- From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@ibiblio.org>
- Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:16:38 -0700
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 4:40 AM, Ian Hickson<ian at hixie.ch> wrote: > On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: >> >> "This specification defines several comparison operators for strings." >> >> Really, operators? Is this the right word here? Maybe it should be >> "several comparison operations on strings" or "several possible >> comparisons for strings. > > What's wrong with operators? They are literally functions that the rest of > the spec uses, it seems like the right word here. A function is not an operator. According to Wikipedia, "In mathematics, an operator is a function which operates on (or modifies) another function." A comparison is an operation on strings (data), not on other functions. In traditional programming languages such as Java and C, an operator is usually a language defined symbol, and occasionally a user defined symbol. That also doesn't apply here. For instance, in Java, "operators are special symbols that perform specific operations on one, two, or three operands, and then return a result." What you're describing is likely a function or perhaps an operation, but I don't think it's an operator in the commonly understood senses of the term amongst the people likely to be reading this spec. -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo at ibiblio.org
Received on Saturday, 15 August 2009 06:16:38 UTC