Timeline for How could a language that uses a single word extremely often sustain itself?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 31, 2016 at 5:51 | comment | added | 2012rcampion | @gmatht But they are not native speakers by any stretch of the imagination (any more than my router is a native speaker of English because it transmits octets encoding English phrases). | |
| Oct 31, 2016 at 5:28 | comment | added | gmatht | @2012rcampion Yes, the CPU sees a bit is only a 1/16th of a word, arguably even less on a more modern CPU. But, maybe for security, code speakers encode the bits using the "do'neh'lini" and "a'la'ih". Abbreviations would no longer be certified Navajo and considered a security risk. xkcd.com/257 | |
| Oct 28, 2016 at 11:40 | comment | added | 2012rcampion | @James I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me | |
| Oct 28, 2016 at 10:34 | comment | added | JamesRyan | @2012rcampion your distinction of a word is entirely arbitrary though. If a word is used commonly enough to have no inherent meaning without modifiers, then it effectively becomes the same as a letter and the combination of that 'word' and modifier becomes a word | |
| Oct 27, 2016 at 20:06 | comment | added | Joshua | Turning to CPU code is not so bad. mov occurs really frequently. | |
| Oct 26, 2016 at 19:12 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @2012rcampion True. There are interesting corelaries though. Consider the comma codes of 10/8b, which protocols like Infiniband spam whenever the link is idle, so that the link can maintain its timing. Perhaps an "idle word" might make sense in some environments. We have similar words like "um" in the english language. | |
| Oct 26, 2016 at 10:24 | comment | added | 2012rcampion | The only problem with this is that almost no "native speakers" (i.e. microprocessors in this analogy) work with individual bits; their smallest units are bytes (say nothing of the 16-bit word, 32-bit doubleword, or 64-bit quadword!). Bits are more like letters or phonemes. | |
| Oct 25, 2016 at 21:43 | history | answered | Cort Ammon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |