4 ms·

That's a good point: "never any conflict" describes the final state rather than the growth process. When I was a younger programmer (as in, during the first fe

That's a good point: "never any conflict" describes the final state rather than the growth process. When I was a younger programmer (as in, during the first few years), I discovered that assuming boolean / formal logic meanings for {if, or, else, and} in communication with my spouse (art + sales, and very smart, though not a programmer or trained in symbolic logic) resulted in, shall we say ... miscommunication. So I had some unintended help in building the separate registers of meaning / communication. :-) Building separate meaning registers for communication does take some time.

narag 7y ago
By the way... has or in English a different meaning than in code? I cringe every time I hear the and/or thing translated to Spanish, usually several times in a row. Not sure if it's the usual mistranslation or it's also idiotic in the original text.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  Yes, "or" in English often is more similar to xor in code. For example if someone says "I want pizza or a burger", that person probably does not want both pizza and a burger for the same meal, whereas in programming an equivalent expression would be satisfied if both are true simultaneously. But "or" in English doesn't always mean xor in code. Sometimes it is the same as or in code.
  - gugagore 7y ago
    There's another way that or_English is different, as illustrated by this frustrating "joke": 1: do you think it's A or do you think it's not A? 2: yes (assigning a truth value to the or expression rather than indicating which or operand is true.)
  - skissane 7y ago
    English "or" is ambiguous between inclusive and exclusive meanings. Most of the time, the intended meaning is inferred based on context, but one can make it explicit by using phrases such as "but not both", "exactly one of", etc. There exist languages which lack this ambiguity. Latin has two different words for "or" – "vel" (inclusive) and "aut" (exclusive).
- malodyets 7y ago
  It depends on the intonation: / = rising, \ = falling "Do you want /pizza or a \burger\?" = XOR "Do you want /pizza or a /burger/? = OR (as in programming) It can make a good (though well-worn) joke to answer the XOR version with "Yes."
- namelosw 7y ago
  In most programming languages the boolean operation 'or' is actually 'xor'. But in type system the disjunction concept represents 'either', the concepts are more like how people refer to 'or'.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > In most programming languages the boolean operation 'or' is actually 'xor'. I can't think of any where that's true; logical “and” and “or” are usually exactly what they claim to be, and many languages implement both as short-circuiting operators, whereas XOR can't short circuit because you can never know the result without considering both arguments.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > has or in English a different meaning than in code? “Or” in English can mean either exclusive-or or inclusive-or (usually it means the latter), and/or is a means to specify inclusive-or without ambiguity (the parallel construct for exclusive-or is “X or Y, but not both”) used mostly in contexts where misconstruction can be exotics to the drafter of the text, such as contracts and formal policy documents. In code, the meaning is already unambiguous; in all languages I am aware, “or” or the symbol referred to in speech with that name (e.g., “||”) is strictly inclusive, and do there is an exclusive-or operator, it is different.
richrichardsson 7y ago
The old classic: Programmer's spouse: Honey, go to the shops and buy 1 bottle of milk, if they have eggs buy 6. Programmer brings home 6 bottles of milk.

narag 7y ago

By the way... has or in English a different meaning than in code? I cringe every time I hear the and/or thing translated to Spanish, usually several times in a row. Not sure if it's the usual mistranslation or it's also idiotic in the original text.

Thorrez 7y ago
Yes, "or" in English often is more similar to xor in code. For example if someone says "I want pizza or a burger", that person probably does not want both pizza and a burger for the same meal, whereas in programming an equivalent expression would be satisfied if both are true simultaneously. But "or" in English doesn't always mean xor in code. Sometimes it is the same as or in code.
- gugagore 7y ago
  There's another way that or_English is different, as illustrated by this frustrating "joke": 1: do you think it's A or do you think it's not A? 2: yes (assigning a truth value to the or expression rather than indicating which or operand is true.)
- skissane 7y ago
  English "or" is ambiguous between inclusive and exclusive meanings. Most of the time, the intended meaning is inferred based on context, but one can make it explicit by using phrases such as "but not both", "exactly one of", etc. There exist languages which lack this ambiguity. Latin has two different words for "or" – "vel" (inclusive) and "aut" (exclusive).
malodyets 7y ago
It depends on the intonation: / = rising, \ = falling "Do you want /pizza or a \burger\?" = XOR "Do you want /pizza or a /burger/? = OR (as in programming) It can make a good (though well-worn) joke to answer the XOR version with "Yes."
namelosw 7y ago
In most programming languages the boolean operation 'or' is actually 'xor'. But in type system the disjunction concept represents 'either', the concepts are more like how people refer to 'or'.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > In most programming languages the boolean operation 'or' is actually 'xor'. I can't think of any where that's true; logical “and” and “or” are usually exactly what they claim to be, and many languages implement both as short-circuiting operators, whereas XOR can't short circuit because you can never know the result without considering both arguments.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> has or in English a different meaning than in code? “Or” in English can mean either exclusive-or or inclusive-or (usually it means the latter), and/or is a means to specify inclusive-or without ambiguity (the parallel construct for exclusive-or is “X or Y, but not both”) used mostly in contexts where misconstruction can be exotics to the drafter of the text, such as contracts and formal policy documents. In code, the meaning is already unambiguous; in all languages I am aware, “or” or the symbol referred to in speech with that name (e.g., “||”) is strictly inclusive, and do there is an exclusive-or operator, it is different.

richrichardsson 7y ago

The old classic: Programmer's spouse: Honey, go to the shops and buy 1 bottle of milk, if they have eggs buy 6. Programmer brings home 6 bottles of milk.