25 ms·

I've called this 'unit real' in the past, but wasn't happy with it. 'Portion' is good, from one of the answers. ('Proportion' and 'fraction' unfortunately both

I've called this 'unit real' in the past, but wasn't happy with it. 'Portion' is good, from one of the answers. ('Proportion' and 'fraction' unfortunately both suggest a ratio of integers instead of a unit real. It'd sure be convenient if these two different words weren't fixed to that same meaning.) For neologisms, 'tweening' comes to mind. (Think of the coefficient of a convex combination. 'Tweenness' feels just a little too long.) 'Fractile' from the stackexchange thread would also work. Booleans have the same problem that we lack a plain English short word for "yes or no answer". I think we ought to start pushing 'bool' or 'boole' out of our jargon and into common English.

throwaway894345 6y ago
> Booleans have the same problem that we lack a plain English short word for "yes or no answer". "Binary" is the term I use. E.g., "It's not a binary proposition" to call out a false dichotomy.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Binary means that there are exactly two choices, not that the choices are yes or no.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I understand, but context typically gets you the rest of the way. We're talking about natural languages after all; this is about as good as you can hope for.
drdec 6y ago
>'Proportion' and 'fraction' unfortunately both suggest a ratio of integers instead of a unit real. I don't mean to pick on you in particular abecedarius, but I find it amusing to be worried about signalling that irrational numbers are OK given the context is computing and all the numbers are rational anyway.
- abecedarius 6y ago
  You got me there, but I think this kind of discussion is "you know what I mean" territory: ratios aren't limited to 0..1, and the central examples the terms evoke involve small integers.
sgtnoodle 6y ago
A fraction or proportion in general doesn't have to be representable as a ratio of natural numbers. That's called a "common fraction", and as it happens, floating point representation stores the value as a ratio of natural numbers anyway. It's like asking someone to cut you 1/pi of a pie. It isn't total nonsense, but it is weird and you're going to get an approximation. They might get confused by your odd request and give you half a pie instead a third of a pie though!

throwaway894345 6y ago

> Booleans have the same problem that we lack a plain English short word for "yes or no answer". "Binary" is the term I use. E.g., "It's not a binary proposition" to call out a false dichotomy.

dragonwriter 6y ago
Binary means that there are exactly two choices, not that the choices are yes or no.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I understand, but context typically gets you the rest of the way. We're talking about natural languages after all; this is about as good as you can hope for.

drdec 6y ago

>'Proportion' and 'fraction' unfortunately both suggest a ratio of integers instead of a unit real. I don't mean to pick on you in particular abecedarius, but I find it amusing to be worried about signalling that irrational numbers are OK given the context is computing and all the numbers are rational anyway.

abecedarius 6y ago
You got me there, but I think this kind of discussion is "you know what I mean" territory: ratios aren't limited to 0..1, and the central examples the terms evoke involve small integers.

sgtnoodle 6y ago

A fraction or proportion in general doesn't have to be representable as a ratio of natural numbers. That's called a "common fraction", and as it happens, floating point representation stores the value as a ratio of natural numbers anyway. It's like asking someone to cut you 1/pi of a pie. It isn't total nonsense, but it is weird and you're going to get an approximation. They might get confused by your odd request and give you half a pie instead a third of a pie though!