Re: On computerese

[hohe72]

What's not the point! The point is: Why making things complicated, if
it can be strait. Doesn't you realise that you (all) writing articles
if a single sentence would prove knowledge?

.. that the flavour of the words catenate and concatenate are neither
in the dictionaries nor accessible to an foreigner.

.. that a 'use case' is a case not a use. You may model software based
on that special case(s) (a process in CS). 'use' is always subjective
as is all your claims.

Last but not least, haven't you ever realised how dense the Troff User's
Manual by J.F.Ossanna and B.W.Kernighan really is! No style, no
feelings, no glitter, no Latin. Shame on you, heirs!

By no means will I go by your example. I rather go with the Reports Of
Damage To Japanese Warships - Article 2, the declassified U.S. Naval
Technical Mission To Japan (Index No. S-06-2). You name the search
engine right? Go for it.

Another good source of writing is chemistry books what I want you not
to do. People may die!

It's true, sorry,
Holger
 
ps: And please if you think your mail's worth to be googled, then here's
no need to send it twice to the list and me.


On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 12:56:15 +1000 (AEST)
Damian McGuckin <damianm@esi.com.au> wrote:

> On Sun, 15 Sep 2024, hohe72@posteo.de wrote:
> 
> > 'catenate' is missing in Oxford learners and Oxford Compact
> > Dictionary as well. It's objected by my mail client also. Seems to
> > be American English.  
> 
> > 'concatenate' seems to be a more common technical term. I learned
> > it in study. Oxford mentioned it to be technical.  
> 
> One comes from the Latin 'catenat' and the other to 'con-catenat-'.
> So, even its usage in Latin is technically separate. Any Latin
> scholars here?
> 
> Somebody on the internet tried to assert that "concatenate" was a
> computer term. Note sure the Romans had any of those things although
> they were good engineers and mathematicians".
> 
> I thought that "catentat-" means to "link in a chain" (as in by
> things like atoms or molecules that do it for themselves) and that
> "concatenat-" means to "link together in a chain" by some external
> party, i.e.
> 
>       atoms can do the chaining for themselves
> but
>       files need Doug or Holger or myself to do the chaining
> 
> When using the 6th Edition, I can only remember the word
> 'concatentate. I can never remember the use of the word "catenate"
> there but that is going back a long long way. Who created the "cat"
> command and did they have the word "catenate" or "concatenate" in
> their heads?
> 
> It is a bit like the "imaginary" part of a complex number. The
> original use of the term by Colin Maclaurin in about 1729 and
> Webster's definition agree that in a complex number like 'x + i y',
> the"imaginary" part is the imaginary number, i.e. it included the
> imaginary unit number 'i' (or iota as Euler said). But more than 50%
> of modern texts and standards including the NIST's DMLF and ISO's LIA
> and C standard disagree. Scary.
> 
> My 2c.
> 
> I have to admit that 40+ years of using "concatenate" would take a
> lot of unlearning.
> 
> > 'use case' is a well defined technical term.
> >
> > 'use' is a general term. (Nothing at all.)  
> 
> I am very much on Doug's side there. Isn't "use" being used here in
> its more general use? The term "use case" is computerese run amok, or
> gone rampant. I hate "use case" as it almost sounds like a tautology.
> 
> - Damian

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