Nicolas,<br><br>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 ~.<br>
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 ≠.<br><br>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.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">2011/10/18 Nicolas Cellier <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@gmail.com">nicolas.cellier.aka.nice@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Well, is ~ interpretation ubiquitous ?</blockquote><div><br>With the above it's hopefully no surprise that I think it's not.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
I rather learned ¬ NOT SIGN.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_not" target="_blank"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_not</a><br></blockquote><div><br>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.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
And if ≠ is translated /= in ASCII (FORTRAN 95 & ADA)<br>
Then by analogy ~= could ambiguously mean ≃ ASYMPOTICALLY EQUAL TO and<br>
~~ mean ≈ ALMOST EQUAL TO unless it is ≅ APPROXIMATELY EQUAL TO .<br></blockquote><div><br>Alex <br></div></div>