Roughly two decades ago (!) I was a grad student teaching #pre-calculus and #calculus. I had a student who thought it was hilarious that the absolute value button on the graphing calculator was labeled “abs”. She laughed about how it was “time to do some abs.” I really thought it was great, because if you make a joke out of something like that, you are more likely to remember it.
And even though I never again crossed paths with that student after the term was over, every time I see “abs” for absolute value, I think of this moment.
Indeed, today I was writing some #Rust code and used the unsigned_abs method on a signed integer, and I immediately imagined some shirtless guy at a gym with a marker trying to convince another patron to autograph his abdominal muscles.
https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive.isize.html#method.unsigned_abs
(There’s also checked_abs, overflowing_abs, overflowing_abs, wrapping_abs, …)