🚀 go-pugleaf

In <BtwIqK.78M@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> >   Also, mathematicians especially use lots of operators.
> 
> >They also use lots of Greek letters (at least in the sort of maths I
> >read).  It is reasonably easy to replace them with something else, and
> >IMHO you can do the same thing with the operators.  Of course I expect
> >that most mathematicians lament the loss of Greek characters when
> >writing programs, so I don't expect them to give up operators.
> 
> This is totally different.  The name of a variable is purely arbitrary,
> and any other string of symbols recognized as one is just as good.  But
> an operator is a constant, and cannot just be renamed.

Huh? When did operators become constants? They're just a shorthand
notation for some unary or binary functions, and the function they're
a shorthand for is variable. You said as much yourself:

> is A*B, for A and B matrices, is it
> the element-by-element product, or the matrix product?  I have used both.

> The CS people should not be telling users that the hardware/software
> combination is "smart."  Rather, they should emphasize that it is very
> unintelligent, but very fast--a super-fast sub-imbecile.

The CS people I know are doing exactly that. If I'd been associating
with people doing what you imply, I'd take a dim view of them myself.

	<mike