"Justin Johansson" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... > Nick Sabalausky wrote: >> "Justin Johansson" <[email protected]> wrote in message >> news:[email protected]... >>> Nick Sabalausky wrote: >>>> Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when >>>> talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, >>>> they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix. >>> What about persons with English not as a first language? >>> >> >> I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some >> point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard >> for phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use >> in a language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english >> speaker is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't >> know for certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given >> language/library because there's no guarantee non-native speakers would >> know any of it. >> >> For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to >> use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and >> I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or >> cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I >> knew what something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly >> sympathize that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking >> programmers, and that it's an issue native english speaking programmers >> like me will probably never be able to truly understand, but until we get >> to some hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same >> language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but to >> just assume at least some particular language. >> >> Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague >> meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a >> minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is >> made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing >> at all, even to an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly >> enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than >> "old style", I'm sure I still could have gotten used to it very quickly, >> especially considering that in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty >> damn clear that it's not being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome >> appliances, and flock-of-seagulls haircuts. >> > > One famous mathematician, in writing to another famous mathematician, > once wrote "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I don't have > time to be brief". > > So question is, are you the former famous mathematician? > >
Heh :) No, but one time I did have a college professor refer to my writing style as "constipated". Can't say I disagreed ;)
