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Falsehoods programmers believe about hands: - they have 5 fingers Joking aside, that's a really nice project: congratulations!
by throwaway744678 6y ago
Falsehoods programmers believe about hands:
- they have 5 fingers
Joking aside, that's a really nice project: congratulations!
- KMnO4 6y agoWell, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:)
- StavrosK 6y agoWhat?! This is the first I hear of this, though you appear to be correct. Mindblowing.
- ncmncm 6y agoNot only that--different species have used different parts for the thumb. A Jurassic pterodactyl ("wing-finger") had the earliest known opposable thumb. Pandas have their choice. Primates are late to the party, but might have a claim to most use. Some cats have joined. The most important key-chord is space, followed by backspace.
- grawprog 6y agoCan't forget bats. There's a reason why their order is Chiroptera. >The name "Chiroptera" derives from Ancient Greek: χείρ – cheir, "hand"[4] and πτερόν – pteron, "wing".[1][5]
- weinzierl 6y agoAre you telling me that I have four fingers in English but five Finger in German? I'm confused, but Collins dictionary agrees with you: "Your fingers are the four long thin parts at the end of each hand." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger
- StavrosK 6y agoThat looks exactly right, we have five digits and four fingers, apparently. Who would have thought?
- Joker_vD 6y agoOne of those pointless little distinctions that English language makes but many other European languages don't. Another example is "velocity" vs "speed"—what other vector quantity has two distinct names, one for the vector, another for the vector's magnitude? The acceleration doesn't, for example; and distance and displacement are two slightly different concepts that deserve two distinct names.
- jbarberu 6y agoWeight and mass comes to mind.
- jkonline 6y agoWhoa... That's heavy #groan
- binbag 6y agoWeight isn't the vector quantity of mass. It's mass times acceleration, e.g. gravitational acceleration, g. In other words, it's a force.
- ghaff 6y agoIt's also one of the places where US units really break down. Working with pound-force, pound-mass, and slugs is really easy to mess up if you have to work that way. You're often better converting to SI, doing whatever calculations you have to do, and then converting back at the end.
- binbag 6y agoYeh, in general the term is just misused and confusing.
- greenshackle2 6y agoTechnically words can have more than one meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb#Thumb_and_fingers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb#Thumb_and_fingers Colloquially, for many (most?) English speakers, the thumb is a finger: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=4+fingers%2C5+fingers%2C8+fingers%2C10+fingers&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C4%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C5%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C8%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C10%20fingers%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=4+fingers%2C5+... A strawberry is a berry. I don't care if biologists or botanists or whoever use a narrower technical definition in their research papers. The colloquial definition is just as valid. Prescriptivism-by-authority can take a hike. Yes, I will die on this hill. https://imgur.com/gallery/pfEnXNT https://imgur.com/gallery/pfEnXNT
- CyberRabbi 6y agoYes words can have any meaning at all. Also War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Edit: this is a 1984 reference for those who aren’t familiar with that book or haven’t read it.
- _Microft 6y agoFrom your user page: "My name is actually CyberRabbit. I made a typo when I made this account and HN won’t let me edit my user name." There is no user "CyberRabbit" by the way, maybe dang would rename your account if you ask him?
- CyberRabbi 6y agoYes he offered but I don’t use email and cannot contact him that way.
- CyberRabbit 6y agoIt's too late now anyway
- rcar 6y agoI believe that the real intention behind the statement is that not all users of their product are going to have 5 working fingers if they've had some sort of accident or similar.
- nextlevelwizard 6y agoThat line of thinking doesn't get you far with anything. Nothing is universal. You can always find someone with some disability that prevents them from using a product. Accommidating as many people as possible is good, but you can never accommidate everyone. Same goes for all of these "things programmers believe about X", be it names or whatever. You absolutely need to provide working product for majority of people first and majority of people have at least two names or in this case 5 fingers.
- k-gula101 6y agoI wannnt to erase data stolen from my phone
- gumby 6y ago> Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:) Since you used the word "technically": actually the thumb is considered a finger in anatomical use (which is about as "technical" as you can get) just as the hallux (in popular jargon, "big toe") is anatomically considered a toe, despite having its own name. In a prior life in pharmaceutical development we had a drug program in which this was specifically important.
- dmje 6y agoDepends if you're a pianist or a violinist...
- type0 6y agoAnd koalas have two on each paw, thumbs up to that.
- dotancohen 6y agoAs a mechanical and ergonomic keyboard aficionado with an immobile right thumb, I agree 100%. Many of the cleverest "ergonomic" keyboards heavily overload the thumbs. This is great for moving stress away from the weak, fragile pinkies but only works for people with two useful thumbs!