quote: The title is in a database and I don't know off the top of my head how/if they handle string to boolean conversion. |
MSSQL doesn't have a boolean data type at all. However, when the title is queried from the database, it is then processed by the C# server code.
Now, C# does have a boolean type, and even better, has implicit casts, and has explicit string-to-boolean converters. However, this is what happens when you try an implicit cast on this string:
truth.cs(9,12): error CS0029: Cannot implicitly convert type `string' to `bool'
And this is what happens if you try an explicit conversion:
[ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid Boolean.
But let's not give up yet! After the server processes the title and renders the page, it is then sent to the browser as a bunch of HTML an Javascript. While HTML in itself doesn't have a rigid definition of truthness, javascript has boolean types, implicit casting, etc, and can trivially access the innerHTML value of the title tag. This is what Javascript gives us:
// 1)
"Is this title false?" === true
false
// 2)
"Is this title false?" === false
false
// 3)
"Is this title false?" == false
false
// 4)
!"Is this title false?"
false
What does this tell us? The value we are trying is:
1) not literally true.
2) not literally false.
3) not false-like
4) the negation of this value is false, so it's truth-like
As we can see, the meaning of this value has shifted wildly based on the language in which it is _read_, and in the way the question of its truth is formulated in every language. There is no rigorously correct answer: the truth-meaning of this title is nebulous, and it also depends on who's asking - so it's subjective.
However, we can also observe a pattern: all of the languages and systems we interrogated agree that it is definitely not what they understand by "false"; therefore the meaning of this title is both nebulous and patterned at the same time.