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Logic

My wife asked me: Buy sausages, if you’ll find eggs, buy 10. What happens next?

Option #1:

if eggs >= 10 then buy(sausages, eggs=10);

Option #2:

if sausages > 0 then buy(sausages);
if eggs >= 10 then buy(eggs, 10);

Option #3

buy(sausages);
if eggs >= 10 then buy(eggs, 10);

The 3rd option is dangerous one because it could end up with never-ending run in the city looking for sausages, never buying eggs and never coming back home.

…and more. Why?

Asking me to make shopping, my wife did not stick to the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. That’s the reason why not everybody can be a programmer :-)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 3:35 pm and is filed under author, programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

8 Responses to “Logic”

  1. Paul Spencer says:
    June 25, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    buy(sausages,2); // sausages is plural, need to buy 2 otherwise its a sausage
    if eggs then buy(sausages,8); // if you find eggs, you better come home with 10 sausages!

  2. Eric Wolf says:
    June 25, 2009 at 5:08 pm
    if (requester == wife) then
    expect_valid_inferences_and_correct_reasoning = False
else
    divorce = True

if (divorce == True)
   buy(beer, 12)
else
   buy(sausages, 10)
   buy(eggs, 12)
   buy(flowers, 1)

    P.S. Sum of five + ten = fifteen, not 15.

  3. Eric Wolf says:
    June 25, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    FYI: Your comments don’t allow Pythonic code blocks. Indentation is stripped.

  4. mloskot says:
    June 26, 2009 at 2:02 am

    Paul,

    This is an interesting insight that could be tweaked to if eggs buy(sausages) && buy(beer, 10);

  5. mloskot says:
    June 26, 2009 at 2:05 am

    Eric,

    Hehe, isn’t it too radical? By the way, my wife does not mind whether I have some beer, so assuming the execution does not fall into divorce case, I’d replace 12 eggs with 10, 1 flower – let’s leave as is, and add 2 beers. Yes. looks good now :-)

  6. Tyler says:
    June 27, 2009 at 6:17 am

    I think the problem also shows that not all people can do the shopping too ;-) hehe

  7. mloskot says:
    June 27, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Tyler,

    This is the very truth :-)

  8. Regina says:
    July 14, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Mateusz,
    Me thinks you’ve been staring at a screen too long. Its all about context. That’s what separates humans from computers. Hmm I wonder if that’s what separates real people from geeks too. :)

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