There's a very good video on this [1] by Innuendo Studios on why this discussion is more or subjective, since it matters in what context you say it and what you mean by it.
He does this with the example of a tomato, which by botanical defintion is a fruit. But in culinary terms, it is a vegetable. So when someone says "haha, did you know that a tomato is actually a fruit", it's subjective and can almost have no added value in a discussion. Botanists know it's a fruit. Cooks know the taste of the tomato and will use it accordingly. Hence, nothing is gained. Except confusion and unnecessary discussion.
People who write code for robot compilers (aka programmers) often make this mistake. People who write code for human compilers (aka writers) embrace the subjectivity/variability of those human compilers
You forget one subcategory of writers: lawyers (and their subcategory legislators). They definitely reject variability of interpretation as much as they can, or at least try their hardest to.
I think lawyers fundamentally premise their work on the variability of interpretation. They make arguments in favor of certain interpretations, and take pains in the texts they write to preempt any undesirable interpretations.
Legislators may or may not think like writers/lawyers, but even if they do they're constrained by those who don't, the need for compromise, and the incentive to have gotten something done even if it's not perfect. So they sometimes end up doing a bad job of legal writing.
In my experience, this is how programmers think lawyers work, and it's why so many programmers frustrate actual lawyers by thinking they can use pure robotic logic to decide on the legality of something (or to find clever loopholes that no human judge would ever actually allow).
As a law student myself I have to disgree. While in many cases legislators want no variability of interpretetion, in some few cases variability is intended (for bad reasons, mostly).
Lawyers actually like variability of interpretation, since it allows for flexible arguments. This is especially true for common law countries, where law is systematically interpreted by the courts, very often following arguments of lawyers and/or scholars.
You see, language is a social construct and can never be as accurate as mathematics. You can define an interger very rigourously, but you cannot define language that way. Yes, there is grammar and such things. But it‘s very dynamic. And I didn‘t even start with „meaning“. There‘s a very large debate in philosophy about what that even is.
> Cooks know the taste of the tomato and will use it accordingly.
this is an exceptionally simplistic view since tomato is readily available as juice, as opposed as zucchini and peppers, whose are seldom used in cocktails that aren't smoothies
I think this is merely a flaw with the English language. Tomatoes are fruits (fruit of the tomato plant) but they are not fruit (a food category). It's two separate words with different grammatical treatment.
> Berries also must have two or more seeds, and their fruit must develop from a flower with one ovary. Once again, the banana checks those boxes. And, weirdly, so does the tomato, eggplant, kiwi and pepper. Oranges are a specific type of berry called hesperidium thanks to their distinct segments.
Just to throw some extra confusion into the mix :-)
He does this with the example of a tomato, which by botanical defintion is a fruit. But in culinary terms, it is a vegetable. So when someone says "haha, did you know that a tomato is actually a fruit", it's subjective and can almost have no added value in a discussion. Botanists know it's a fruit. Cooks know the taste of the tomato and will use it accordingly. Hence, nothing is gained. Except confusion and unnecessary discussion.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmxIK9p0SNM