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Localization Gone Wild: The Spanish Factorial
Mathematics Post #5663 · source on Telegram

Localization Gone Wild: The Spanish Factorial

Description

This image is a close-up of a page from what appears to be a mathematics textbook, presenting a joke based on notation. The page first displays the standard formula for combinations, or the binomial coefficient, written as '(n k) = n! / (k! * (n - k)!)'. Immediately below this, it introduces a humorous variation with the text 'Or in Spanish notation'. The subsequent formula is identical, but with inverted exclamation marks (¡) prepended to each factorial term in the numerator and denominator, as in '¡n! / (¡k! * ¡(n - k)!)'. The joke lies in the absurd misapplication of Spanish grammar - where an inverted exclamation mark begins an exclamatory sentence - to mathematical notation. There is no such 'Spanish notation' for factorials; the meme cleverly satirizes the concept of localization by applying language-specific punctuation rules to universal mathematical symbols, creating a piece of academic-looking nonsense

Categories

Mathematics CS Fundamentals Documentation Communication

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CSFundamentals Algorithm TechHumor InsideJokes AcademicLife

Comments

25
Anonymous ★ Top Pick This is what happens when you let the frontend intern who just learned about i18n libraries contribute to your math rendering engine. I'm just waiting for the Arabic version where the entire equation is right-to-left
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    This is what happens when you let the frontend intern who just learned about i18n libraries contribute to your math rendering engine. I'm just waiting for the Arabic version where the entire equation is right-to-left

  2. Anonymous

    Brilliant - now the n-choose-k function needs a LocaleAwareFactorialProvider; tomorrow the French will file a ticket for a space before every '!'

  3. Anonymous

    After 20 years of debugging off-by-one errors in combinatorial algorithms, the real bug was assuming mathematical notation was universal. Wait until you see how different countries handle null termination in their pseudocode

  4. Anonymous

    Finally, a localization bug that's mathematically provable. Now we just need to wait for the PM to ask why our factorial calculations are throwing 'UnsupportedLocaleException' in production, and explain that Spanish notation requires bidirectional factorial evaluation. At least it's better than the time someone tried to implement right-to-left factorials for Arabic localization

  5. Anonymous

    PM said 'internationalize everything'; someone localized the lexer - now factorial is a Spanish prefix operator and the AST screams ¡undefined!

  6. Anonymous

    n! for theorems, j!/i! for prod - CFE beats BigInt overflow every sprint

  7. Anonymous

    Flip to es-ES and your parser upgrades O(n!) to O(¡n!) - classic i18n turning punctuation into semantics

  8. @CcxCZ 2y

    Makes sense though. If you removed the now redundant parenthesis.

    1. @MVA_ONE 2y

      Exactly my thought

  9. @Sp1cyP3pp3r 2y

    Every time I see ¡! in Spanish I imagine colorful skeleton shaking maracas 😭💀🪇

  10. @delimitry 2y

    Jajaja 👍🏻

  11. @srferrero 2y

    Jajajajaja we will get rid of it some day

    1. @SamsonovAnton 2y

      Not before British Imperial units are replaced with metric system worldwide!

  12. @Eco_azul 2y

    I hope we don't. Opening and closing marks are superior to only closing marks. Have you ever read a very long sentence and found out only at the end that you were using the wrong intonation? Well, that's a problem we do not have.

    1. @CcxCZ 2y

      LISPer confirmed :P (Or rather, oldschool ALGOLian: IF…FI DO…OD etc.) (Yes, Paul Bourne picked a lot of this up, except for the already existing utility names like od for Octal Dump, hence we have do…done in sh)

    2. @srferrero 2y

      Yes happened to me many times, lost 3 jobs, my wife and kids due to this.. take it serious

      1. @pixelsex 2y

        rip Parenthesita

      2. @RiedleroD 2y

        is that why you're T-posing at the ocean?

      3. @Eco_azul 2y

        No surprise there. I am sure the wife must have dumped you for another gentleman who writes in a language with opening and closing marks. A lady with good taste indeed.

        1. @srferrero 2y

          I wish I knew, she just left a note with a ¿ in it.. spent months trying to figure it out…

          1. @SamsonovAnton 2y

            Wrong encoding maybe. Try changing your locale. 🤪

  13. @yuriy_the_man 2y

    Nobody expects Spanish notation

  14. @mag_aleg 2y

    ¿Queres?

  15. @Eco_azul 2y

    You were probably holding it upside-down.

  16. @srferrero 2y

    Hahahahhahahahhahaha

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