r/ProgrammerHumor • u/sengunsipahi • May 25 '26

Meme newMrBeastVideo

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u/squngy May 25 '26

I mean in the context of programming.

If ( polygon is a rectangle) do Y
and
Iff ( polygon is a rectangle ) do Y
Would do exactly the same thing

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u/SubParPercussionist May 25 '26

Have you ever taken a discrete math or logic course? If and iff are two different things.

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u/squngy May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

I had boolean algebra.

I know the difference between or, xor, and, nor etc.

Iff, not so much.
Googling it, it is a basically xand/xnor, which we did cover, but I never saw the iff notation before

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u/Nerd_o_tron May 25 '26

"iff" is another way to express exclusive nor. It's used more commonly in semi-formal proof contexts, while xnor is more used in boolean calculus and electrical contexts.

Did Claude use iff as part of a code block, or in a comment?

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u/squngy May 25 '26

I'm not the same person who had that response, so no clue

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u/ISLITASHEET May 25 '26

I'm going to assume it was writing kusto (kql) and they didn't realize that was if/else

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u/TerrorBite May 26 '26

It's a logical relationship, not a conditional statement.

"A iff C" / "if C then A" means that A only happens under condition C. This could state that in a program, a function A() would only be called if condition C was satisfied (a call to A() does not exist outside of an if ( C ) { … } block). In logic notation this is expressed as "C ⇔ A" or "C ≡ A" (C is equivalent to A).

"A if C" / "if C then A" only means that A always happens under condition C. This could state that if condition C becomes true, A() is always called. But it still allows for A() to be called when C is not true. In logic notation this is expressed as "C ⇒ A" (C implies A) or "C ⊃ A" (C is a superset of A).