Rephrased: "it's" is semantically equivalent to "it is". A common pet peeve in English; many people use "it's" as a possessive, which it is not.
In commenting on it, someone suggested it should be stated !strcmp("it's", "it is").
- Coding !strcmp() (assuming the C programming language) is bad form. You're suggesting to the reader that strcmp() returns TRUE or FALSE; it does not. That's like saying the two do NOT compare, though what you're really saying is that they ARE identical. It returns the direction of comparison; a number below, equal to, or above zero.
- Secondly, strcmp (string compare) is a literal, not a logical, comparison. The strcmp function would not return an identicality, even though the two strings are semantically the same thing in English. The writer was using the C-style == operator, but ASCII doesn't have the three-line logical equivalence symbol. The original comment was meant to be a logical, semantic comment on grammars.
- (If the language were Perl, then use the eq operator, not ==; since both strings are equivalent to the number 0, and the latter operator considers numerical equivalents.)
- Lastly, there is more than one way to express yourself in English. And in code. No need to re-write something YOUR way unless it's (1) inaccurate or error-prone, or (2) likely to be misunderstood by someone maintaining the work later.
Hm, I wrote grammar pet peeves, should I go religious and write programming pet peeves?
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