From: dherring_at_[hidden]
Date: 2008-03-14 17:02:14
On Fri, 14 Mar 2008, Michael Marcin wrote:
> Paul A Bristow wrote:
>>
>> A little googling shows that various people have already invented "posate" as the opposite of 'negate'
>> and this makes much more sense to me, even if it hasn't made it into the Oxford English Dictionary yet.
>
> I like posate.
I don't.
+x and -x are entirely different beasts.
Negative/negate is an action; generally (x)!=(-x) and (x)==(-(-x)).
Positive is not; generally (x)==(+x).
The closest action is identity(x), not abs(x) since (+x)!=abs(x). But
identity is a poor name since it is generally considered to be different
than +. For example, "identity(x)==+x" is fine but "identity(5)==+5"
feels wrong. Joel's affirm falls into the same category as identity.
~ Daniel