RE: Word usage

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > And Emacs doc should definitely use the former, not the latter.
> > We should not suppose that Emacs users are familiar with 
> > math notation beyond the most basic (e.g. arithmetic or algebra).
> > There is no reason to expect general users to be familiar with
> > interval notation.
> 
> color.el is clearly not intended for general users,

Of course it is.  Who is it excluding?

> so the [0,1] notation seems adequate for that context.

Not.  It is entirely possible to follow the code and comments of color.el
without necessarily being familiar with math interval notation - or at least it
should be.  (I assert that having still never seen the color.el code. ;-))

"Adequate"?  There is no reason to use (non-Emacs) jargon when English is just
as clear and is sufficiently concise.

Both "must be between 0 and 1 inclusively" (suggested by David) and "N, where 0
<= N <= 1" (which I suggested) are pretty clear to everyone, and they are not
particularly verbose.

They are _no more verbose_ than "must be in the interval [0, 1]".  You gain
nothing by using the latter, and you can lose clarity for some readers.  It is
perverse to opt for possible confusion with no gain.  (Are we showing off?)

Unless you are using interval descriptions over and over, and especially a mix
of interval types, there is no reason to use interval syntax here (especially
without explicitly introducing it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle