“I just chose words carefully” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#371

Post by fwlr » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

CarVac wrote: post #114

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #109

In programming certain word choices are valuable in this way. It's sad that pairs like true/false, good/bad, first/rest, and left/right are unequal length. But there are nice pairs like old/new, head/tail, fast/slow, same/diff, and right/wrong, which can help with create natural vertical alignment throughout a function.

Row/col works but width/height doesn't, alas.

I use wide/tall for that. It reads alright: “row 5, col 4; 15 wide, 8 tall”.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#372

Post by IAmBroom » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

1718627440 wrote: post #273

thfuran wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, marriage doesn’t imply children.

Depends, but I see what you mean.

Never "depends". Marriage doesn't guarantee children, nor even the desire to try for them, both of which can occur without marriage.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#373

Post by amai » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

amai wrote: post #223

Can LLMs nowadays do that for us? Rewriting the text so that it fits perfectly into the paragraph?

It seems one can do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y65FRxE7uMc

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#374

Post by everdrive » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

Xirdus wrote: post #365

everdrive wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that characterization is too broad to be considered accurate.

Right back at you re: browsing internet from a phone.

I just hate smart phones so much. I need to stop commenting on HN. Sorry for wasting your time.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#375

Post by vanity0 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 11:58 PM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #2

There's a similar anecdote Gillian Anderson recently revealed during an interview on the X-Files , saying Chris Carter had an OCD-like habit to write dialog to conform to certain text layout preferences (no widows[1]) in the script, which made for the show's distinctive style of dialog cadence. 1 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans

That's interesting, I didn't know that's what they were called. I definitely try to avoid widows and orphans in my own writing, and have definitely chosen words carefully to that same effect.

I thought it was just my own OCD.