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I was going to make a snarky remark comparing it to the recent second usage of 'isomorphic' but, to be honest, people will figure it out. I'm putting all this s

I was going to make a snarky remark comparing it to the recent second usage of 'isomorphic' but, to be honest, people will figure it out. I'm putting all this stuff on my list of things not to waste blood pressure on.

josteink 11y ago
I was honestly trying to be helpful, and was definitely not making a snide remark. Sure, people wondering if this is node running on .Net might click and discover they were wrong, and all is fine. But if his project from name alone is perceived as being related to .NET, he may not reach out to the full audience of web-developers he may be aiming for. And that's a net loss for him. If there's a time to reconsider the name, it's now before it gets bigger and more "known". I mean the repo only has around 10 commits at this point :)
- richmarr 11y ago
  I didn't think you were being snide, nor did I intent to be. Really don't understand the downvoting behaviour around here.
- pluma 11y ago
  Your concerns are justified. When I read "IronNode" I immediately thought of "IronPython" and "IronRuby". Had I just skimmed the headlines and not paid attention to the full title, I would have ignored it.
ripter 11y ago
I don't think he was trying to be snarky. I thought the same thing when I first clicked on the link.
abritinthebay 11y ago
Given that the usage of isomorphic is perfectly correct (it's using the biological, not mathematical, definition) I don't know how you'd do that...
- pluma 11y ago
  True, but you could make the same argument about terms like "transparent"[0] -- which still cause grief to no end. [0]: In the intuitive sense: something you can see the insides or details of (e.g. Transparency International). In the CS sense: something that is invisible to the consumer (e.g. it's a bad idea to make critical network operations transparent to your persistence logic). In the design sense: something that has an alpha channel.
  - abritinthebay 11y ago
    How does that cause grief? That's called "context" and language has it. Isomorphic here is being used in the already existing biological sense. Just because the HN commenting user base is largely ignorant of non-mathmatics terms (a problem) doesn't make it wrong. In fact it's very applicable. Fitting pretty much perfectly with what is going on.
    - pluma 11y ago
      Except contexts aren't as clear cut. As humans we tend to switch contexts all the time often even within the same conversation. We also frequently nest contexts, which works fine as long as the vocabulary of each context doesn't overlap too much. Terms like "isomorphic" and "transparent" are ambiguous, especially if you're not familiar with their use in the active context, even more so if you're already familiar with their use in a different context and most definitely if you weren't aware you just switched contexts and the term has a defined meaning in the active context: "evolution is just a theory" comes to mind (the speaker obviously not being aware that "theory" in the context in which evolution is called one is something very different from the colloquial definition they are familiar with). I'm not arguing we shouldn't use the term "isomorphic". The context in which "isomorphic" is used in the web sense and that in which it is used in the mathematical sense are unlikely to overlap as frequently as the most vocal opponents would claim. I'm just pointing out that the ambiguity is real and that it will continue to be a problem until the definition in the context of web applications (or any environment-agnostic application, really) becomes widely enough known that programmers only familiar with the mathematical definition stop being confused and see it as what it is: a new piece of jargon they have to learn if they want to join the discussion.

josteink 11y ago

I was honestly trying to be helpful, and was definitely not making a snide remark. Sure, people wondering if this is node running on .Net might click and discover they were wrong, and all is fine. But if his project from name alone is perceived as being related to .NET, he may not reach out to the full audience of web-developers he may be aiming for. And that's a net loss for him. If there's a time to reconsider the name, it's now before it gets bigger and more "known". I mean the repo only has around 10 commits at this point :)

richmarr 11y ago
I didn't think you were being snide, nor did I intent to be. Really don't understand the downvoting behaviour around here.
pluma 11y ago
Your concerns are justified. When I read "IronNode" I immediately thought of "IronPython" and "IronRuby". Had I just skimmed the headlines and not paid attention to the full title, I would have ignored it.

ripter 11y ago

I don't think he was trying to be snarky. I thought the same thing when I first clicked on the link.

abritinthebay 11y ago

Given that the usage of isomorphic is perfectly correct (it's using the biological, not mathematical, definition) I don't know how you'd do that...

pluma 11y ago
True, but you could make the same argument about terms like "transparent"[0] -- which still cause grief to no end. [0]: In the intuitive sense: something you can see the insides or details of (e.g. Transparency International). In the CS sense: something that is invisible to the consumer (e.g. it's a bad idea to make critical network operations transparent to your persistence logic). In the design sense: something that has an alpha channel.
- abritinthebay 11y ago
  How does that cause grief? That's called "context" and language has it. Isomorphic here is being used in the already existing biological sense. Just because the HN commenting user base is largely ignorant of non-mathmatics terms (a problem) doesn't make it wrong. In fact it's very applicable. Fitting pretty much perfectly with what is going on.
  - pluma 11y ago
    Except contexts aren't as clear cut. As humans we tend to switch contexts all the time often even within the same conversation. We also frequently nest contexts, which works fine as long as the vocabulary of each context doesn't overlap too much. Terms like "isomorphic" and "transparent" are ambiguous, especially if you're not familiar with their use in the active context, even more so if you're already familiar with their use in a different context and most definitely if you weren't aware you just switched contexts and the term has a defined meaning in the active context: "evolution is just a theory" comes to mind (the speaker obviously not being aware that "theory" in the context in which evolution is called one is something very different from the colloquial definition they are familiar with). I'm not arguing we shouldn't use the term "isomorphic". The context in which "isomorphic" is used in the web sense and that in which it is used in the mathematical sense are unlikely to overlap as frequently as the most vocal opponents would claim. I'm just pointing out that the ambiguity is real and that it will continue to be a problem until the definition in the context of web applications (or any environment-agnostic application, really) becomes widely enough known that programmers only familiar with the mathematical definition stop being confused and see it as what it is: a new piece of jargon they have to learn if they want to join the discussion.