Same here. Also “nonce word”. And I agree, it carries the wrong
connotations for the singleton class, whereas “eigenclass” seems to me
to be just about perfect, both in literal meaning and connotations.
My main problem with “eigenclass” is that it’s in German, whereas
everything else in Ruby is in English. I actually suggested “own
class” a long time ago. Eigenclass is basically a German translation
of that. I love German – majored in it in college, even – but
“eigenclass” just strikes me as a bit joke-like or perhaps a bit
pretentious.
I’ve refrained from using the term “own class” pre-emptively, though,
which in the “Darwinian” world of bringing about a fait accompli in
the area of renaming singleton classes takes it pretty much out of the
running
Honestly. Have you ever even used the work nonce in your entire life?
Aaargh!
Hamlet Act IV, Scene VII
When in your motion you are hot and dry,
As make your bouts more violent to that end,
And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him
A chalice for the nonce: wheron but sipping
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.
Best regards,
Michael
–
Michael U.
R&D Team
ISIS Information Systems Austria
tel: +43 2236 27551-219, fax: +43 2236 21081
e-mail: [email protected]
Visit our Website: www.isis-papyrus.com
It’s actually a relatively common term in cryptographic references,
IIRC. The cryptographic nonce is some (random?) string that is used
once and only once (it doesn’t repeat and it isn’t typically
predictable) and typically in a challenge/response identification
protocol.
“Nonces” are used in authentication protocols to inhibit replay
attacks,
especially when verifying shared secrets. (“Don’t send me a SHA1 hash of
your password, because you might have snooped it or guessed it. Send me
a
SHA1 hash of your password concatenated to this unique nonce I’m about
to
send you.”)
Definitely. I was quite floored to find an honest ot goodness
synonym for singleton. And it’s obscure enough so it doesn’t have any
significant connotation baggage, which is great.
Unfortunately, nonce has considerable negative baggage in both
English, and, I believe, Australian.
Wikipedia is about as accurate as usual, but that doesn’t really make
any difference.
My main problem with “eigenclass” is that it’s in German, whereas
everything else in Ruby is in English. I actually suggested “own
class” a long time ago. Eigenclass is basically a German translation
of that. I love German – majored in it in college, even – but
“eigenclass” just strikes me as a bit joke-like or perhaps a bit
pretentious.
‘Eigen’ is indeed German, but I’ve always seen the word as patterned
after the mathematical term ‘eigenvector’, which is used in English.
I’d rather pattern it after the rest of Ruby
In any case, if it were really German, wouldn’t it be ‘Eigenklasse’?
I think we should compromise and use “singleton Klasse”
My main problem with “eigenclass” is that it’s in German, whereas
everything else in Ruby is in English. I actually suggested “own
class” a long time ago. Eigenclass is basically a German translation
of that. I love German – majored in it in college, even – but
“eigenclass” just strikes me as a bit joke-like or perhaps a bit
pretentious.
‘Eigen’ is indeed German, but I’ve always seen the word as patterned
after the mathematical term ‘eigenvector’, which is used in English.
In any case, if it were really German, wouldn’t it be ‘Eigenklasse’?
class" a long time ago. Eigenclass is basically a German translation
of that. I love German – majored in it in college, even – but
“eigenclass” just strikes me as a bit joke-like or perhaps a bit
pretentious.
Maybe, but eigenvalues and eigenvectors are now common terminology in
mathematics in English. It beats the over used word “characteristic”.
In a sense, I feel that the eigen- prefix has been around long enough
in the scientific lingo to be used for our purpose.
Honestly. Have you ever even used the work nonce in your entire
life?
I have several times. I say “for the nonce” all the time.
It really amazes me. I wonder in what region you reside. I have lived
all over the United States: Mayland, North Carolina, Florida, Texas,
New Mexico, Chicago, and among all variety of income and education
levels, and I have never once heard the phrase. So it really surprises
me that out of wood work of this mailing we find so many people that
use it all the time. Is this some sort of cosmic Rubyist connection?
How to determine a Rubyist from the average human being: Have you used
the word ‘nonce’ since Tuesday?
T.
P.S. And to be sure ask them: What type of animal can’t be implemented?
class" a long time ago. Eigenclass is basically a German translation
David
The term “eigenvector” has only become a de facto standard in English
fairly recently. A great deal of theoretical math done by French and
Russian mathematicians used non-German terminology for a somewhat
obvious reason before the two World Wars. When this mathematics was
translated into English, the term “proper vector” was heavily used, as
well as some others. Other instances of this phenomenon are the
Cauchy-Schwartz-Bunyakovsky inequality and the Gauss-Legendre least
squares algorithm.
Same here. Also “nonce word”. And I agree, it carries the wrong
connotations for the singleton class, whereas “eigenclass” seems
to me
to be just about perfect, both in literal meaning and connotations.
My main problem with “eigenclass” is that it’s in German, whereas
everything else in Ruby is in English.
It really amazes me. I wonder in what region you reside. I have lived
all over the United States: Mayland, North Carolina, Florida, Texas,
New Mexico, Chicago, and among all variety of income and education
levels, and I have never once heard the phrase. So it really surprises
me that out of wood work of this mailing we find so many people that
use it all the time. Is this some sort of cosmic Rubyist connection?
How to determine a Rubyist from the average human being: Have you used
the word ‘nonce’ since Tuesday?
I prefer the idea of making up a word (a-la eigenclass) to reusing a
common
or uncommon English word that doesn’t quite mean what we want.
“own class” is pretty good, but it’s perhaps easily confused with the
normal
class of an object. Maybe some others along the same lines, possible
calling
out that this is a single unique use of that class would be more
specific:
owned class
pwned class (ha)
self class
selfish class
singular class
monoclass
unaclass
uniclass
unclass
ichiclass
…
On Aug 11, 2006, at 1:12 PM, Charles O Nutter wrote:
I prefer the idea of making up a word (a-la eigenclass) to reusing
a common
or uncommon English word that doesn’t quite mean what we want.
“own class” is pretty good, but it’s perhaps easily confused with
the normal
class of an object. Maybe some others along the same lines,
possible calling
out that this is a single unique use of that class would be more
specific:
[snip some names]
Are we really gonna start this thread again? Anyway, my vote is for
“warm fuzzy thing”.
What is “English” anyway? Most of our words came from some other
langauage. Would you be suggesting only anglo-saxon derived words
are appropriate for Ruby?
… Adieu, hope my post was apropos and that I haven’t made a faux
pas or some sort of gauche inappropriate critique; of course that
sort of thing would be de rigeur for Usenet and probably inducing of
deja vu. Well gotta ask my protoge to take the cuisine out of the
microwave, the office is about to head out en masse to catch the
risque matinee du jour. (I hope there’s plenty of double entendre.)
En route, I’ll pick up my fiancee - she’s a fan of the genre. With
luck, after the finale, there’ll be an encore presentation.
Hmm. What about ‘lambda’?
I was about to complain about the overlap with other, more common uses
of the term in computer science, but considering the way Ruby uses
“block” I guess it’s not that big a deal for Ruby. I’m already confused
about how to refer to some things, anyway.
Definitely. I was quite floored to find an honest ot goodness
?