consider the following statement: *)

Example even_1000 : exists k, 1000 = double k.(** On the other hand, the proof of the corresponding boolean
    statement is even simpler: *)

Example even_1000' : evenb 1000 = true.(** What is interesting is that, since the two notions are equivalent,
    we can use the boolean formulation to prove the other one without
    mentioning the value 500 explicitly: *)

Example even_1000'' : exists k, 1000 = double k.

Theorem beq_nat_false_iff : forall x y : nat, beq_nat x y = false <-> x <> y.