Yes, otherwise is more natural but less terse.

We often write "otherwise" in mathematics:

https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2C

https://arxiv.org/html/1302.5008v3#:~:text=otherwise

https://arxiv.org/html/1501.05438v2#:~:text=otherwise,-%2E

In fact, I think that's the most common alternative, not "else".

"or else" works too but that's still three extra characters

‘Else’ is not commonly used in English today but the meaning does fit. From Webster’s (1913):

Else, adverb or conjunction

1. Besides; except that mentioned; in addition; as, nowhere else; no one else.

2. Otherwise; in the other, or the contrary, case; if the facts were different.

“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it.” – Ps. li. 16.

After ‘or’, else is sometimes used expletively, as simply noting an alternative. “Will you give thanks, … or else shall I?” – Shak.

> Else’ is not commonly used in English today

I feel like I’m going crazy reading this thread today. Else is not a rare or archaic word.

Yeah; way before I knew how to program I would still say "He said do this or else!"

"or else" now has its own separate dictionary entry because people use the two word combo as a conjunction instead of just plain "or" or "else":

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/or%20else

> [He said to do this, or I'll regret it.]

> [He said to do this, else I'll regret it.]

I imagine people couldn't decide on which conjunction to use since they both work, used both incorrectly, stopped using plain "else", then started thinking they needed to prefix "or" before "else". Dictionaries then adjusted, removing the conjunction entry of "else" and adding "or else" as a conjunctive phrase.

Else doesn't sound archaic to my ears.

"When you go shopping make sure to buy flour or else we won't be able to bake the cake"

"otherwise" is a more common word choice but "else" is definitely in the active vocabulary of modern English speakers.

"or else" is redundant. One can omit one word or the other and it still works.

> When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, or we won't be able to bake the cake.

> When you go shopping make sure to buy flour, else we won't be able to bake the cake.

EDIT: TIL: Dictionaries don't commonly define "else" as a conjunction, except for Wiktionary. Still sounds natural to my ears, so this is a surprise.

It occurs to me that this would be similar to "so" no longer being a conjunction and people instead using "and so".

> Make sure to buy flour, and we'll be able to bake the cake.

> Make sure to buy flour, so we'll be able to bake the cake.

> Make sure to buy flour, and so we'll be able to bake the cake.

That’s “or else”. Bare else is no longer common.

Someone else might disagree with that

That’s not bare else.

There's also "everything else" and similar phrases

That's an adjective. This is about the conjunction.

You can also say "elsewise", which to me still sounds a little old school, but more natural than just using "else" like we do in programming languages.

It's almost tempting to reach for "elsewhen" or "elsewhy", since we have "elsewhere". But if saying "elsewise" feels like chatting with a very elderly relative, saying those ones feels more like a seance with distant ancestors. But apparently it used to be a thing!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewho#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhither#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhence#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsehow#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewards#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elsewhat#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otherwhat#English

Except for the phrase "or else!"

I came here to say this.

I my head as a child I instantly understood and thought "Ahhh, they mean like 'OR else this happens.'

I have always assumed it was a boolean logic thing meant to help show that it wasn't an AND, but 'or' had already been used as a keyword so they did 'or else' and dropped the reserved 'or'.

"Else" is definitely extremely commonly used in English today, just not in the US. The UK says "else" instead of otherwise. "We'll see if the bar is open, else we can go across the street".

It's not uncommon in the US. I'm confused why people think so. It must be regional or cultural variation? Maybe you know it if you're over 35, else not?

It’s often used as a threat, without specifying the threat, do this, or else!

"...or else you'll..."

Iosevka is also available in Nerd Fonts. https://www.nerdfonts.com/#features

Related:

Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36720448 - July 2023 (32 comments)

Margaret Hamilton oral history (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30668338 - March 2022 (7 comments)

An interview with Margaret Hamilton - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453737 - July 2019 (12 comments)

Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12991524 - Nov 2016 (70 comments)

Profile of Margaret Hamilton, programmer of the Apollo software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10379904 - Oct 2015 (58 comments)

Margaret Hamilton, lead software engineer, Project Apollo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8735912 - Dec 2014 (94 comments)

Yes, so far the competitive dynamics feel more like cloud computing than web search.

Not to be confused with the Zen of Backup…

A novice asked the master: “What must I do to learn the Zen of Backup?” The master whacked the novice in the head, grabbed the keyboard, and ran sudo rm -rf /. The novice smiled and left feeling enlightened.

Forgive me for my ignorance: Why should the Rodin Museum be obligated to provide 3D scans of Rodin’s sculptures? OP jumps into legal arguments about FOI without connecting the dots from the law to the point clouds.

This isn’t really a paradox if you just visualize the Moon as a sphere and visualize where the Sun is shining from, and I think that’s what the plots in OP demonstrate.

The “paradox” might be in the initial assertion which does not use an accurate mental model: “After sunset, the sun is below, so we would expect the illuminated portion of the moon to point down, towards where the sun is.” This assertion might be true if at sunset the Sun ducks just behind the horizon, around the same distance or closer than the Moon is to the Earth. In reality, the Sun is of course much farther from Earth than the Moon. Factoring the relative distances into the mental model will lead you to the correct conclusion.

Instead of the proposed /src/md convention:

  src/
    md/
      README.md          # index of all md, entry point for agents
      TODO.md            # a list of general TODOs open for this module
      OVERVIEW.md        # a technical overview of this module
      features/FEATURE_1.md       # a set of feature-specific documents
      data/DATAMODEL_1.md         # descriptions of data models in the module
      api/API_1.md                # descriptions of APIs the module provides
      infrastructure/INFRASTRUCTURE_1.md   # descriptions of infrastructure used by the module

What if we standardized on README.md in each subdirectory alongside the code?

  src/
    README.md    # entry point for humans and agents
    TODO.md      # list of general TODOs open for this module
    INFRA.md     # descriptions of infrastructure used by the module
    api/
      README.md  # descriptions of APIs the module provides
    models/
      README.md  # descriptions of data models in this module

README.md in each subdirectory seems to align better with OP’s objective “that Markdown should be checked in to /src, next to the code it produces”. It is also a convention already in use in many code repositories.

MDs in subdirectories is how Anthropic recommends it too. If you have a CLAUDE.md in a subdirectory and an agent starts working in there, it's appended

i feel like many files with the same name could mess with the context

think the same! also from tooling perspective.. search README and you get XXXX results. (same happening now with index.tsx..)

“You would never sell anything to any of those people ever again.”