On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 03:44:50PM +0200, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
>[...]
> Another thing, when running with "-Wcounterexamples", I sometimes
> get messages like this:
>
> Productions leading up to the conflict state found. Still finding a
> possible unifying counterexample...time limit exceeded: 6,000000
>
> Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I've always
> found the usage of "find" in the meaning of "search" confusing, but
> especially here, as it ultimately does not find anything.
Yes, "find" does denote reaching whatever the search sought, but the
imperfect sense in general denotes non-completion, hence does not
denote success. Eg, we say that the accident occurred while Alice was
crossing the street and Bob was driving to the store, even though neither
action completed. That said, using a term that specifically denotes
an in-progress search probably would be clearer. The verb for that is
"seek", but I get the feeling that "seeking" is decreasing in modern
usage as redundant with "searching".
Be well,
-- Jacob
