These are good points. However, coming from the APL/J world, I've always felt little incentive to observe computer "science" tradition in the cases where it seems backwards, like upside-down trees. At the same time, I'd like to strike a balance as it's an ongoing problem with J that we use a different vocabulary than most everyone else and this presents a non-essential barrier to entry.
So, on the basis of spurning mistaken tradition, I would prefer "climb" to "descend". The word "find" is perhaps too broad though my "climb" is very much like the Unix "find", so that's maybe the way to go. On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Zsbán Ambrus <[email protected]> wrote: > ... > I think it's called _descending_ a directory tree because computer > scientists have their trees upside down. Or just call it find. > > > However, if we were to handle the sub-directory navigation more > > explicitly, this opens up the possibility of being able to specify either > > "depth-first" or "breadth-first" processing of the tree rather than the > > implicit "depth-first" approach of recursion. > > The term "depth-first" also implies a tree growing downward. > > Ambrus > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
