- From: Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:32:29 -0500
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Elliotte Rusty Harold<elharo at ibiblio.org> wrote: > 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. The term 'operator' *is* sometimes used to just mean 'function' in functional languages. The term 'comparison operator' in specific is fairly normal in my experience. ~TJ
Received on Saturday, 15 August 2009 07:32:29 UTC