alt Hacker NewsTrue, but "programmer's intuition" is because most programming languages are more or less based on formal logic so they agree with the formal logic interpretation even if many programmers have never studied formal logic.
True, but "programmer's intuition" is because most programming languages are more or less based on formal logic so they agree with the formal logic interpretation even if many programmers have never studied formal logic.
"More or less" is the key and the rub. The specific semantics must be determined and utilized in place.
For me, the evaluation of the empty set should have separate semantics than that for how a non-empty set's elements are logically combined to produce a value.
This is the result of doing stats programming for grad students, doing lots of database design and programming, and lots of regular programming in imperative and functional languages.
The key is that we are always working within a context, and this problem's context involves both formal logic and regular old language. And, whew!, is there a disconnect and interference pattern.
What a delightfully unserious discussion!