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I don't see things in such absolutist terms as that. For everyday language, sure, I'm more than happy to go with the flow. For technical language we need a rela

I don't see things in such absolutist terms as that. For everyday language, sure, I'm more than happy to go with the flow. For technical language we need a relatively stable, agreed upon terminology. Terms that flow and change too freely makes communication very difficult and often leads to people having pointless arguments due to fundamentally misunderstanding what each person is saying. And I do disagree that it's Sisyphean. Raising awareness can and does influence how words are used (especially within a group).

anoncake 7y ago
The meaning of a term depends on its usage. That is not a matter of opinion, it's how language, including technical language, works. Currently "OOP" roughly means [Alan Kay's vision] or [Java-like]. That is an imprecise and mostly useless definition but it's the one it has, whether we like it or not. A stable terminology is desirable and that's why we shouldn't redefine "OOP". Think of it like an API. What's more backwards-compatible: changing the behavior of oop() or deprecating it in favor of javaLikeProgramming() and kayProgramming() ?