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I've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories: 1. It
by jonahx 11y ago
I've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories:
1. It's a genuinely useful term, descriptively named, for which no good succinct alternative exists: eg, "outrage porn."
2. A genuinely useful term, poorly named, but excusable because it already has an entrenched history and community using it: eg, "monad" in functional programming.
3. A confusing term, poorly named, for which many good alternatives exist, but which continues to thrive on meme status, or for political reasons, within a particular community. A lot of marketing and business slang, and PC terminology, falls into this category.
So I think it's valid to criticize slang in category 3. That is, not all slang is created equal, or for equal reasons.
- jonpaine 11y agoVery well put!
- tarblog 11y agoDo you have a suggestion for a replacement for "monad"? It's always been such an opaque term to me, even as I began to get a grasp of it.
- jonahx 11y agoThis post (http://stackoverflow.com/a/194207/438615 http://stackoverflow.com/a/194207/438615) makes a good case for "computation builder." Also, as there are abstract data types (stack, queue, etc), monads are abstract control flow types. Another answer there suggests "control type". Something even better is probably possible, but I like both of those better than "monad".
- cousin_it 11y agoFlatMappable :-)
- msellout 11y ago> monad ... poorly named. Depends on your study of history. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology#The_metaphysics_of_The_Monadology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology#The_metaphysics_of_...). ... on second thought, I guess that's exactly what you were saying.