[PD] Windows nightly builds are back

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Wed Dec 5 17:56:15 CET 2007


On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Roman Haefeli wrote:

>>> Pd 0.40 adds canvas-local namespaces.  that message means a library 
>>> has been loaded into the global namespace.
>> ok. but maybe it might be nice to replace it with something in 
>> "english". it's nicer to users that don't care about those details.
> i don't agree. i think, if there are messages printed to console at all,
> they should be very accurate and use accurate terms. Otherwise more
> experienced people would have to translate every message back. 
> i don't like the idea of making things appear simple, if they are not.

It makes me think of those Microsoft components that talk about 
"resources" when they mean "RAM". They especially don't mean "resources" 
in general, because it would include lots more than just RAM, and you 
couldn't add all resources together in a way meaningful enough to get a 
percentage-of-use out of it. So this is an example of condescending 
terminology destined to keep users in ignorance and confusion and make 
techies look like aliens because They Don't Use The Same Words As 
MicroSoft Does. (I can't believe that it was an accident or a simple 
mistake...)

OTOH, "core dumps" are not much more meaningful as a word, but at least 
they have historical justification. Unfortunately for the "core dump" 
expression, "magnetic core RAM" fell in disuse shortly before I was born, 
being replaced by "semiconductor RAM" instead... first by 128-byte chips, 
then 1024, 4096, 16384, ... and nowadays, a piece of RAM may hold 
1073741824 bytes (one gig), but still, Linux, in the long tradition of 
UNIX passed from generation to generation, says things like:

   Segmentation Fault (core dumped)

  _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal QC Canada


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