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That makes me wary. As any mathematician knows, "trivial" means solvable. "Nontrivial" means no one has solved it yet, but no one knows any good reason why it s
by bitwize 2y ago
That makes me wary. As any mathematician knows, "trivial" means solvable. "Nontrivial" means no one has solved it yet, but no one knows any good reason why it shouldn't be solvable in principle. And "decidedly nontrivial" means no one has a fucking clue whether it's solvable or not; best not try, unless you're Terence Tao or somebody, then... maybe.
So if I were your boss and you came to me casually describing a problem as "nontrivial" I'd be like... "so is the time frame gonna be years or decades?"
- pc86 2y ago"Trivial" in software means easy. So "non-trivial" just means not easy. As such whether or not something actually is trivial or not will vary person to person.
- plorkyeran 2y agoThat's pretty much exactly what it means in software too? A trivial task is one that you think you know how to do. A nontrivial problem is one which sounds like it should be doable, but you don't immediately know what steps will be required, and until you look into it further it may take anywhere from days to decades.