5 ms·

Why? It seems a perfectly cromulent word for a concept which has no other succinct description

• dalke 11y ago
  How do you think it's being used here? That is, how is it being used here differently than "come to grips with", "apprehend", "understand", or "comprehend"? Another dimension is its use as a shibboleth. In this case, the origins from a science fiction novel that was popular in the counter-culture of the 1960s and made its way into the hacker culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Its use indicates membership in this group, even if the meaning duplicates words in common practice. Similarly, your use of cromulent indicates your alignment with a TV series. If you mean to include that dimension as well, then you are right; using 'grok' embiggens the distinction between ingroup and outgroup in a way that those words do not.
  • TeMPOraL 11y ago
    'Grok' usually has a stronger meaning than the words/phrases you mentioned. It means to comprehend something deeply, gain intuitive and thorough understanding.
    • dalke 11y ago
      Agreed. I gave a similar definition in a parallel thread. My question is, is it being used in that sense here by Nacraile. My followup question is, is that's how it's usually used? I get the stronger sense that it indicates that one is a hacker, than that it's being used for an otherwise missing concept.
      • Retric 11y ago
        I find people usually use it to mean the point where they could modify the code and expect it to probably work. I might not really understand all the details, but I know it well enough to become part of it. Which really fits the origional definition far more than understand.
        • dalke 11y ago
          The original definition is "to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man." Your description here is nothing like the original meaning.
          • Retric 11y ago
            To use more flowery language. You merge your thoughts with those who came before allowing for synthesis, extention, or improvement. Nothing in the book suggests grocking is total understanding just the point where there ready to act. So, being able to follow the thought process of the coder(s) who came before instead of just reading the logic is a deeper understanding. Sum=54; Foreach(int x in Dalist) sum += x; The logic is easy to follow. But WTF is 54. Until I understand why 54 is there I don't grock the code even if I understand what it does. Again I might not agree with the coder but I need to understand what they where thinking before I can change anything.
• jrcii 11y ago
  To me its aesthetic repugnance outweighs the benefit of the added precision
  • icebraining 11y ago
    I find it interesting that you choose to extol textual aesthetics with a sentence that finishes without punctuation. It just goes to show how subjective these matters are.