<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">IMO, clarity is more important than brevity, particularly when novices and non-English speakers might not "get it".<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">What's the harm in using "if and only if" instead of "iff"? IMO, none. I suggest using words, not a TLA.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Don Wills</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Feb 8, 2016, at 7:35 PM, zhaoxin肇鑫 via swift-users <<a href="mailto:swift-users@swift.org" class="">swift-users@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">I, as a none-native-English-speaker, do think iff as a type error at first for a long time. And I doubt it as I see it everywhere. But I have never look it up.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">I just use iff as if and do not think there is a much difference. I thank to Brian for he finally letting me know the real meaning. I think if itself means iff, but I am not computer major, so I can only represent as a layman.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">zhaoxin</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 2:18 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-users <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:swift-users@swift.org" target="_blank" class="">swift-users@swift.org</a>></span> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word" class=""><div class="">I personally wouldn't change it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">A few thoughts:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">* It's a well known term of art among developers</div><div class="">* If you see "iff" more than once, you're going to be curious</div><div class="">* Hopefully you'll type "<b class="">what does iff mean</b>" into Google at that point and Google will respond like this: <a href="http://imgur.com/1a7b3rp" target="_blank" class="">http://imgur.com/1a7b3rp</a></div><div class="">* see also: <a href="http://ericasadun.com/2015/09/30/dear-erica-whats-iff/" target="_blank" class="">http://ericasadun.com/2015/09/30/dear-erica-whats-iff/</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">-- E</div><div class=""><div class="h5"><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Feb 7, 2016, at 9:16 PM, Brian Bauer via swift-users <<a href="mailto:swift-users@swift.org" target="_blank" class="">swift-users@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div class="">I apologize in advance if this subject has already been discussed and decided (as far as I can tell, the mailing list archives go back only about 60 days)…<br class=""><br class="">When running through the Swift Tour portion of the Swift eBook, on page 10 there is a code snippet showing an example of the switch statement. While typing that into an Xcode playground, I get a code completion popup on the “hasSuffix” method and the documentation says “Returns true iff self ends with suffix.” This looks like a typo. I know that it means “If and Only If” but to a less experienced developer this is likely to be misunderstood, especially as I can find no explanation for “iff” anywhere in the documentation.<br class=""><br class="">The source of this documentation nugget is a comment in /stdlib/public/core/StringLegacy.swift, so I think discussion of the topic is relevant here.<br class=""><br class="">Swift is touted as being friendly to new programmers and I don’t think it is reasonable to expect new programmers to understand “iff” and I also don’t think it is reasonable to spend a paragraph explaining “iff” at the beginning of an introduction to Swift, thus I suggest removing “iff” from all code comments that are likely to become user-facing documentation (the triple slash). Or at the very least, user-facing documentation that is likely to be read by beginners.<br class=""><br class="">A quick grep of the source gives me somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 instances of “iff” in a triple-slash comment, and I am more than happy to make all of the changes and submit pull requests. Before taking on that work, however, I would like to know if such a change would be welcome or if anyone has a better idea, etc.<br class=""><br class="">Thanks,<br class="">Brian<br class=""><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">swift-users mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:swift-users@swift.org" target="_blank" class="">swift-users@swift.org</a><br class=""><a href="https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-users" target="_blank" class="">https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-users</a><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div><br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">
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