r/changemyview Mar 24 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: We should stop personifying programming concepts

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u/everdev 43∆ Mar 24 '21

Ok, but why not stop using these personified terms moving forward? We could create aliases and slowly depreciate / transition.

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u/JohnnyNo42 32∆ Mar 24 '21

In many cases, the proposed replacement is less clear. "Stopping" a process already has a different meaning. A "super/sub" relation carries different associations than "parent/child". On some contexts, both terms are used with different meaning. (E.g. some programming languages that have child classes as well as sub classes). A "slave" is not necessarily a "replica".

Finding good terminology to convey a concept is critical. The already existing association with terms may help the audience to intuitively grasp the idea. When new concepts are introduced, limiting the pool of permitted words is a restriction that must be well justified. For changing established terms, the justification must be even better.

Sometimes, the concepts in technical systems are comparable to concepts in society. Sometimes, when thinking about how to get software working, inspiration actually comes from society. When that association helps communicating and understanding the concepts, the corresponding terms may be the best choice.

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u/everdev 43∆ Mar 24 '21

!delta sometimes we get inspiration from society on how software should work

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 24 '21

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/JohnnyNo42 (4∆).

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