3 ms·

Agree with your comment on the metaphor. Making mistakes like these makes the reader question the subtlety of the arguments presented. Still a good read though!

codetrotter 5y ago
If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. I have literally almost never come across any metaphor, save for a very very small number of them, that are at all helpful even. Most metaphors IMO only serve to obscure the reality of things and to draw false parallels between things, and to make it seem like knowledge is being imparted when it is not really. On top of that there are all of the times that the metaphors themselves may consist of comparing against something where what they are comparing against is not even correct, such as may be the case here. If I could legally change my middle name to “Enough With the Frickin’ Metaphors Already”, I would almost be inclined to do so, except I don’t want the word “Metaphor” to even be a part of my name because that’s how much I dislike the absolute majority of metaphors.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  I'm coming to agree with you. The platonic example of this has to be Neward's "Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science" article. This thesis and summary of this article are utterly amazing and everybody should read them. It has a history of how we got here, a summary of ways forward, and an analysis of each solution's pros and cons. Too bad at least half of the article is a painful tortured amateur analysis of the Vietnam War which ultimately does not tie into the topic of the paper at all.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. Yeah, but metaphors are like cockroaches, they spread like wildfire and are really tough to kill.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    I see what you did there ;)
    - HKH2 5y ago
      They used a simile. If it were a metaphor it would be "metaphors are cockroaches".

codetrotter 5y ago

If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. I have literally almost never come across any metaphor, save for a very very small number of them, that are at all helpful even. Most metaphors IMO only serve to obscure the reality of things and to draw false parallels between things, and to make it seem like knowledge is being imparted when it is not really. On top of that there are all of the times that the metaphors themselves may consist of comparing against something where what they are comparing against is not even correct, such as may be the case here. If I could legally change my middle name to “Enough With the Frickin’ Metaphors Already”, I would almost be inclined to do so, except I don’t want the word “Metaphor” to even be a part of my name because that’s how much I dislike the absolute majority of metaphors.

blacktriangle 5y ago
I'm coming to agree with you. The platonic example of this has to be Neward's "Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science" article. This thesis and summary of this article are utterly amazing and everybody should read them. It has a history of how we got here, a summary of ways forward, and an analysis of each solution's pros and cons. Too bad at least half of the article is a painful tortured amateur analysis of the Vietnam War which ultimately does not tie into the topic of the paper at all.
jhgb 5y ago
> If I could choose one more thing (in addition to anything I’ve mentioned in the past) that I would wish to disappear forever, it would be metaphors. Yeah, but metaphors are like cockroaches, they spread like wildfire and are really tough to kill.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  I see what you did there ;)
  - HKH2 5y ago
    They used a simile. If it were a metaphor it would be "metaphors are cockroaches".