Comments for JustinLL dot Com

Comment on Don't Stand For Being Seated by Josh

Josh — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:50:23 +0000

I’ve never thought of that, but it’s true. You have to stand to get any sort of attention when speaking. It weird to explain oneself while on your ass. The only experience I have with this is arguing in an arguing sort of class. It seems some what less frank than Frank

Comment on Don't Write These Words by Angus Gordon

Angus Gordon — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:10:11 +0000

Oh dear, didn’t even notice that…

Comment on Don't Write These Words by JustinLL

JustinLL — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:12:54 +0000

I think that is the problem, ordinary speech doesn’t have a word for exclusive disjunction the way logic and math have “XOR”. So the use of “OR” in grammar does create an ambiguity, as you pointed out, because, while it’s meant to express inclusive disjunction, in ordinary speech it can take on the role of exclusive disjunction as well. Since most people don’t know about “XOR”, they use the “and/or” notation, which is why I think the professor in question made such a stink about it.

I was only having some fun with “very” when I wrote “It can be very difficult to prove.”

Comment on Don't Write These Words by Angus Gordon

Angus Gordon — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:46:33 +0000

Thanks Justin. I’m sure you’re right that “and/or” is a bad idea in technical documentation. What I was getting at is this: in ordinary speech, “x or y” conjunctions are often ambiguous because they can be interpreted as either including or not including the intersection of x and y. The ambiguity can usually be resolved by context, but not always. If you see “All desserts are served with cream or ice cream” on a menu, you don’t know whether you can have both. “Cream and/or ice cream” makes it clear that you can. (And “either cream or ice cream” makes it clear that you can’t.) So at least in ordinary speech, “and/or”, far from being vague, is more precise than the alternative. (Personally, I’d probably write “cream, ice cream, or both”, but that’s just a stylistic preference.)

Also, the fact that something is difficult to prove doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful! “The meat of this strange animal tastes rather like chicken” is unprovable *and* imprecise, but it’s still a meaningful and useful statement (you know not to eat the stuff if you don’t like chicken). I guess restaurant critics wouldn’t make good software engineers, and vice versa

(Not sure why all my examples come from food btw…)

Comment on Don't Write These Words by JustinLL

JustinLL — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:21:17 +0000

Angus,

You’re right that this list is specific to technical documentation where quantifiability takes precedence over, well, pretty much all else. “and/or” can’t be accurately tested because we don’t know if the coder means the result should be “x and y”, “x or y”, or “x, but not y”. Any of these would be acceptable, even if it were wrong, which is another story.

The same follows for “easier”, “harder”, but not “faster”. (Theta notation.) Easier and Harder are relative terms. “the revised algorithm proved to be easier.” What does that mean, and what am I to test? Was it easier for the programmer to code, or easier for the CPU to compute? Or easier to read because the revised algorithm included descriptive comments?

“very” doesn’t mean anything in technical documentation, and I’m not sure it means a whole lot anywhere else. It can be very difficult to prove.

And, yes, what the heck does it mean to “optimize”?

Thanks for contributing.