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The thing is that SAT has many possible meanings as an acronym and this isn’t the most common one. I’ve been out of academics for a while, and at first I thoug
by bobthepanda 4y ago
The thing is that SAT has many possible meanings as an acronym and this isn’t the most common one.
I’ve been out of academics for a while, and at first I thought this was talking about the American college exam.
- mort96 4y agoThis sounds like a complaint about the hacker news title, which should have been written for a general HN audience, not a complaint about the blog post, where it is perfectly clear (for its target audience) that SAT means the boolean satisfiability problem.
- andix 4y agoThe title in the blog post is exactly the same.
- mort96 4y agoWhich is the problem if the title of the blog post is intended for a mathematical audience and the title of the HN post is intended for the general HN audience.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoAs others have pointed out, if this is a blog post for a mathematical audience that understands basic concepts in complexity theory, why bother explaining "Big-O notation is a standard instrument for describing performance of algorithms, as it erases small differences which depend on a particular implementation of the algorithm." Feels like the audience that this post is directed to is essentially "an earlier version of the author", which, to be fair, is a common mistake. I anticipate the average HN reader should be able to understand this blog post - I know what the boolean satisfiability problem is but have never seen it abbreviated as just "SAT". Don't mean to be overly harsh toward the author, but a first step in good writing is to define who your audience is.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rjbwork 4y agoFWIW I graduated over a decade ago, and even non-capitalized, I interpreted the title correctly immediately. The fact that it was on HN and said "hard" let me take a damn good guess that it would be the NP SAT problem.
- groestl 4y agoFun fact, also "hard" in this title is a formally defined term.
- eternityforest 4y agoThis article explains what SAT is in basic enough terms that I could understand the idea. I'm guessing nonmath nonCS people are part of the intended audience. I had no idea till just now.
- taeric 4y agoAgreed on principal. Always amusing to click a pandas post. I think I mainly do it to roll the dice and see what it will be. :) I'm curious what else you think of when you see SAT, though?
- adolph 4y agoHow satisfactory something is perceived My bodily arrangement when I ate breakfast The sixth day of the week according to crontab Etc etc