Robert Watson wrote:
'iff' was definitely part of my formal education in three fields
during my undergraduate career in the US -- mathematics, computer
science, philosophy, and logic. It's used as an abbreviation for a
longer term which addresses an ambiguity in English, hence its
popularity with the above classes of scientists and engineers. I've
seen it used fairly extensively in computer science training here in
the UK as well.
I agree with Robert on this one -- and have also been picked up for
introducing 'iff' to code comments by non-native English speakers who
were confused by it.
To avoid confusion, we should probably add a note to style(9) about
this, it is a useful idiom in technical language, and has a specific
meaning in logic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_and_only_if
I recommend we "i.f.f." ie deliberately periodize its use outside of
mathematics and logic; this is a common use; if the strict use is
needed, use '<=>' in comments. There's no 7-bit ASCII glyph for iff
which is another problem.
regards
BMS
_______________________________________________
cvs-all@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/cvs-all
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
