20 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
20 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>for values of</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="for-the-rest-of-us.html" title="for the rest of us"/><link rel="next" href="fora.html" title="fora"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">for values of</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="for-the-rest-of-us.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fora.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="for-values-of"/><dt xmlns="" id="for-values-of"><b>for values of</b></dt></dt><dd><p> [MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is to use any of the
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canonical <a href="../R/random-numbers.html"><i class="glossterm">random numbers</i></a> as placeholders for
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variables. “<span class="quote">The max function takes 42 arguments, for arbitrary
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values of 42.:</span>” “<span class="quote">There are 69 ways to leave your lover, for 69
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= 50.</span>” This is especially likely when the speaker has uttered a
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random number and realizes that it was not recognized as such, but even
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‘non-random’ numbers are occasionally used in this fashion. A
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related joke is that <tt class="literal">π</tt> equals 3 —
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for small values of <tt class="literal">π</tt> and large values
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of 3.</p><p>Historical note: at MIT this usage has traditionally been traced to
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the programming language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an Algol-58-like
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language that was the most common choice among mainstream (non-hacker)
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users at MIT in the mid-60s. It inherited from Algol-58 a control
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structure FOR VALUES OF X = 3, 7, 99 DO ... that would repeat the indicated
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instructions for each value in the list (unlike the usual FOR that only
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works for arithmetic sequences of values). MAD is long extinct, but
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similar for-constructs still flourish (e.g., in Unix's shell
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languages).</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="for-the-rest-of-us.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="fora.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">for the rest of us </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> fora</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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