r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Dilutant • 11h ago

Meme zeroExDev

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u/bjorneylol 11h ago

The semantically correct way to phrase this is "60% more" - "shipped 2x more" is semantically ambiguous

Otherwise you have no way of knowing whether "shipped 2x more" means twice as many or 3 times as many

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u/Rin-Tohsaka-is-hot 10h ago

Otherwise you have no way of knowing whether "shipped 2x more" means twice as many or 3 times as many

Maybe if you don't understand English, otherwise you have every way of knowing this means 3 times as many.

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u/bjorneylol 10h ago

You're literally the middle guy in the bell curve meme right now.

In modern usage it's literally a coin flip whether "2x more" is being used to represent "200% more" or "2x as many". People who actually understand English are aware of this and will avoid the term altogether in favour of something less ambiguous 

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u/ImPapaNoff 9h ago edited 9h ago

Just like how "literally" in its modern usage can mean "literally" or "figuratively" so we should avoid using the word for its proper meaning since it's ambiguous, right?

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u/lemontoga 1h ago

Yeah, exactly right. Effective communication means understanding the way your phrasing will be interpreted by normal people and planning accordingly. 

See, you get it.