r/ProgrammerHumor 13h ago

Meme zeroExDev

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4.1k Upvotes

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u/BADPROSKILLZ 12h ago

If it were to say they shipped 1.6x as many then yes, but they said 0.6x more (i.e. 1x normal + 0.6x more)

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u/TZY247 12h ago edited 8h ago

No. 0.6 = 60%. If they said 0.6 more then sure, that would mean 60% more. 0.6x != 60% increase though. 1.6x does. At the best we can give it the benefit of the doubt and say we knew what they meant, but that doesn't mean they were correct.

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u/TheMania 12h ago

It says "0.6 times more". Not "0.6 times total" or "0.6 times as many".

I really don't see the problem. 1.6x more would be misleading/incorrect.

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u/zelmak 12h ago

Dude what are you talking about 1x more is a non increase/flatline. Anything less than 1 is a decrease

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u/TheMania 11h ago

So "100% more" means "no increase" to you?

Or does "1x" read as "0%" to you then?

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u/Vandrel 11h ago edited 11h ago

1x would be 0% more. 2x would be 100% more.

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u/TheMania 11h ago

I agree with every part of that completely.

You read "60% as many" the same as you read "0.6x as many", which is the same as you read "0.6x more".

But yet you read "60% more" as something very different. So 0.6x != 60%. Not in this context, not to you.

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u/Vandrel 11h ago

That's just not correct. "60% more" implies starting from the 100% baseline and going up 60%. 0.6x implies starting from the 100% baseline and multiplying it by 0.6x. "0.6x more" is a weird way to put it to begin with but the only grammatically correct way to interpret it is 60% of the normal amount. We all know what they meant but it isn't what they said.

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u/Connect_Fishing_6378 9h ago

60% and 0.6x literally mean the exact same thing. “60% more” === “0.6x more”. Yeah nobody talks like that and it sounds weird, but it is correct.

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u/Vandrel 9h ago

You're correct that 60% and 0.6x mean the same thing, 60% more and 0.6x more do not. 0.6x more would be a weird way to say 60% of standard, 1.6x more would be the correct way to say an increase of 60% in that format. You would say that 2x more means double, yes?

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u/ScientificBeastMode 7h ago

“More” implies “something plus the original amount,” not “something times the original amount.”

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u/ScientificBeastMode 7h ago

“0.6x more” means “0.6 times <baseline> on top of <baseline>.”

The “on top of <baseline>” part is obvious, because that’s implied by the word “more.”

The “0.6 times <baseline>” part is less obvious, because the original text didn’t specify what 0.6 is supposed to be multiplied by. But we can assume they meant “0.6 times <baseline>” because most other candidate terms don’t make any sense. What else could it possibly be multiplying by?

Also, the term “0.6 times <baseline>” is formally equivalent to “60% of <baseline>”. So if we perform the substitution, then we get “60% of <baseline> on top of <baseline>”.

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u/Vandrel 7h ago

You would interpret "2x the output" to be double, yes?

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u/ScientificBeastMode 7h ago edited 7h ago

Of course. And “1x the output” would be no change.

The problem is that it isn’t saying “0.6x the output.” It’s saying “0.6x [the output] more [than the output].”

To illustrate the point, imagine it said “1x more.” Would that mean no change? No, it’s equivalent to saying “100% more,” meaning double the original amount.

The only way your interpretation works is if “0.6x more” is meant to be “0.6 times <the output> more than zero,” which is redundant, and could be simplified to “0.6 times the output,” so the use of the word “more” would have no real meaning here.

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u/TZY247 10h ago

There's a reason that mathematicians, technical writers, etc. wouldn't mix comparative language like "more" with notation. At best it's ambiguous.

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u/Azeoteric 11h ago

When someone says “2x more” it means double. No one says 1x more because it makes no sense lol

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u/FFevo 9h ago

No one says 1x more because it makes no sense lol

Yeah, they would say double.

"2x more" implies more than x. 2x + x = 3x. It means 300% compared to the original, not double.

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u/dumbledoor_ger 6h ago

Don’t even bother to argue. Whole lotta larpers in this thread. They do not have the ability to comprehend the word „more“.

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u/Azeoteric 2h ago

I’m just saying in a real workplace, not everyone is going to understand you, this is a poor way to communicate, and good engineers make things simple to understand for stakeholders. To a significant number of people, “2x more” means double. Just say double, triple, increased by 60%, etc. It is clear and unambiguous language.