> From: Lloyd Wood <l.wood@eim.surrey.ac.uk>
> inventing new jargon to make talking about concepts that may not be
> fully agreed or understood is imo just a way of hiding having to think
> about the underlying concept further...
At the same time, trying to (re)-use old words to describe new things, and
especially similar things with a slight twist on old things, can really
confuse people.
I recall with painful clarity how confused people were with an architecture
which had longish, variable-length "addresses" - addresses which were not,
however, necessarily present in every packet. Their brains had this hard-wired
notion that "address" meant a field in the header of every packet...
So there is a fine line that one has to tread...
On the subject of terminology, a friend of mine found this wonderful quote:
"I am far from thinking that nomenclature is a remedy for every defect in
art or science: still I cannot but feel that confusion of terms generally
springs from, and always leads to, confusion of ideas."
- John Louis Petit, "Architectural Studies in France", 1854
which really says it all, I think.
Noel
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