Re: [PATCH] pass constants as first argument to st_mult()

From: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>
Date: Aug 3, 2016, 19:59 UTC
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kYonA8pYfW68SC6YaZ84Gz2Eo_qXDxQJ14_62abcd8-Og@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20160803194913.cz6xiai3g5r3sghq@sigill.intra.peff.net>

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 12:49 PM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 12:41:30PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 03:31:45PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> >
>> > I think in my head I rewrite any multiplication like "N of M" as having
>> > "N" as the smaller number. I.e., it is conceptually simpler to me to
>> > count five 30's, then 30 five's (even though I do not implement it in my
>> > head as a sequence of additions, of course; I'd probably do that
>> > particular case as "half of ten 30's").
>> >
>> > I have no idea if that's cultural or not, though.

Well I think there is a difference between how you do the math in your head and between the textbook question.

In textbook I would expect 5x30, because first we need to talk about the object before the price of the object makes sense: "I am interested in 5 apples, and each apple costs 30 yen, so I am paying 150 yen". Only that in Europe you would substitute the 30 by 0.84 Euros (integer-> number with 2 values after comma, not quite a float).

When doing the math in your head you look for the easy tricks, i.e. x5 = x10 /2 or such.

I think I'd find calloc intuitive as a typical textbook question, "I want to have space for "foos", which each cost 5 memory, go figure out how much I need and hand it back to me".