Jacqueline Landman Gay wrote:
> ...But the rest of us need a more common English reference
> and a bit of explanation.
>
> Where does one draw the line?
With the destroyStack property. ;)
I agree with Jeanne DeVoto's reminder that programming languages serve
different purposes than human languages, and we should take that into
consideration while designing syntax.
But here I also agree with Jacque, that where choosing between two tokens
makes no difference to the computer it can make a world of difference to the
human learning the language.
To all but C++ programmers, "destroy" implies unrecoverable damage, to
obliterate something beyond the ability to bring it back. Sounds very
scary, and outside of C++ it is. In C++, "destroy" is commonly used to
describe purging something from memory, but to most native English speakers
it implies doing something far more serious, perhaps removing the stack from
the file.
C++ programmers understand "destroy" and lay people don't, but everyone
understands "purge" -- why not "purgeStack" and "purgeWindow" properties?
Anyone who believe newcomers don't really turn white at the thought of
clicking the destroyStack checkbox in the Inspector haven't done much
teaching. :)
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
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