[Insight-developers] ImageIO Streaming

Bill Lorensen bill.lorensen at gmail.com
Wed Jul 4 16:49:22 EDT 2007


I like Calculate better also.

Bill

On 7/4/07, Douglas Alan <douglas_alan at harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Doug,
>
> > There is a list of all ITK method names at:
>
> > http://public.kitware.com/Insight/Doxygen/html/functions.html
>
> > Compute is fairly popular as is Calculate.
>
> Okay, well I  guess anything but LateForDinner() is fine with me.
>
> If I were in a mood to be fussy, I'd prefer "Calculate" over "Compute"
> in this instance, as my understanding of the word "compute" is that it
> typically involves a lengthy calculation.  For instance, you might
> either *calculate* or *compute* pi to a million significant digits, and
> you might *calculate* pi to three digits, but you wouldn't *compute* pi
> to three digits.  ("Determine" is more like "calculate" than "compute",
> only it is even more general in that *determining* might not involve any
> math, while "calculate" would typically have that connotation -- at
> least within the context of computer programs.)
>
> Lest one think that when I'm feeling fussy I make up my own
> idiosyncratic distinctions, the American Heritage Dictionary seems to
> agree with these distinctions:
>
>    Synonyms: These verbs refer to the use of mathematical methods to
>    determine a result. Calculate, the most comprehensive, often implies
>    a relatively high level of abstraction or procedural complexity: The
>    astronomer calculated the planet's position.
>
>    Compute applies to possibly lengthy arithmetic operations: computing
>    fees according to time spent.
>
> In any case, either "Compute" or "Calculate" works for me, with a bit of
> a preference towards "Calculate".
>
> |>oug
>
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