bug 116546

[Derek Atkins]

linas at linas.org (Linas Vepstas) writes:

> On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 01:06:44PM -0400, Derek Atkins was heard to remark:
> > Sorry, but it's very hard to get used to.  "1 > foo" just isn't
> > intuitive to about 99% of the programmers out there (including me).
> 
> Surely, its no harder than getting used to it the other way around?

But that's not how I think about it.  I think "is foo less-than 1",
not "is 1 greater-than foo".  I would bet that most other programmers
think about it this way, too.

> I visuallize a real-number line.  Negative numbers on the left,
> positive on the right.   The thing you are comparing to in the middle.
> Which side is it on?  Its a trick I learned in grad school, beats
> the pants off the grade-school dictum of 'you just subtract and 
> compare to zero', which always lead me to confusion and errors. 

Huh?  I've never heard of either the "subtract and compare to zero" or
any other tricks.  When I learned about comparing numbers I always
learned it on a scale as well.  But that doesn't change how I think
about programming (see above).

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available