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Boolean to get major overhaul


George Boole didn't seem to understand his five teenage daughters, (he didn't have sons, so this is about teenagers, not daughters) otherwise his boolean logic would encompass not only true and false, but also maybe or don't know. Luckily that omission will be addressed now.

Boolean to merge with Ternary

Quick recap: a boolean value has the values true (usually 1), false (usually 0). Ternary has 3 states, typically denoted -1, 0, 1. Not to confuse ternary with QBits which are true and false at the same time.

To reflect the real world, where nothing is certain, and cater to teenage level developers, the ternary and boolean data types will be merged into a new type: RealBoolean.

Proposals are under way to incorporate RealBoolean into all major programming languages ASAP. RealBoolean will have the values true, undecided and false. While it is up to the programming languages how these values are represented, consensus is, that the most likely candidates are -1, 0 and 1.

New hardware

Like specialized mining hardware for Crypto, RealBoolean will benefit from purpose build ternary computers. Early models had been running since 1958. Ternary computing also has arrived in micro processor architectures. Of course there are doubters

Transition period

Having multiple data types to express the truth might fit the political desire for alternate facts, but is an unsustainable confusion in programming. Therefore the classic boolean values will become illegal April 01, 2042.
In the transition period classic booleans will be ducktyped into RealBoolean whenever the values true, false or 1 are used. For boolean 0 or -1 (as some unfortunate languages use) compilers and runtimes are mandated to issue a warning for the first 5 years, thereafter a stern warning before they finally become illegal

Enforcement

All version control repositories will be scanned (the NSA does that anyway) and offending code flagged with new issues. Binary code, not compiled from a repository, will be treated as virus, blocked and deleted. After the deadline all remaining offending code will be transpiled into COBOL - good luck with finding developers to make sense of that code thereafter


Posted by on 01 April 2018 | Comments (4) | categories: After hours Software Technology

Comments

  1. posted by Stephan Wissel on Monday 02 April 2018 AD:

    Feeling might be a little much isn't it?


  2. posted by Craig Wiseman on Wednesday 15 November 2023 AD:

    The real question is, of course, this:

    Does the bit feel true or false?

    Because that's what counts in the end.


  3. posted by Kelly on Wednesday 15 November 2023 AD:

    Comments!


  4. posted by thorsten ebers on Wednesday 15 November 2023 AD:

    hahah, good first april