Unicode function name? ∩

Jesper Tholstrup via Digitalmars-d-learn digitalmars-d-learn at puremagic.com
Tue Sep 6 12:58:11 PDT 2016


On Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at 18:46:52 UTC, Illuminati wrote:
>
> Symbols are inherently meaningless so you are not making sense. 
> Clever is what got humans out the jungle, I think it is a good 
> thing. No need to denigrate it when you benefit from people 
> being clever. Of course, you could argue that staying in the 
> jungle would have been the best thing...

You are somewhat of topic here.

> Mathematicians don't seem to get confused by symbols.

A lot of code is written by non-mathematicians and has to be 
maintained by non-mathematicians. Mathematicians will be confused 
when people start using the symbols incorrectly, simply because 
they try to be clever. Sure, some developers would probably mix 
up english words like 'intersect' and 'union', but I think that 
it is less common.

> You have simply memorized what those groups of symbols mean and 
> you are too lazy to memorize what some other symbol means.

Personal... and wrong...

> Once you realize the game you are playing with yourself then it 
> becomes easier to break the bad habit and not get caught up in 
> the nonsense.

Personal... and wrong... My argument goes towards code 
maintainability and it is still valid.

>
> The reason why ∩ is better than intersect is because it is 
> quicker to see and analyze(due to its "size"). True, it is more 
> ambiguous, as ambiguity depends on size, but at least in this 
> case it has been well established just as π and 1,2,3..., etc. 
> But if you are so concerned about ambiguity then why not 
> intersectsetofarithmeticintegerswithsetofarithmeticintegers? 
> That is far less ambiguous than intersect.

As long as humans write software I think (personal estimate) that 
few would call 
'intersectsetofarithmeticintegerswithsetofarithmeticintegers' a 
readable symbol. I suppose that our invention of snake case, 
camel case, pascal case, ect. lends some support to my claim.

>
> My point is, you are playing games. You might not realize it 
> but that is what is going on. If you want to be truthful, it is 
> better to say "I prefer to use my own personal standardized 
> notation that I have already learned since it takes precious 
> time away from my own life.".

Personal, again. No real content.

You do realize that 'my own personal standardized notation' 
encompass >99% of all software thus far - right?

> Your argument is exactly analogous to "I don't speak french! 
> Use English you stupid french speaking person, french is for 
> idiots anyways".

I'm not a native English speaker, so I'm not sure that your 
argument is valid here. I have learned different languages and 
various diciplines of natural science. I still don't think that 
methods/functions should contain e.g. math symbols.

> The tone is irrelevant, the point is acting like one 
> superficial system is better than some other superficial system 
> simply because of perspective/laziness/arrogance/etc. The only 
> issues are that either you are failing to see the systems as 
> superficial or you are failing to see that your own personal 
> center of the universe is not actually the center of the 
> universe.

Personal, again... and it could easily be the other way around I 
think.

> So just be real. The reason you don't like it is because it 
> confuses you.

Personal, again... and not really....

> If it didn't, you wouldn't have a problem with it. If you could 
> speak French and English then you, if you were that 
> hypothetical person, wouldn't care what language was used.

So far of the topic.

>  All I can say is that everyone is confused until they learn 
> something. But don't confuse your confusion with some innate 
> scale of better/worse, it only leads to more confusion. The 
> solution to all confusion is familiarity. Become familiar with 
> your confusion(e.g., using ∩) and it won't be confusing anymore.

Personal, again. I'm not really confused (I think).

>
> The reason the mathematical symbols don't phase me is because I 
> spent years using them. In my mind ∩ = intersection of 
> sets(which I have a non-verbal meaning in my own mind on what 
> that means). I see no difference between ∩ and intersect. Hence 
> I am not confused.

Cool, the *years* of usage really payed off...

> If someone comes along and uses ∩ to mean what I call union. 
> Then it won't confuse me either. Because I realize they have 
> just relabeled stuff.

Okay, thats quite a statement... I would argue that many 
developers, not you of course, could oversee the incorrect symbol.

> Sure I have to keep track, but as long as they are 
> logical(consistent) then I'll get used to(familiar) with their 
> system and it won't be a problem.

Okay.

> I won't get angry or upset that they are trying to pull the rug 
> out from underneath me. I'll realize that they just speak 
> French and if I want to communicate with them I'll learn 
> French. No big deal, I'll be more enlightened from doing so. 
> Sure it takes some time, but what else do we humans have to do? 
> Everything we do just superficial anyways.

Eh, okay...

You will win in terms of their usage, not doubt - lets see how it 
goes...



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