Stupid little iota of an idea

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday 11 February 2011 20:01:23 spir wrote:
> On 02/12/2011 03:05 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > While iota isn't clear, it _does_ have the advantage that you're
> > not going to _mis_understand
> 
> Maybe you say this because iota does not mean anything for you (?). I can
> easily imagine various appropriate uses of iota in a PL, like:
> 
> * smallest representable value in a given numeric format
> * threshold over which some measure should be taken into account
> * threshold under which some difference should be ignored
> * range for approximate equality (approxEquals: |x - y| < iota)
> * tolerance interval of technical measures (similar)
> * ...what else?
> 
> (I would be surprised if actual uses of iota in english do not point toward
> this kind of senses.)

iota is almost entirely unused in English. You might say something like "that 
doesn't make an iota of sense," but it's pretty rare. And even if you do, it's 
an iota of _something_, so something like |x - y| < iota would be just plain 
weird. Regardless, iota would be a weird name to use for _anything_ when naming 
variables or functions. It just isn't used much in English. And there are pretty 
much always going to be better names for the function or variable if you're 
trying to use iota for something similar to its actual meaning. If anyone tried 
to use iota to actually mean something as a variable or function name, I'd be 
suggesting that they pick a better nam.

- Jonathan M Davis