Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

FOR VALUES OF

Specialty Definition: FOR VALUES OF

DomainDefinition

Computing

For values of [MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is to use any of the canonical random numbers as placeholders for variables. "The max function takes 42 arguments, for arbitrary values of 42." "There are 69 ways to leave your lover, for 69 = 50." This is especially likely when the speaker has uttered a random number and realizes that it was not recognized as such, but even `non-random' numbers are occasionally used in this fashion. A related joke is that pi equals 3 -- for small values of pi and large values of 3. Historical note: at MIT this usage has traditionally been traced to the programming language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an Algol-58-like language that was the most common choice among mainstream (non-hacker) users at MIT in the mid-60s. It inherited from Algol-58 a control structure FOR VALUES OF X = 3, 7, 99 DO ... that would repeat the indicated instructions for each value in the list (unlike the usual FOR that only works for arithmetic sequences of values). MAD is long extinct, but similar for-constructs still flourish (e.g., in Unix's shell languages). Source: Jargon File.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Crosswords: FOR VALUES OF

Specialty definitions using "FOR VALUES OF": Bemporad formulasuitably small. (references)

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Anagrams: FOR VALUES OF

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "a-e-f-f-l-o-o-r-s-u-v"

-3 letters: flavours, foveolar, foveolas, overfoul, oversoul, seafloor, valorous.

-4 letters: aerosol, earfuls, farfels, favours, fearful, ferulas, flavors, flavour, foveola, loafers, louvers, louvres, ourself, raffles, refusal, roseola, ruffles, safrole, souffle, valours, valuers, velours.

-5 letters: arouse, avulse, earful, falser, farfel, farles, fauves, favors, favour, ferula, feuars, flares, flavor, floors, florae, floras, flours, fluors, fouler, foveal, foveas, lavers.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Alternative Orthography: FOR VALUES OF


Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

46 4F 52      56 41 4C 55 45 53      4F 46

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

        

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01000110 01001111 01010010 00100000 01010110 01000001 01001100 01010101 01000101 01010011 00100000 01001111 01000110

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#70 &#79 &#82 &#32 &#86 &#65 &#76 &#85 &#69 &#83 &#32 &#79 &#70

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0046 004F 0052      0056 0041 004C 0055 0045 0053      004F 0046

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

404952256354655395324940

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INDEX

1. Crosswords
2. Anagrams
3. Orthography
4. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.