[Insight-developers] ImageIO Streaming

[Douglas Alan]

Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Doug,

> There is a list of all ITK method names at:

> http://public.kitware.com/Insight/Doxygen/html/functions.html

> Compute is fairly popular as is Calculate.

Okay, well I  guess anything but LateForDinner() is fine with me.

If I were in a mood to be fussy, I'd prefer "Calculate" over "Compute"
in this instance, as my understanding of the word "compute" is that it
typically involves a lengthy calculation.  For instance, you might
either *calculate* or *compute* pi to a million significant digits, and
you might *calculate* pi to three digits, but you wouldn't *compute* pi
to three digits.  ("Determine" is more like "calculate" than "compute",
only it is even more general in that *determining* might not involve any
math, while "calculate" would typically have that connotation -- at
least within the context of computer programs.)

Lest one think that when I'm feeling fussy I make up my own
idiosyncratic distinctions, the American Heritage Dictionary seems to
agree with these distinctions:

   Synonyms: These verbs refer to the use of mathematical methods to
   determine a result. Calculate, the most comprehensive, often implies
   a relatively high level of abstraction or procedural complexity: The
   astronomer calculated the planet's position.

   Compute applies to possibly lengthy arithmetic operations: computing
   fees according to time spent.

In any case, either "Compute" or "Calculate" works for me, with a bit of
a preference towards "Calculate".

|>oug