• Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips+D gmail.com> Feb 09 2011
• spir <denis.spir gmail.com> Feb 10 2011

Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips+D gmail.com> writes:

%u Wrote:

 == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS lycos.com)'s article
 D is currently very not-orthogonal.


 I think you might the person to ask this:
 I've seen the concept of orthogonality pop up more and more and it was
especially
 prominent in the awkward Go vs D reddit discussion, can you maybe explain what
it
 exactly means?
 And, also how it relates to your enhancement?


Orthogonal is one of those terms people like to use because it makes them sound
smart. Bearophile has provided a good explanation of how it relates to
programming languages, and hasn't been abusing the term.

The discussion on Reddit was awkward because there where a few that couldn't
consistently use 'orthogonal.' For example I got one person to say that for him
orthogonality is when there are no exceptions to a rule/feature, yet somehow
nested functions where not orthogonal.

Then even once everyone agrees on what the term means, there are good arguments
as to why you wouldn't want to be completely orthogonal. And at this point many
will just assert not being orthogonal is always bad, with the universal reason
being "It is something more you have to remember." Which is not the purpose of
orthogonality at all, and being orthogonal doesn't even mean you'll have less
to remember.

So my opinion is to just make a statement of what is wrong and leave whether it
is related to orthogonality out of it. And even if it is labeled correctly it
best to be specific anyway so people aren't left guessing as to why.

spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:

On 02/09/2011 08:20 PM, Jesse Phillips wrote:
 %u Wrote:

 == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS lycos.com)'s article
 D is currently very not-orthogonal.


 I think you might the person to ask this:
 I've seen the concept of orthogonality pop up more and more and it was
especially
 prominent in the awkward Go vs D reddit discussion, can you maybe explain what
it
 exactly means?
 And, also how it relates to your enhancement?


 Orthogonal is one of those terms people like to use because it makes them
sound smart. Bearophile has provided a good explanation of how it relates to
programming languages, and hasn't been abusing the term.

 The discussion on Reddit was awkward because there where a few that couldn't
consistently use 'orthogonal.' For example I got one person to say that for him
orthogonality is when there are no exceptions to a rule/feature, yet somehow
nested functions where not orthogonal.

 Then even once everyone agrees on what the term means, there are good
arguments as to why you wouldn't want to be completely orthogonal. And at this
point many will just assert not being orthogonal is always bad, with the
universal reason being "It is something more you have to remember." Which is
not the purpose of orthogonality at all, and being orthogonal doesn't even mean
you'll have less to remember.

 So my opinion is to just make a statement of what is wrong and leave whether
it is related to orthogonality out of it. And even if it is labeled correctly
it best to be specific anyway so people aren't left guessing as to why.


"othogonal" is just a fashionable way of saing "independant.
See acception & example #4 below, from en.wiktionary:

Adjective

orthogonal (non-comparable)

    1. (geometry) pertaining to right angles; perpendicular (to)

           A chord and the radius that bisects it are orthogonal.

    2. (mathematics)
          1. Of two functions, linearly independent; having a zero inner
product.

                 The normal vector and tangent vector at a given point are 
orthogonal.

          2. Of a square matrix that is the inverse of its transpose
          3. Of a linear transformation that preserves angles
    3. (statistics) statistically independent, with reference to variates
    4. (software engineering) Able to be treated separately.

           The content of the message should be orthogonal to the means of its 
delivery.


Denis
-- 
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com