Re: [ANN] Lua 5.3.1 (rc1) now available

[Coda Highland <chighland@...>]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 6:51 AM, Roberto Ierusalimschy
<roberto@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote:
>> There seems to have been a general search-and-replace of "numeric"
>> by "numerical" except in "alphanumeric" and os.setlocale.
>>
>> Personally I preferred it as it was.  The two words are nowadays completely
>> synonymous.
>
> Anyone else has strong preferences about that?
>
> -- Roberto
>

*raises hand* I think "numeric" is definitely the preferred form here.
While the two words may be near-synonymous by a dictionary definition,
the common usage is different.

The term "numeric" is most frequently used to describe things that
CONSIST of numbers, while the term "numerical" is most frequently used
to describe things that USE numbers. For example, a "numeric value" is
the result of an arithmetic expression, and a "numeric field" can
contain a number, but a "numerical method" employs a series of
computed number values to approximate a result that is difficult to
evaluate directly and "numerical reasoning" describes one's ability to
derive meaning from a set of numbers.

/s/ Adam