Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:55:45 +0000 From: "Bruce M. Simpson" <bms@FreeBSD.org> To: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Maxim Konovalov <maxim@freebsd.org>, src-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org, cvs-src@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/fs/msdosfs msdosfs_vfsops.c Message-ID: <47401A31.3050003@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20071118102740.E73806@fledge.watson.org> References: <200711180921.lAI9LVfQ009903@repoman.freebsd.org> <20071118100058.GD83818@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <20071118102740.E73806@fledge.watson.org>
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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
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