[TUHS] On computerese

[Will Senn]

On 9/12/24, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> There it festered, right in the middle of Branden's otherwise high 
> literary
> style: "use cases". I've despaired over the term ever since it wormed its
> way into computer folks' vocabulary. How does a "use case" differ from a
> "use"? Or, what's the use of "use case"?
>
> And while I'm despairing, "concatenate" rolls on, undeterred by Research's
> campaign for concision. We determinedly excised the word from the seventh
> edition. The man page header for cat(1) read "catenate and print". Posix
> added content on both ends, making "concatenate and print files". Gnu
> puffed it up further to "concatenate files and print on the standard
> output".
>
>  It's not as if the seventh edition was storming the gates of English.
> According to the OED, "catenate" and "concatenate" are synonyms of long
> standing that entered the language almost simultaneously. Why pick the
> flabby one over its brisk--and more mnemonic--rival?
>
> Doug
>
Just gotta say, I completely agree with this sentiment as regards 
catenate. Also, I've never been sold
on use-case, either. If I remember, it was Jacobson who popularized the 
term. Maybe use-case was contrived
to provide some further distinction from the uses connection... as in 
the use-case:

Validate Password uses Enter Password...

Personally, I think a use is fine and it doesn't matter much that in a 
use, an actor uses a function...but hey,
technical fields are well known and loved for using language in 
perfectly unreasonable ways. Technical language is used, ostensibly, to 
disambiguate, but more often than not it obscures and alienates. In my 
classes, I spend a lot of effort breaking things down into simple terms 
while pointing out the use of jargon and the importance of nailing it 
for the chosen profession - likening it to a cult of technicality. Big 
fan of KISS here :). Terms should mean what they say so professionals 
can say what they mean... clearly and with as little ambiguity as is 
reasonable, that is, language affords a great deal of redundancy and we 
should not be afraid to leverage this tool as well - leave the hunt for 
perfect disambiguation to the mathematicians.

- will