Re: On computerese

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2024-09-12T09:46:34-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> There it festered, right in the middle of Branden's otherwise high
> literary style: "use cases".

I appreciate the compliment, but as a working class American, I would
mourn the loss of my lowbrow entertainments.  No sophisticated East
Coast background have I.

("Shachtmanite?"

"What?!")

> 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"?

Clarity as to whether one is employing a noun or a verb.  Both "use" and
"case" can be either (he said, casing the joint for tomorrow's heist),
but juxtaposing them thus unambiguously makes a noun phrase.

> Or, what's the use of "use case"?

It's shorter to type than "practical example".

Examples might be whimsical or unlikely, the better to illustrate a
system's surprising behavior lying off the beaten track.  Use cases
should be neither; they are for the hurried, humorless, or utterly
innocent.

> And while I'm despairing, "concatenate" rolls on,

Leaving aside mom(7), a few occurrences remain in groff's documentary
corpus.

doc/groff.texi.in:concatenates the parameters, separating them with spaces.  
@code{\$@@}
doc/groff.texi.in:is similar, concatenating the parameters, surrounding each 
with double

The first of these is Trent Fisher, 1999.  The second is me, August
2021.

doc/meref.me.in:is the concatenated number,
doc/meref.me.in:\e*($n  S       concatenated section number

Not Allman's fault--mine.  From my frenzied period of me(7) work in
December 2021.

doc/pic.ms:The command \fBprint\fR accepts any number of arguments, concatenates
doc/pic.ms:\fBpic\fP concatenates the arguments and pass them through as a line

Raymond's?

doc/webpage.ms:font name; styles and families are properly concatenated.

A copy of language in the "NEWS" file (groff 1.18 section) already
reformed.  Werner's, maybe.

man/groff.7.man:Interpolate concatenation of all macro or string parameters,
man/groff.7.man:Interpolate concatenation of all macro or string parameters,
man/groff.7.man:Interpolate concatenation of all macro or string parameters

I touched these about 3 years ago, but did not take the opportunity to
reform them.  But they could be mine, because "interpolate" is one of
the trusty chargers I ride into battle, eschewing the paint named
"expand".  Use of the word goes back to Bernd Warken's contribution of
groff(7) in May 2001, with unknown alternations by Werner.

src/devices/grops/grops.1.man:To print such concatenated output,

Werner in commit 4a767e6e70, January 2005.

src/preproc/pic/pic.1.man:Concatenate and write arguments to the standard error 
stream followed by
src/preproc/pic/pic.1.man:Concatenate arguments

Appears to go all the way back to Clark--groff 1.02.

tmac/groff_mdoc.7.man:Arguments are concatenated and separated with space 
characters.

This one's my fault, from Halloween 2022.  Passive voice, too!

tmac/groff_me.7.man:$n  concatenated section number

This one's me, too, 15 December 2021.

> 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?

I can't answer that, but in a brief attempt at coming up with a witty
answer, I got sidetracked.

"The straight line, the catenary, the brachistochrone, the circle, and
Fermat"

https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.2660

May others find it similarly diverting.  :)

I needed a break from trying to figure out why GNU troff's 35 year old
bespoke dictionary implementation suddenly cracked in half in my working
copy, anyway.

Sigh.

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature