Evaluate or execute?

Evaluate or execute?

[Thomas S. Dye]

Aloha all,

The org manual and various documents on Worg appear to use the 
subject terms as synonyms for running a bit of source code and 
gathering its result.  Is there a useful distinction that this 
non-software engineer is missing?  Or, are the terms simply 
synonymous?

All the best,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
https://tsdye.online/tsdye

Re: Evaluate or execute?

[Tim Cross]

"Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.online> writes:

> Aloha all,
>
> The org manual and various documents on Worg appear to use the subject terms as
> synonyms for running a bit of source code and gathering its result.  Is there a
> useful distinction that this non-software engineer is missing?  Or, are the
> terms simply synonymous?
>

I suspect that in some domains, there is probably a subtle difference
between evaluate and execute, but when reading information on org, I
think your pretty safe to consider them as synonymous. You need to
evaluate a statement in order to execute it. 

Re: Evaluate or execute?

[Joost Kremers]

On Sun, Oct 24 2021, Thomas S. Dye wrote:
> The org manual and various documents on Worg appear to use the subject terms as
> synonyms for running a bit of source code and gathering its result.  Is there a
> useful distinction that this non-software engineer is missing?  Or, are the
> terms simply synonymous?

To me, the term "evaluate" suggests that the piece of code returns a value that
one is interested in, while "execute" suggest that the code has some side effect
and doesn't return a value (or one that is ignored). Though I doubt this is a
very firm distinction that is strictly adhered to. For practical purposes, you
can probably consider them synonymous.

-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments

Re: Evaluate or execute?

[Rudolf Adamkovič]

"Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.online> writes:

> Or, are the terms simply synonymous?

Tom, have no idea about "Worg", but in computer science, one evaluates expressions to their values and executes statements for their side effects. For instance, the expression 1 + 1 evaluates to the value of 2, while the statement "print 2" causes a side-effect of displaying 2.

Rudy

-- 
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." -- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Rudolf Adamkovič <salutis@me.com>
Studenohorská 25
84103 Bratislava
Slovakia

[he/him]

Re: Evaluate or execute?

[Thomas S. Dye]

Aloha Rudolf, Joost, and Tim,

Thanks very much.  This helps a lot.

All the best,
Tom
-- 
Thomas S. Dye
https://tsdye.online/tsdye