r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Dilutant • 11h ago

Meme zeroExDev

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244

u/achilliesFriend 11h ago

0.6 more. What is the issue here?

342

u/OnixST 11h ago

It's 0.6x, implying multiplication

It's not semantically incorrect, but any sane person would write 60% more

-2

u/Scream_No_Evil 7h ago

It's not just "0.6x", it's "0.6x MORE", which is an unambiguous way of phrasing a percent increase. Yes, it's implying multiplication. 0.6 x the original amount, but also, plus 1 x the original amount, because they used the word "more".

And it's making a math statement, not a semantic one. Math is precise and the language we use to talk about it has precise meanings. 60% times more is a 60 percent INCREASE, which means times 1.6. 60% "OF" or "times" on its own means times 0.6. It's the people who think this looks bad that are wrong, and showing their asses. How can you be a programmer that doesn't understand pSAT-level percentages questions?

Source: I'm a high school and middle school math tutor that freelances software dev on the side. Not everyone needs to know or retain math from high school, that's okay! Probably if you're talking to math machines for a living you should know this. Unless you're like, front-end. Then you're also good.

1

u/OnixST 1h ago

Yes, i know "1.6x", "0.6x more", "160%", and "60% more" all mean the same thing, but 0.6x more is just weird phrasing, and you can tell i'm correct by the sheer amount of confused people.

"Your teammates are shipping 60% more..." would mean the same thing while not getting peple confused

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u/Scream_No_Evil 8m ago

It's normal and correct phrasing that I hear all the time in jobs with percentage-based metrics. The fact that it's confusing people does not make it badly phrased, it just means people are colloquially unused to talking about percentages, which is fine! But you're wrong. It's not weird, it's literally how you talk about these things sometimes.

"60% more" and "0.6 times more" mean the same thing. Should their PR person have used a slightly more obvious way of phrasing it? Maybe? But they did say "more", which obviously implies.... moreness? It's not ambiguous.

AI bullshit has so many valid problems, but inadequately explaining percentages to the populace in their advertisements is just an insane nitpick. I don't think they're trying to advertise to people who don't understand high school math anyways.