[squeak-dev] [Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-project] About ~= and ~~

[Alexander Lazarević]

Nicolas,

it seems that I have failed to express myself clearly, so that you were
misreading me. What I was trying to say was that I assume that most people
get introduced to the symbols = and ≠ for equality and unequality early on.
And that the symbol ≠ for unequality isn't (is not) ~ nor any composition
that includes ~.
I didn't intent to say that I assume that ~ is a very common symbol for the
NOT operator and that most people learn about it as early as they learn
about = and ≠.

So my gut feeling still is, that one would favor an expression that contains
the most familiar = symbol (or ==) over an equivalent expression of same
complexity, but that contains ~ (~= or ~~) instead, which is not as deeply
rooted in our brains.

2011/10/18 Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com>

> Well, is ~ interpretation ubiquitous ?


With the above it's hopefully no surprise that I think it's not.

I rather learned ¬ NOT SIGN. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_not
>

Same here, but over the years I also saw !x, bar below x, bar above x, dot
below x and even dot above x ... meaning NOT.


> And if ≠ is translated /= in ASCII (FORTRAN 95 & ADA)
> Then by analogy ~= could ambiguously mean ≃ ASYMPOTICALLY EQUAL TO and
> ~~ mean ≈ ALMOST EQUAL TO unless it is ≅ APPROXIMATELY EQUAL TO .
>

Alex
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