* peterGo <go.peter...@gmail.com> [190416 09:23]: > Marvin Renich, > > "I would interpret the phrase," "I think the phrase," and "I prefer" are > your personal interpretation, thoughts, and preference. Go prefers standard > interpretations: US words, spelling, grammar, and dictionaries. For example,
Absolutely. My point was that the definition of "first preceding" is ambiguous. Actually, I would replace "standard" with "precise, unambiguous". I do agree that we want to use words and phrases that are well-defined and, hopefully, well-known. > Merriam-Webster > Definition of preceding > : existing, coming, or occurring immediately before in time or place > // preceding paragraphs > https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/preceding > > Using the Merriam-Webster definition, the meaning seems reasonably clear. I disagree. It defines "preceding", but says nothing about the order of multiple items which are all preceding a single item. I also disagree with the word "immediately" in that definition. My paper copy of "Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary" C 1988, gives this definition: Existing or coming before in time, place, rank, or sequence : PREVIOUS "Preceding" may sometimes have an "immediate" connotation, but that is not an integral part of the word's definition. > For standardization and clarity, I would prefer that 'first preceding' be > "immediately preceding." I wholeheartedly agree that "immediately" is an improvement over "first", and I would be happy with this change, but I still think "most recent preceding" is more precise and not subject to being misinterpreted. "Immediately preceding" might cause some confusion here: const ( Jan = iota Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec ) There is no "immediately preceding non-empty expression list" for Dec; the only thing immediately preceding is "Nov". The "= iota" is not, by my estimation, immediately preceding; there are 10 lines of code in between! > Google Search > > immediately+preceding: About 6,000,000 results > > first+preceding: About 52,000 results This is evidence that "first preceding" is not nearly as popular as "immediately preceding". It does not, however, say anything about correctness or preciseness. > Google Books Ngram Viewer > > immediately+preceding: 0.0000995521% > > first+preceding: 0.0000004863% > > last+preceding: 0.0000041926% > > most+recent+preceding: 0.0000001958% This shows popularity in an extremely broad range of books, very likely swamped with fiction (I don't know what books are searched by those queries). We are trying to find an expression that unambiguously defines the behavior of a particular aspect of the Go language. Most authors of fiction are not concerned with making their work of art be as precise as a computer language specification. ...Marvin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
