Re: Why does the meaning (and spelling) of words change?

Interesting discussion. In French we write it
"programme", but I always thought that the English
wrote "program".

I usually abbreviate it "pgm", but some people prefer
"prog". The rules for nomenclature for files or inside
a program are a very interesting field, and alas, a
very despised too. For ex, the very first reflex of
any programmer, when creating a file for test, is
calling it "TOTO". This is kind of a tradition as it
seems. If you gave a secund one to create, you name it
"TITI", or "TATA". Which is very unclever, because
later you don't know any more what this file stands
for - and sometimes it's just NOT a dummy one. I once
cleaned a repertory where there where plenty of dummy,
unused files, and the next day a colleague came very
angry to me, asking, "Why did you erase my file BIDON
????" (BIDON meaning "dummy" in French). Of course I
replied, well, because you named it BIDON. But it
didn't occured to him that the name could have an
importance or a utility. Strange !

Also when naming variables, constants or subroutines
inside a program: nobody ever learns any rules for
such nomenclature, everybody just does according to
the inspiration of the moment, which brings an awful
mess, of course. I think one day I shall write a book
about it. For ex, how many, meaning "Comptable"
(referring to Accountancy), will use a prefixe like
"COM". "COM" can mean a thousand things,
Communication, for example. Much better to use a CPT
prefix. I usually always groups of three mnemonic
letters, separed if possible by an underscore.
Consonants should be used preferrably to vowels (this
reminds us the Semitic roots, and yet I'm not a Semit,
neither talk Hebrew nor Arabic: so it seems that this
principle could be somehow universal, even for Latin
languages). Anyway, two letters is too little, and
four is unneeded. There are many other possible rules,
but nearly nobody teaches them neither thinks it's
worth thinking about. When will computing technic come
to the professional level of other technics ? I
wonder.


--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> Gary> Try the search yourself.  If usage is the
> final
> Gary> authority then "computer programme" is
> correct.
>
> Joe> I disagree.  I bet that none of those are by
> programmers.  I think
> Joe> specialists get to define the terms in a given
> field.
>
> The specialists may get to tell you what "comptuer
> program(me)" means
> (though that's still subject to semantic drift
> through use by
> non-specialists), but it's not as if the word
> "program(me)" was invented
> for this use, nor as if that meaning is unrelated to
> its other ones.
>
> I'm a professional software developer who works with
> people in the UK in
> the same field.  Before becoming a stay-at-home mom,
> my wife worked for
> a software development firm that was founded and
> headquarted in the
> UK.  The spelling "programme" is ubiquitous in both
> companies.
>
> The distinction you're trying to draw simply doesn't
> exist from any
> large-scale viewpoint of English usage.  The word
> "program" can be
> spelled either way in any of its meanings, as
> evidenced simply by the
> fact that it is.
>
> -Mark

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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