From: John Cowan (cowan@mercury.ccil.org)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 15:02:32 EDT
Michael Everson scripsit:
> Hence, these characters have perfectly correct names for their
> function. And they are completely different from the half-brackets.
> The floor and ceiling characters are the same height as a square
> bracket just without one of the feet.
Correct.
> >The name police didn't know what they were? ;-)
>
> The Name Police don't know anything whatsoever about mathematics as
> ye well know. (Floor and ceiling function indeed. I suppose there is
> an attic and basement function, and a tornado-storm-cellar function?)
No, indeed. Even the hopeless innumerate should be able to grasp
the ceiling and floor functions, however: the floor of four and a half
is four, whereas its ceiling is five. Some speak of rounding down and
rounding up respectively.
-- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague." --Edsger Dijkstra
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