English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

MetaEd

9:00 PM

So x = i++ gives x the old value of i, and as a side effect gives i itself the value i+1.

There's a related operation, ++i. It returns the value i+1 as well as incrementing i.

so x = ++i means x gets i+1 and so does i.

Cerberus

@aediaλ Wowie! That makes it all very clear! Thanks! So in the end i and x should be about the same value, right?

@MattЭллен Hmm I don't quite remember that from school! But I do know what % does now: divide a by b and return the remainder.

MetaEd

It kind of makes intuitive sense. ++i means increment i first, i++ means increment i afterward.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes.

Cerberus

@MetaEd Got it!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yeah, just forget I ever said "clock maths" :D it's best for both of us

user19161

9:02 PM

@MattЭллен Clock math is a good term!

Matt Эллен

right, but I can't explain it :D

user19161

Officially it is called modular arithmetic!

user19161

Modular arithmetic

In mathematics, modular arithmetic (sometimes called clock arithmetic) is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers "wrap around" after they reach a certain value—the modulus. The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler pioneered the modern approach to congruence in about 1750, when he explicitly introduced the idea of congruence modulo a number N. Modular arithmetic was further advanced by Carl Friedrich Gauss in his book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, published in 1801. A familiar use of modular arithmetic is in the 12-hour clock, in which the day is divided into two 12-hour pe...

Cerberus

@MetaEd OK AHK does the same thing with i += 1

user19161

@aediaλ Aedia is very good at explaining things!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:05 PM

@Cerberus += is available in Javascript and other languages too

Cerberus

Ah OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

i = i + 1; i++; i +=1; all equivalent

(sorta)

Cerberus

I think you should technically introduce an extra (temporary) variable.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's trickier too because in programming, often every line of code is also data, in a sense.

@Cerberus no! that's untidy

and why clutter the code?

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 No, I mean, to explain what ++ does.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:07 PM

in my sample?

Cerberus

No.

The way Ed was explaining it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, ++ is one of the language features that you have to read about.

user19161

@mahnax Boo!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

anyway, time for me to go.

Mahnax

@WillHunting Allo.

Cerberus

9:07 PM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 What do you mean?

OK bye, and thanks for the explanations!

aedia λ

@Cerberus Well, you might think of i as only living inside the loop, because that's where we created it; we can't see its value after the loop is over. But we incremented x each time the loop went around, so yes, we will have printed out that x was odd some times, even other times, and then at the end x will have the same value that i counted up to.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 See ya! Pleasant weekend!

@WillHunting I try :)

Shiny did most of it :P

user19161

It seems Mr Shiny says the same thing at the same time everyday.

Cerberus

@aediaλ Yeah OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I mean, i++ is different than i = i + 1 in several important ways, but it's often just used as a shorthand. Learning what the differences are is important, but I wanted to show you an idiomatic loop.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yeah I understand, it's clear now.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

9:10 PM

@WillHunting yeah, at home time.

MetaEd

@Cerberus The += is also a function that returns a value, in many languages. So for example if you write i += 3, the function inputs are i and 3, and the output (value) is i+3. As a side effect, it also modifies the value of i to be i+3.

Matt Эллен

cya @MrShinyandNew

MetaEd

In fact the plain = operator works that way too in many languages. It performs the assignment, but it also returns a value.

Now whether this is true in AHK I don't know. It's true in the C language family and many other relatives.

aedia λ

@MetaEd ...which is why the difference between your equals and your assignment operators are important to remember but devilish hard to keep straight sometimes

Cerberus

@MetaEd Yeah I understand you could say it works thus. i+3 is assigned to x. Then the contents of x are assigned to i immediately afterwards.

@MetaEd Yes, = can work that way too in AHK, or :=

MetaEd

9:14 PM

@aedia Yes. You can mistype x==6 as x=6 and pull your hair out because you just don't see the bug.

Cerberus

AHK doesn't really have that problem.

MetaEd

Functions which are written as little bits of punctuation do create that problem.

user19161

:= has the meaning of defined by in math, same in programming?

MetaEd

In some ways LISP is a lot more clear for just that reason.

Cerberus

@WillHunting What is it in maths?

user19161

9:15 PM

@Cerberus is defined by

Cerberus

Hmm, then I guess yes.

MetaEd

Even if it does have Lots of Irritating Stupid Parentheses.

user19161

So it's a bit stronger than equality.

Cerberus

AHK has a really neat, simple structure.

If x>3

Click

MetaEd

Which := are we asking about?

Cerberus

9:16 PM

Else

Die

Return

Run, c:\virus.exe

Things like that.

aedia λ

Hahaha.

Matt Эллен

ah, virus.exe, what a great programme ;)

Cerberus

And you can leave out the comma too!

Matt Эллен

which allows you to have an inconsistent coding style!

user19161

@MattЭллен Where? In your closet?

Cerberus

9:18 PM

@MattЭллен Yeah I got that from a friend yesterday, dying to try it out. His e-mail was in English, which I guess is his new way of practising foreign languages.

@MattЭллен Absolutely!

It's fucking great.

user19161

The file exe.virus is more likely to be a virus than the file virus.exe!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Well, that's a resounding endorsement. I shall have to try it out

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hehe yay!

It may not be complete enough for you.

user19161

@Cerberus Eh I thought you said it is vulgar? Not that I think so...

Cerberus

Try Autohotkey_L if you want. It has arrays and all.

Matt Эллен

9:20 PM

what I really want to do is find a way of getting python to work like AHK and then teach you python

Cerberus

@WillHunting I said "... for real".

user19161

@MattЭллен You've got to feed it some chickens first.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Haha!

user19161

Just make sure the python does not choke doggie cerb.

user19161

42

Q: Is Python a snake or a programming language? If the latter, why is it choking my dog?

We've been getting a rash of questions asking, essentially, what a programmer should name methods or properties. One such was a request for a word that meant both "add" and "remove" because the programmer wanted to have a method that could add or remove an element. Does this really fall under E...

Cerberus

9:22 PM

I have snake hair. I can handle it.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus There are a couple of things I need to figure out - how to background a programme in python, and how to get key presses when the programme is in the background

the reast is gravy

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmm...I have no idea what you're up to, really.

user19161

I wonder what I would do if I saw virus.exe on Windows.

user19161

What would you do?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus just thinking about you

Cerberus

9:26 PM

Scary...

Matt Эллен

oh

user19161

0

Q: Word meaning for phenomenon where one issue is incorrectly believed to be tied to another

I work in IT and we run into a common issue where whenever we announce that we have done something like adding a new feature to a program, updating servers or what have you... users start coming forward with lists of problems they have that they think are related to the changes. For example we a...

meaning technology

Matt Эллен

well then I'll think about something else

user19161

0

Q: Manifest vs. Manifested in relation to the glory or presence of God

I'm proofreading a manuscript for an author who writes extensively on the presence or glory of God manifested in this natural, earthly realm. The author uses the terms "manifest presence of God" and "manifested presence of God" interchangeably. I'm concerned this is not accurate. I read a pre...

differences

MetaEd

Now I want to know who Brett Glass is.

this is your fault, Will

Cerberus

9:28 PM

@MattЭллен Scary can be fun!

user19161

@MetaEd Where?

MetaEd

"For those who were as baffled by this use of bikeshed as I was, by the way: explanation."

which leads to: freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=506636+517178+/usr/local/www/…

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus It can be exciting, like danger and fire

Cerberus

Yup!

user19161

No worries, I am the only creepy one here!

user19161

9:32 PM

I need 40 more to 15k.

Robusto

@Cerberus Snake hair? Do you get that from eating Gorgonzola?

Cerberus

And why Gorgonzola?

Robusto

@Cerberus Think about it.

user19161

@Cerberus Looks very familiar!

Cerberus

@Robusto It's not working.

@WillHunting Good!

Robusto

9:43 PM

@Cerberus What exactly was Medusa?

I shouldn't have to be giving clues to the classical scholar.

Cerberus

My sister? Or what was she?

Robusto

A Gorgon! D'oh!

user19161

Medusa is my favourite character in Clash of the Titans.

Cerberus

You know my memory is bad. That includes mythology.

@Robusto Oh! I was going to type "a Gorgo?", then decided it wasn't relevant. Haha.

Robusto

user19161

9:44 PM

But only the original movie is nice, the remake sucks.

Robusto

You know, you make me work too hard.

Cerberus

No, I just suck at those kinds of puzzles.

Robusto

Well, it wasn't a puzzle. It was a pun. Which you also apparently suck at.

Cerberus

I suck at those too, because they're random.

Robusto

That was a random thing to say. In fact, I would insist that puns are not random, that they are anything but random.

Cerberus

9:49 PM

I am not creative in that way. You need to be able to think up things out of nowhere for such puzzles/puns.

You need to think, "oh, what does Gorgonzola make me think of?", and I fail at that.

I'm thinking cheese, green/blue, Italy, fermentation.

Robusto

@Cerberus So ... what exactly does the inside of your mind look like? Dark velvet drapes, no sound, and a stairway that only goes in one direction: down.

Gigili

Hey there, what does "drive-by tutoring" mean?

Cerberus

@Robusto No, it goes up.

@Gigili Hi!

Robusto

@Cerberus I gave you two clues: snake hair and Gorgonzola. If you can't put those two together, I wash my hands of you.

@Gigili It means cursory, incomplete tutoring.

Matt Эллен

@Gigili a drive-by shooting is a shooting done from a car. So it is done quickly and without accuracy. Drive-by tutoring is what robusto said

Gigili

9:51 PM

@Robusto Got it, thank you.

Robusto

Drive-by is used to mean a quick encounter substituting for a diligent effort.

Cerberus

@Robusto I can't. The connection is too random: a meaningless similarity in sound that you either think of or you don't.

Robusto

@Cerberus Snake hair ought to make you think of Gorgons.

Cerberus

@Robusto It does, but not of the sound, unless I'm thinking the sound would be relevant.

I told you I had already considered and tossed the word Gorgon.

Robusto

Who needs the sound? "Gorgonzola" contains "Gorgon" as its first six visible letters.

Matt Эллен

9:52 PM

@Cerberus so you got it, but decided you were wrong!

Robusto

@Cerberus You only said that after I told you.

Cerberus

But not its meaning.

Gigili

Uhum, thank you @Robusto, @Matt.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yes, because there was no connection in meaning.

@Robusto You don't believe me?

It is true.

Matt Эллен

You give Robusto's jokes too much credit :D

Cerberus

9:53 PM

Where did I give them credit?

Hehe.

Robusto

@Cerberus You know what? Forget it. I'm not going to waste my beautiful, bilingual, classically-tooled puns on your dumb ass any longer.

Cerberus

@Robusto Eh I don't know what this is all about; I just explained why these kinds of puzzles are hard for me. I wasn't criticizing the pun itself.

Robusto

@Cerberus Doesn't matter why. I simply mean to avoid that pain in the future. Not blaming you, really. You can't help being how you are.

Cerberus

Ok then.

Robusto

In fact, my bad. I should have remembered from earlier encounters with the pain that is your inability to appreciate the finer shades of humor.

Matt Эллен

9:57 PM

If it makes you feel better @Cerb, I didn't even link snake hair with Medusa

user19161

I want to get Medusa because there are many people I want to turn into stone.

user19161

@MattЭллен Good night!

Cerberus

@Robusto Thanks.

@MattЭллен Hehe. Perhaps together we could have solved it, then!

user19161

@Robusto Actually I'm the one who has difficulty getting jokes.

Robusto

I just realized: atheist anagrams to eat shit.

Also a theist.

user19161

10:01 PM

I just realized I just learnt anagrams recently.

Robusto

Jul 9 '11 at 13:08, by Robusto

Anagrams are my ars magna.

user19161

Also this tea.

Cerberus

@Robusto By the way, I get the feeling that you interpreted what I said as criticizing your pun. It was not that at all, though I can understand why it may seem like that. I just suck at making that kind of connections.

It's just not my cup of tea.

Robusto

@Cerberus No, I didn't interpret it as criticism. And I've said all I have to say on the subject.

Cerberus

OK, good.

Robusto

10:04 PM

@WillHunting And many other things. But eat shit and a theist are my faves.

aedia λ

@Cerberus scratches agitated puppy behind the ears now, now, no more barking at the bright red letter's cheesy puns

Cerberus

@aediaλ It's OK. I don't even think it's a letter.

Robusto

@aediaλ It's not a letter. It's an ideogram.

MetaEd

The palindrome of Bolton would be notlob. You said this was Ipswich!

Robusto

MetaEd anagrames to date me.

aedia λ

10:10 PM

@Robusto You say ideogram, I say thing I'm uneducated about, what's the difference?

Robusto

Or teamed.

@aediaλ When you put it that way ... huh?

MetaEd

There are robots in Robusto.

Robusto

Or bouts.

MetaEd

How about therapist and the rapist?

Robusto

And now for something completely different: an astrophysical exegesis of Goodnight Moon

MetaEd

10:12 PM

Santa and Satan?

aedia λ

beer curs in Cerberus

Robusto

> These two methods clearly do not agree with one another, which means one of two things: either I'm terribly over-analyzing the content of the illustrations of a beloved children's book, or the bunny's bedroom is moving at extremely high velocity relative to the earth, so that relativistic time dilation makes the six-minute rise of the moon appear to take an hour and ten minutes.

MetaEd

@Robusto Ack.

The Physics Of Santa Claus

Cerberus

@aediaλ An ideogram should be a representation of the physical shape of what it stands for, in some way. A syllabogram should represent a syllable. A letter should represent a phoneme.

A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech that can change the meaning of an utterance.

MetaEd

You mean a phonogram.

:-D

aedia λ

10:17 PM

@Cerberus I do know about phonemes. I just don't know a thing about writing systems.

Cerberus

@MetaEd Uhm I think that should be theoretically about the same thing?

@aediaλ OK.

The point is that a letter is not just any symbol.

aedia λ

I kind of knew that, but I couldn't think of any other words that wouldn't be wronger.

Cerberus

Yeah I understand.

It just seemed a good time to look up what the differences were again.

MetaEd

How about a gramophone!

user19161

A palindrome auto-anagrams.

Robusto

10:20 PM

The point about an ideogram is that it's a written character that contains no indication of pronunciation. It only means something.

aedia λ

I'm just going to start saying graphene for everything. I mean grapheme. The one of those that doesn't have to be made of carbon.

MetaEd

☯

☭

Robusto

For example, look at the ideogram for my gravatar. There are five ways to pronounce that character in Japanese alone, more if you count Korean and Chinese.

user19161

The yin yang symbol.

MetaEd

✠

These are horribly small on my browser.

user19161

10:23 PM

@Robusto It looks like a twisted carrot.

Robusto

@WillHunting It looks like a dream to me. The way it looks to you is just an illusion.

user19161

The carrot is fatter in the middle and twisted to the left. The colour is approximately correct too.

aedia λ

Oooh that's a lot of similar kanji...

Robusto

I don't know what color carrots are in your part of the world, but where I live they're orange, not red.

aedia λ

I don't know how you're seeing a carrot in there.

user19161

10:27 PM

@Robusto Orange approximately equals red. QED!

Robusto

@WillHunting — You've already been forbidden to use words you don't understand. Must we extend that to colors as well?

user19161

Sometimes the orange might be so dark that it really looks like red, it's true.

Robusto

If it's so dark that it looks like red, then it is red. That's one of the cool things about colors. If they look like a color, they are the color.

user19161

To be honest, I do understand the meaning of QED from the start. I will now attempt to explain why my usage is not wrong.

MetaEd

2 + 2 = 5, for large values of 2.

Q.E.D.

(actual demonstration left as an exercise for the reader)

Robusto

10:32 PM

I've gotta commute. Adios amigos.

aedia λ

@Robusto Safe travels!

user19161

For example, I said colour is approximately correct. In later saying orange approximately equals red, I have justified my original claim, hence the use of QED.

MetaEd

Proven!

user19161

Not all the steps are written in order, but the idea is the same, hence my use of QED is legitimate!

MetaEd

That's going to be a relief to the family.

user19161

10:36 PM

But I do not use LED!

user19161

I am sorry, I meant to say LSD!

user19161

Lysergic acid diethylamide

Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an altered sense of time and spiritual experiences, as well as for its key role in 1960s counterculture. It is used mainly as an entheogen, recreational drug, and as an agent in psychedelic therapy. LSD is non-addictive, is not known to cause brain damage, and has extremely low toxicity relativ...

Mahnax

But the light-emitting diodes must feel so horrible.

@MetaEd I love doing that.

aedia λ

laboriously super demonstrandum?

user19161

Hehe, and I learned to end sentences with it's true from Aedia!

aedia λ

10:42 PM

languidly sleepily deducted?

@WillHunting Hey do I really say that?

I think @Cerb is wearing off on me. I don't remember.

user19161

Sep 13 '11 at 0:07, by aedia λ

Those who Believe can see us everywhere, it's true.

user19161

Will always speaks the truth. If you think otherwise, it's because you have not understood him, it's true.

aedia λ

Haha.

Nice.

user19161

Jan 19 at 19:38, by Will Hunting

@aediaλ But those who Believe can see them everywhere, it's true!

user19161

So for the record, chat users, today I have demonstrated that my use of QED is in fact CORRECT. QED.

Cerberus

11:10 PM

I'm afraid I cannot accept QED without formal argumentation.

aedia λ

Evening or afternoon dress?

Cerberus

11:29 PM

Evening.

White tie.

Preferably opera pumps.

Like these, with ribbon.

aedia λ

Oooh.

I did have to look up opera pumps. I don't know much about shoes.

My typical work dress shoe is ehh something like this but cheaper looking:

Cerberus

11:46 PM

If you were a man wearing a dinner jacket, you would be almost as conspicuous as a pink unicorn already is.

On other occasions, those shoes are nice.

They aren't like penny loafers?

aedia λ

The ones in the picture probably are. Mine have a stupid buckle across the front.

But, well, it's hard to find shoes that fit small unicorn feets.

Oh haha I have a pair of black women's dress shoes under my other desk that I forgot I owned!

I have black and brown shoes for work and apparently brought the girly ones in as well and have forgotten to wear them for like a year.

Cerberus

Haha cool.

I can imagine unicorn feets don't like black shoes.

aedia λ

I commute in sandals as much of the year as possible and sneakers or hiking boots the rest; I don't like it if my sense of balance or stride or anything is off as I'm hurrying to a bus or down an escalator or even just walking alone home from something.

I don't like shoes, period.

Having them on.

It seems to be a social necessity, but bah. makes a face at shoes

Cerberus

Hmm.

aedia λ

They're okay for playing dress-up, but not for actually walking in.

Cerberus

11:56 PM

@aediaλ But do such heels make you any less balanced?

I can imagine typical women's heels suck to walk on.

I thank the Lord on my bare knees that I am not expected to wear them.

aedia λ

Well, the girly ones are much worse; you can then only feel the ground under half your foot, and that not even really because they usually have very stiff soles.

Cerberus

So are they pumps?

aedia λ

But dress shoes, in particular, tend to slip around, or they have weird soles, or a little bit of heel that annoys you, or they just make it so that you can't walk as fast.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Strange.

My leather shoes are all very comfortable.

All leather soles too.

Bit of heel, like the ones in your picture.

aedia λ

Sandals aren't so bad because they're like strapping a piece of flexible stuff to the bottom of your foot and I can adjust it with the straps.

Cerberus

11:59 PM

Now sandals, I hate walking on those!

All flippery flop.