I always mentally replace "impact" with "affect" and it tends to have a...
positive impact... on readability.

David

"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes
 will fall like a house of cards... checkmate!"
 -Zapp Brannigan, Futurama


On Thu, 1 Sept 2022 at 16:55, Greg Keogh via ozdotnet <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com>
wrote:

> This is really a Friday topic, but I just found this very long interesting
> article by Stephen Toub titled Performance Improvements in .NET 7
> <https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance_improvements_in_net_7/>.
> It's long and technical, so I plan to digest it via the tablet while
> relaxing in bed tonight (what else is there to do in bed at night?!)
>
> I have the same complaint as last year about Stepen's articles .. they are
> littered with variations of the word "impact". This article has a
> staggering 48 impacts in it, used in the most ludicrous and ambiguous ways.
> Normally he uses impact to mean "degrade" or "decrease", but as soon as the
> second paragraph he says "positively impact performance". So if you stick a
> qualifier in front of the word it can mean anything you like.. He could
> have just said "improves performance". Many of his impacts actually have no
> meaning at all in context, and many are hopelessly ambiguous, which is not
> welcome in a technical article by a respected software boffin.
>
> I tried to email Toub last year to politely ask him to use accurate
> expressions in his technical articles. I suggested he use "degrade" or
> "improve", or something equally expressive in place of all the impacts, but
> unfortunately anonymous email to him bounces. I left a similar comment
> after one of his posts, but it was never published.
>
> If anyone knows Stephen Toub, or knows how to contact him, please forward
> this message to him.
>
> We have to do something to prevent the devolution of the English language.
>
> Cheers,
> *Greg Keogh*
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