• kubica@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    It’s a thing that I’ve always thought that people over-complicate. It’s just there, the small side with the small number the big side with the big number…

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      “The entirety of the small number constitutes a relatively smaller portion of the big number. Thus, the open side of > points to the smaller number to indicate that it’s a magnified view within the larger number.”

      I hope this helps overcomplicate things for you. We must all return to crocodile.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Crocodile? Are you guys from Florida? In Europe we learned it as duck beak, it just makes much more sense, where are the teeth? Nowhere it’s not an alligator mouth it’s a beak

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      For a while, I’ve seen “<” and “>” as a slanted “=”, which is to say, these numbers are not equal, and the larger side is the larger number and the smaller side is the smaller number.

      Works for me, IDK.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Are you a programmer? I’ve never struggled with them either, but I’ve had a lot of exposure to them due to programming since I was like 11

      • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        I am a software dev, I’ve been exposed to these since I was 5 and I’ve always thought they should be reversed, I know the logic is “bigger gap, bigger number” and never make a mistake, but deep down I know it would be more logical to “point the arrow toward the bigger number”, it just makes sense to me.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Somehow, people don’t teach this interpretation at schools. (Despite it being so obvious that it was clearly the original reasoning behind the symbols.) And then nobody talks about the fact that nobody knows how to read them, forever.

      Mine had something about crossing a line through the symbol and seeing if it makes a 4 or a 7. Honestly, “the crocodile wants to eat the big number” is still better than this.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        This is only tangentially related but I’ve noticed an increase in people saying backslash instead of slash when speaking an internet address aloud. I think many more people struggle with / vs \ than > vs <.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            I remember it because I’m old and was into computers before the internet. Local drive was backslash "" as a directory separator and online it was slash “/”.

    • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 days ago

      Whoever my first teacher who taught me this did over complicate it, because when I wrapped my brain around bigger side equals bigger number and smaller side equals smaller (much later than I should have) it was a revelation and also seemed ridiculous it didn’t start out that simple.