- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 03:48:11 +0000 (UTC)
On Sat, 15 Aug 2009, Elliotte Rusty Harold 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. I've removed the entire paragraph, to side-step this issue altogether. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Monday, 24 August 2009 20:48:11 UTC