Wortz, Charles
CWortz at tea.state.tx.us
Thu Feb 13 07:30:01 CST 2003
In logic either a horizontal bar over a symbol or a vertical bar in front of a symbol means negation. Since early keyboards did not have either character on them but did have the exclamation mark that closely resembles the vertical bar, the exclamation mark was adopted as the negation symbol. Some languages whose origins are based on logic and not math still use the exclamation mark as the negation symbol even though keyboards now have the pipe (vertical bar) character. Charles Wortz Software Development Division Texas Education Agency 1701 N. Congress Ave Austin, TX 78701-1494 512-463-9493 CWortz at tea.state.tx.us (SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue > 0) -----Original Message----- From: Charlotte Foust [mailto:cfoust at infostatsystems.com] Sent: Wednesday 2003 Feb 12 18:17 To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] multi-platform ASP was: OT: Yee Haw.... >>I don't know how long ! has meant factorial in the math world. For the last 50 years at least, Drew. Charlotte Foust -----Original Message----- From: Drew Wutka [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 10:42 PM To: 'accessd at databaseadvisors.com' Subject: RE: [AccessD] multi-platform ASP was: OT: Yee Haw.... Hmmmmm...wasn't really speaking programatically. I was speaking from math terms...I don't know how long ! has meant factorial in the math world. Drew -----Original Message----- From: Arthur Fuller [mailto:artful at rogers.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 4:53 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] multi-platform ASP was: OT: Yee Haw.... I'm not sure about this one, Drew, but as an official old timer I'm pretty sure that ! meant NOT before it meant Factorial. I learned != as NOT EQUAL in something like 1984-5. So I'm on the side of the demented whacko. What languages support ! as Factorial? I would have thought such a rarely used formula would naturally fall outside the language definition and be implemented instead as a function Factorial(), or left for you to write. -----Original Message----- From: accessd-admin at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-admin at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Drew Wutka Sent: February 11, 2003 5:05 PM To: 'accessd at databaseadvisors.com' Subject: RE: [AccessD] multi-platform ASP was: OT: Yee Haw.... First of all, what demented whacko decided that != is 'not equal'? ! is for factorial. How does that turn an equal sign into a 'not equal' sign. However, <> does make mathematical sense, because something cannot be both less then, and greater then another number, so it represents an inequality...at least more then a factorial does!