Seven Obscure Languages in Seven Weeks: inaccurate information (page xix)

@aqsaqal

Section “About the Software” in the Introduction starts with the sentence:

“In my youthful days, amid the stark realities of the former Soviet Union— known today as Russia—my only way of learning a new programming language was to imagine myself being that language interpreter and interpreting the code written on paper.”

The phrase “former Soviet Union— known today as Russia” used in the text is not accurate. The sentence should be revised for greater accuracy. I asked the GPT chat to get more insight:

My question:
Is phrase “Former Soviet Union - known today as Russia” accurate?

GPT answered:
The phrase “Former Soviet Union - known today as Russia” is not entirely accurate. The Soviet Union, officially known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), existed from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. After this dissolution, Russia became the largest and most prominent successor state, but the former Soviet Union comprised several other independent countries as well, such as Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), and others. So, a more accurate phrasing would be “Former Soviet Union - now comprising multiple independent countries, including Russia.”