[PLUG] Linux nomenclature (was Ubuntu ...)

[Tim Thorpe]

that is by far the most insightful thing I've read in ages.

On 3/29/06, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 06:58:50PM -0800, John Jordan wrote:
> > Indeed, education is the key. But I still must fault Linux a bit here.
> > Someone else said "/usr/bin" is as easy to learn as "c:\Program
> > Files." I must disagree. It's a picky point, to be sure, but a novice
> > will have no idea what "/usr/bin" is for. When I started using Linux a
> > year ago I literally thought it was the trash folder. Well, it said
> "bin"
> > didn't it? I'll agree that "c:\Program Files" is not completely clear
> > either, but it's a lot clearer than "/usr/bin."
> >
> > Perhaps the Linux for Dummies edition should come with a file
> > manager that displays folders translated into non-Unix terms. I
> > don't mean into Windows terms, as that is also not perfectly clear
> > either. I mean, start over from scratch and make labels that no
> > beginner could possibly confuse.
>
> That is a good point - I have been looking at "bin" and seeing an
> abbreviation for "binary" for over 30 years.  That was the case in
> DOS, for example, and in CPM and unix and way back to the first
> PDP-8 I worked on.  There was a time when the "ARY" in "binary",
> stored in RAM, cost as much as a cup of coffee.  Abbreviations
> saved money.  The trash directory came much later, when disks
> became cheap enough that saving discarded files was an option.
>
> Some bright person at Microsoft realized the "bin/trash" confusion, and
> hence "Program Files" was introduced for Windoze.  And yes, Microsoft
> has had many bright people.  It's the implant that makes them evil.
>
> Consider the phrase "acoustic guitar".  Before electric guitars,
> all guitars were "acoustic guitars", and the adjective "acoustic"
> was redundant and unnecessary.  Words change with context.
>
> Programmers invent nomenclature at a prodigious rate.  Unimaginative
> ones forget that their nomenclature may last a long time, and may
> bounce off other nomenclature from other development threads, or off
> new situations that import concepts from the Real World (tm).  Take
> the word "port", which is used in half-a-dozen contexts in computers,
> all formerly isolated, now tied together.  When contexts merge,
> nomenclatures can self-destruct.
>
> So when choosing names, keep in mind that context will shift during
> the life of a program, sometimes lethally.  Perhaps we will need
> "intertemporalization" as well as "internationalization" files for
> our programs, to accomodate context shifts.
>
> But back to Linux.  John, you are in a great position to serve the
> community when you run into these ambiguities and misnamings.  Your
> observations are valuable, and can help a lot of people.  A year
> from now, all this will be old hat and Linuxisms will be obvious
> and natural to you, so writing this stuff down now is important.
> May I suggest you start a blog or a wiki, and get this stuff
> captured where Google can find it?
>
> If you need help setting up a wiki, we can work on it at the next
> clinic.  If you don't have a website to put a wiki on, perhaps we
> can get started on that, too.  I can loan you space on my server,
> if you pay for yet another domain name (use dyndns.org), and in
> time you can move everything to your own server.
>
> Keith
>
> --
> Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
> KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
> Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
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