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an excellent specimen

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  • B BernardIE5317

    greetings & kind regards it did not occur to myself the Honorable Mr. MacCutchan was referring to the spelling/formatting of my message . i do not abhor capital letters nor do i find sadistic pleasure in placing a space before the period . it is simply that i find it more pleasing to the eye .

    K Offline
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    koshikaa Screening
    wrote on last edited by
    #25

    Our corner room was airy and pleasing to the eye. "A piece has got to be pleasing to the eye. The Neon is a surprisingly pleasing to the eye.

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    • J Jorgen Andersson

      Hmm, possibly so, but which language would that be?

      Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

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      Lost User
      wrote on last edited by
      #26

      Well, certainly not what we now know as English.

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      • S StarNamer work

        I've a suspicion that the keenness on pillaging was the other way round during an attempt to paint the entire world map pink. :)

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        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #27

        Well most nations/cultures have been doing it from time immemorial. In relative terms the Mongol and Roman empires were as big; only lack of technology stopped them at the borders of Europe/Asia./

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        • B BernardIE5317

          greetings kind regards from Miriam Webster : a : an individual, item, or part considered typical of a group, class, or whole b : a portion or quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study 'b' suits my purpose as stated i find the term utilized upon discussion / study of brief samples / specimens of code intended to be exemplar of more general usage .

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          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #28

          BernardIE5317 wrote:

          from Miriam Webster

          Well if you will use a foreign dictionary ... :laugh:

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          • B BernardIE5317

            greetings kind regards this is a specimen of a pet peeve i wish to trouble your kind selves with for no logical reason i can think of . i have always been irritated with the use of the term "snippet" upon reference to a brief sample of code . i have finally found what i believe is a superior term for no other reason than it does not irritate me id est "specimen" . perhaps i will be successful in changing the common nomenclature as i believe i may have been some years ago id est late 70s early 80s whilst the term "excellent" entered common usage . well i am stating here and now i believe i and not Keanu Reeves may have been the responsible party . kind regards "Back to regularly scheduled program"

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            C Offline
            CodeWomble
            wrote on last edited by
            #29

            I doubt specimen will catch on. It implies something kept behind glass to prevent damage/contamination. When teaching something you do not want to distance your audience from the code in any way. You have already used probably the best word - sample. You could also use example. I doubt any of these words will get common use though. Unfortunately the term snippet has become entrenched in some peoples minds as the correct term for a short piece of code.

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            • D DerekT P

              Exactly. Imagine going for a job interview and being asked to provide a specimen ... (Maybe it's just a UK thing, but the above phrase almost inevitably implies of wee.)

              Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT

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              jschell
              wrote on last edited by
              #30

              DerekT-P wrote:

              Maybe it's just a UK thing

              And in the US. But some jobs do require that.

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              • B BernardIE5317

                I or | or l or i am sorry i am causing your kind self this irritation .

                M Offline
                M Offline
                Member 10652083
                wrote on last edited by
                #31

                Then demonstrate your sorryness by not doing it.

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                • B BernardIE5317

                  greetings kind regards this is a specimen of a pet peeve i wish to trouble your kind selves with for no logical reason i can think of . i have always been irritated with the use of the term "snippet" upon reference to a brief sample of code . i have finally found what i believe is a superior term for no other reason than it does not irritate me id est "specimen" . perhaps i will be successful in changing the common nomenclature as i believe i may have been some years ago id est late 70s early 80s whilst the term "excellent" entered common usage . well i am stating here and now i believe i and not Keanu Reeves may have been the responsible party . kind regards "Back to regularly scheduled program"

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                  U Offline
                  User 13269747
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #32

                  Unfortunately "specimen" already has a meaning in English, and it means "An example of $CATEGORY". The phrase "the following specimen of C++" would literally mean "The following content is an example of C++ programming", while "the following snippet of C++" means "The following content is only a portion of a whole C++ program". You are going to find it difficult to get people to agree to overload an existing well-defined word with a new unrelated meaning. I'm not saying it's impossible to assign new made-up meanings to existing words, I'm just saying that's it's an uphill battle with low likelihood of success, especially in the case of overloading a well-defined and universally understood word. What you propose is no different from proposing that the word 'and' is replaced by the word 'green'. You'll just confuse people when you say "Me green my brother went out green got snacks".

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                  • B BernardIE5317

                    greetings kind regards from Miriam Webster : a : an individual, item, or part considered typical of a group, class, or whole b : a portion or quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study 'b' suits my purpose as stated i find the term utilized upon discussion / study of brief samples / specimens of code intended to be exemplar of more general usage .

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                    User 13269747
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #33

                    Quote:

                    'b' suits my purpose as stated i find the term utilized upon discussion / study of brief samples / specimens of code intended to be exemplar of more general usage

                    Maybe you should have used the example given as a guide - the portion in question is not a unique portion. In order to count as a specimen, using the example given in the section you quote, it must be identical or consistent with the whole from which the specimen was taken.

                    b: a portion or quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study

                    a urine specimen

                    I'm guessing that English isn't your first language from the incorrect phrasing of "exemplar" (which is a noun) and should be "an exemplar of". I can understand, then, why you would consider "specimen" to be related to "snippet".

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                    • M Member 10652083

                      Then demonstrate your sorryness by not doing it.

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                      BernardIE5317
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #34

                      I or | or l or i am ashamed to admit to some irritation .

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                      • P PIEBALDconsult

                        Or a specimen may simply be something (whole or in part) to be studied, examined, or tested. They have jars for that.

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                        BernardIE5317
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #35

                        also microscopes .

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                        • U User 13269747

                          Quote:

                          'b' suits my purpose as stated i find the term utilized upon discussion / study of brief samples / specimens of code intended to be exemplar of more general usage

                          Maybe you should have used the example given as a guide - the portion in question is not a unique portion. In order to count as a specimen, using the example given in the section you quote, it must be identical or consistent with the whole from which the specimen was taken.

                          b: a portion or quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study

                          a urine specimen

                          I'm guessing that English isn't your first language from the incorrect phrasing of "exemplar" (which is a noun) and should be "an exemplar of". I can understand, then, why you would consider "specimen" to be related to "snippet".

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                          BernardIE5317
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #36

                          thank you for the correction to my incorrect usage . one such error and you deduced i am from Mars . perhaps my green complexion gave it away .

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                          • U User 13269747

                            Unfortunately "specimen" already has a meaning in English, and it means "An example of $CATEGORY". The phrase "the following specimen of C++" would literally mean "The following content is an example of C++ programming", while "the following snippet of C++" means "The following content is only a portion of a whole C++ program". You are going to find it difficult to get people to agree to overload an existing well-defined word with a new unrelated meaning. I'm not saying it's impossible to assign new made-up meanings to existing words, I'm just saying that's it's an uphill battle with low likelihood of success, especially in the case of overloading a well-defined and universally understood word. What you propose is no different from proposing that the word 'and' is replaced by the word 'green'. You'll just confuse people when you say "Me green my brother went out green got snacks".

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                            BernardIE5317
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #37

                            re/ "... a portion of a whole C++ program" in my encounters w/ the term i could find no whole program anywhere in sight .

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                            • B BernardIE5317

                              thank you for the correction to my incorrect usage . one such error and you deduced i am from Mars . perhaps my green complexion gave it away .

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                              U Offline
                              User 13269747
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #38

                              Quote:

                              thank you for the correction to my incorrect usage . one such error and you deduced i am from Mars . perhaps my green complexion gave it away .

                              Well, on the internet it's not rare to read posts from people who don't have English as a primary language.[1] And it's not like I leapt to conclusions after just

                              one such error

                              Look at it from the point of view of a native English speaker: you misunderstood the dictionary definition of "specimen" even with the explanatory example given in the dictionary that you quoted, and you misunderstood the usage of "exemplar". I meant no disrespect by assuming English was not your primary language; I'd expect a similar response if I, in my secondary language, confused two unrelated terms and used a third term incorrectly, all in the space of a single paragraph. [1] I myself am bilingual, and I know that I make trivial errors when speaking in my second language (first is English). I don't automatically jump to accusations that the other party, who's a native speaker in that language, considers me an alien. PS. Have you typed "what is the difference between a snippet and a specimen?" into an English-language LLM? After all, it's a Large Language Model, so something like ChatGPT is going to easily be able to provide the difference in meaning between two extremely common words.

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                              • B BernardIE5317

                                re/ "... a portion of a whole C++ program" in my encounters w/ the term i could find no whole program anywhere in sight .

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                                User 13269747
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #39

                                BernardIE5317 wrote:

                                re/ "... a portion of a whole C++ program" in my encounters w/ the term i could find no whole program anywhere in sight .

                                Well, obviously not. When someone says "here's a snippet", why would they post the whole program? If they were showing the whole program they wouldn't say "here's a snippet", would they?

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                                • C CodeWomble

                                  I doubt specimen will catch on. It implies something kept behind glass to prevent damage/contamination. When teaching something you do not want to distance your audience from the code in any way. You have already used probably the best word - sample. You could also use example. I doubt any of these words will get common use though. Unfortunately the term snippet has become entrenched in some peoples minds as the correct term for a short piece of code.

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                                  U Offline
                                  User 13269747
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #40

                                  Quote:

                                  Unfortunately the term snippet has become entrenched in some peoples minds as the correct term for a short piece of code.

                                  I think the problem the OP is going to run into is that "snippet" already had a meaning decades before the first computer was even invented, and it's the same meaning as used for code as it was used for newspapers. If the word had a different meaning in the context of computers, OP might have a point, but right now arguing that a well-defined word with well-defined meaning should mean something else when computers are involved is difficult, and it is doubly hard when the replacement is another existing word with a completely unrelated meaning. If I were propose "I don't like the word 'content' in the context of programming, I think we should replace it with 'automobile'", I'd expect similar confusion from my audience as OP is getting.

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                                  • U User 13269747

                                    Quote:

                                    thank you for the correction to my incorrect usage . one such error and you deduced i am from Mars . perhaps my green complexion gave it away .

                                    Well, on the internet it's not rare to read posts from people who don't have English as a primary language.[1] And it's not like I leapt to conclusions after just

                                    one such error

                                    Look at it from the point of view of a native English speaker: you misunderstood the dictionary definition of "specimen" even with the explanatory example given in the dictionary that you quoted, and you misunderstood the usage of "exemplar". I meant no disrespect by assuming English was not your primary language; I'd expect a similar response if I, in my secondary language, confused two unrelated terms and used a third term incorrectly, all in the space of a single paragraph. [1] I myself am bilingual, and I know that I make trivial errors when speaking in my second language (first is English). I don't automatically jump to accusations that the other party, who's a native speaker in that language, considers me an alien. PS. Have you typed "what is the difference between a snippet and a specimen?" into an English-language LLM? After all, it's a Large Language Model, so something like ChatGPT is going to easily be able to provide the difference in meaning between two extremely common words.

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                                    trønderen
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #41

                                    Member 13301679 wrote:

                                    Well, on the internet it's not rare to read posts from people who don't have English as a primary language.[1]

                                    In my working group many years ago, there was Robert, born and raised in Norway but with a Scottish mother. Then there was Linda, born and raised in England; she came to Norway a couple years earlier. And there was Ellen, Norwegian born and raised, but she had for 30 years worked as a top level secretary, responsible for the external correspondence of large multi-national corporations in the US and France. Robert claimed that it was very easy to hear that Ellen is not a native English speaker - because she spoke it perfectly! She would never make those "errors" (due to sloppiness, laziness or whatever) that every native speaker makes in his native tongue, in any language. Every now and then he pointed out something Linda said, "Ellen would never have said that! It is not perfect English, the way she speaks". Yet, to most people Linda sounded perfectly like an Englishman (as she was!). Another story from that same group: There were two other guys there, Alex from Australia and John from USA. I was going to make a presentation to customers, and was preparing some "PowerPoints" (it wasn't really PPT, but similar). One constant problem when switching between Norwegian and English. I wasn't sure that I had picked the right one, so I went to British Linda's cubicle to ask her. No, rather than xxx, you should rather use yyy! This was overheard by the Australian Alex, who protested: No, you should use zzz! The disagreement caught USA John's attention, who got up and insisted: The correct would be www! The three native English speakers were on the border of going into a fistfight over this (the only thing they could agree about was that my initial proposal was not the right preposition to use), and the group leader had to interfere to calm down the argument. I most certainly learned from this that anyone who claims something to be The Correct Wording in English is a person not to be trusted in English language matters. :-) And it does affect my reading of this thread :-) (Unfortunately, I do not remember neither my first, ditched, proposal nor the three alternatives - it is too long ago. It really doesn't matter for the point of the story.)

                                    Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.

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                                    • U User 13269747

                                      BernardIE5317 wrote:

                                      re/ "... a portion of a whole C++ program" in my encounters w/ the term i could find no whole program anywhere in sight .

                                      Well, obviously not. When someone says "here's a snippet", why would they post the whole program? If they were showing the whole program they wouldn't say "here's a snippet", would they?

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                                      BernardIE5317
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #42

                                      re/ "... the whole program ..." what whole program ? where is this "whole" program of which you so confidently speak ? as per article link below nowhere in site or even indication thereof therewith thereupon . Structured bindings in C++17, 5 years later - C++ Stories[^] here is a snipppet of code : return; let us examine and discuss it in all its detail . is this proper usage of the term ?

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                                      • B BernardIE5317

                                        re/ "... the whole program ..." what whole program ? where is this "whole" program of which you so confidently speak ? as per article link below nowhere in site or even indication thereof therewith thereupon . Structured bindings in C++17, 5 years later - C++ Stories[^] here is a snipppet of code : return; let us examine and discuss it in all its detail . is this proper usage of the term ?

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                                        User 13269747
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #43

                                        Well, the only place it uses the word snippet is when referring to a shot piece extracted from a longer example:

                                        Quote:

                                        In the above snippet, we bind to myPair. But this also means you can provide support for your classes, assuming you add the get interface implementation. See an example in the later section.

                                        You are using the word snippet to refer to return, but the article uses the word example liberally for the code it presents. "Snippet" has always meant "a part taken out of a larger whole". Specimen has always meant "a representative sample of a category". Try this with a Large Language Model:

                                        Quote:

                                        User What does "analyse this specimen" mean? ChatGPT "Analyze this specimen" is a directive to closely examine and evaluate a particular object, sample, or subject. The word "specimen" refers to a representative example or sample of something, often used in scientific contexts. When someone asks to analyze a specimen, they are typically requesting a detailed examination, assessment, or study of the given object or sample to gain insights, draw conclusions, or gather information. The nature of the analysis can vary based on the context, such as scientific research, medical diagnosis, forensic investigation, or any other field where a careful examination is required. User What does "analyse this snippet" mean? ChatGPT "Analyze this snippet" is a request to examine and evaluate a specific, usually small portion or excerpt of something, such as code, text, data, or any other content. The term "snippet" refers to a brief and typically representative section of a larger whole. When someone asks you to analyze a snippet, they are asking you to closely examine that particular portion to understand its details, identify patterns, extract information, or gain insights relevant to a specific context. For example, in programming, you might be asked to analyze a code snippet to find errors, understand its functionality, or suggest improvements. In a literary context, analyzing a text snippet could involve examining its language, themes, or literary devices. The nature of the analysis depends on the specific domain or context in which the snippet is presented.

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                                        • U User 13269747

                                          Well, the only place it uses the word snippet is when referring to a shot piece extracted from a longer example:

                                          Quote:

                                          In the above snippet, we bind to myPair. But this also means you can provide support for your classes, assuming you add the get interface implementation. See an example in the later section.

                                          You are using the word snippet to refer to return, but the article uses the word example liberally for the code it presents. "Snippet" has always meant "a part taken out of a larger whole". Specimen has always meant "a representative sample of a category". Try this with a Large Language Model:

                                          Quote:

                                          User What does "analyse this specimen" mean? ChatGPT "Analyze this specimen" is a directive to closely examine and evaluate a particular object, sample, or subject. The word "specimen" refers to a representative example or sample of something, often used in scientific contexts. When someone asks to analyze a specimen, they are typically requesting a detailed examination, assessment, or study of the given object or sample to gain insights, draw conclusions, or gather information. The nature of the analysis can vary based on the context, such as scientific research, medical diagnosis, forensic investigation, or any other field where a careful examination is required. User What does "analyse this snippet" mean? ChatGPT "Analyze this snippet" is a request to examine and evaluate a specific, usually small portion or excerpt of something, such as code, text, data, or any other content. The term "snippet" refers to a brief and typically representative section of a larger whole. When someone asks you to analyze a snippet, they are asking you to closely examine that particular portion to understand its details, identify patterns, extract information, or gain insights relevant to a specific context. For example, in programming, you might be asked to analyze a code snippet to find errors, understand its functionality, or suggest improvements. In a literary context, analyzing a text snippet could involve examining its language, themes, or literary devices. The nature of the analysis depends on the specific domain or context in which the snippet is presented.

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                                          B Offline
                                          BernardIE5317
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #44

                                          std::pair myPair(0, 1.0f);
                                          auto [a, b] = myPair; // binds myPair.first/second

                                          re/ "Snippet" has always meant "a part taken out of a larger whole". please show where the above "snippet" is present in a larger whole as i am unable to find it . re/ "Specimen has always meant "a representative sample of a category"." that is precisely what the "specimen" is as it is representative of the use of structured bindings to classes .

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