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...