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311 points todsacerdoti | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.753s | source
1. MageOfTheEast ◴[] No.46241065[source]
Nondescriptive names are not necessarily wrong or impeding. The author mentions science, yet STEM is filled with nondescriptive names: we have "Pythagorean theorem" instead of "right triangle sidelength theorem", "Newton's method" instead of "iterated tangent root-finding", "Lambda calculus" instead of "abstraction-application evaluation". Although they are not whimsical, these terms mean nothing to a first-time reader.
replies(1): >>46242234 #
2. tliltocatl ◴[] No.46242234[source]
Oh, STEM naming… Especially mathematics. How can you tell that a "set" is different from a "group" different from a "manifold" different from a "category"? Then there is a lot of seemingly unrelated things called "space" (they are all actually a topological space, but when studying e. g. vector spaces one might not yet have been into that). "Field" is two absolutely unrelated things in physics and algebra, sometimes these domains even intersect! Linear programming, no real relation to computer programming at all, "programming" used to mean "optimization". Calling stuff after their discoverers might be non-descriptive, but giving a misleadingly descriptive name that also collides is way worse - yet people working with this manage just fine.