4 ms·
You might try a visual trick. Note that < and > look like "arrows" and "point" in a particular direction. There is a small end (the tip/point) and a large end
by pwg 13y ago
You might try a visual trick. Note that < and > look like "arrows" and "point" in a particular direction. There is a small end (the tip/point) and a large end (the open end). The vertical size of the point is "less than" the vertical size of open end. So if the point comes first (reading left to right) then the point is "less than" the opening (and the symbol means "less than"), but if the opening comes first (reading left to right), the opening is "greater than" the point (and the symbol means "greater than").
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- hill79 13y agoI don't know if this is common, but I visualise numbers on a line which makes it amazingly easy to use the 'arrows' metaphor < > 1 2 3 4 5
- dasil003 13y agoThat seems ambiguous to me in several ways. There must be more semantics you are subconsciously depending on to clarify it.
- masukomi 13y agoI think he means that he visualizes the pair "< >" relative to a line of numbers. Similar to how he placed it above a line of numbers in his ASCII art. < points down (left) the row of numbers to numbers that are less than the other ones and > points up (right) to numbers that are greater than. Makes perfect sense if you are a visual thinker.
- hill79 13y agoExactly this - thanks for clarifying my explanation
- MerreM 13y agoImagine the arrows are crocodiles. They always try and eat more. 1 < 2 4 > 1 If they're eating less, they're not happy crocodiles.
- brainburn 13y agoOr maybe as snork-eater-eaters http://wharble.com/sites/default/files/Snork-Eater_Eater.jpg http://wharble.com/sites/default/files/Snork-Eater_Eater.jpg
- haliphax 13y agoOr the "is greater than" (>) is a crocodile's mouth, and "is less than" (<) is a bird's beak. The bird eats smaller food than an crocodile eats, and the crocodile eats bigger food than the bird eats.
- RutZap 13y agoI use the same visual trick (more or less, looking at < and > as arrows, or if you want, spears) but I visualise bigger numbers as more "powerful" numbers that poke the "weak", smaller numbers with the pointy bit :D That's how I imagined them when I was a small child and that's how I still "see" them :D Numbers are cruel and ruthless :)
- JonnieCache 13y agoYou can make it even simpler than that: just put the big number next to the big end of the glyph and vice versa.
- tome 13y agoOh, I didn't realise anyone didn't remember it that way! I remember being taught it, but just assumed everyone else was, I guess.
- pubby 13y agoI'm not convinced programmers even need a mnemonic for < and >. After all, they'll read and write those glyphs millions of times in their lifetime.
- JonnieCache 13y agoAt least for me, the metaphors that I used to learn the symbols as a child have become my enduring mental models of those constructions, even if they're not actually needed to recall them any more.