On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 11:25:05PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > and, ``integer'' like any _english_ (or american, take your pick) word, > can have multiple meanings. sometimes with respect to technical usage, > sometimes with respect to local convention. What you just said is an english paragraph, and therefore can have multiple meanings. Therefore it will be interpreted to mean that "integer" has only one interpretation. You cannot play this game and win; all it can accomplish is to break communication entirely. Most words have perfectly good, accurate interpretations. Sometimes you have a selection of interpretations from which you have to select based on context; often you do not. This is one of those times when you do not. In particular, attempting to treat technical terms as fuzzy, just because some idiots don't know what they mean, cannot have any desireable results. (It appears that "natural" has fallen afoul of the ancient debate over whether or not zero is positive; this is unhelpful, but then I wouldn't have used it anyway. My preference is "non-negative integer") -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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