81–89 of 89 posts
I imagine our pointy-haired bosses would appreciate an "unsuck it" for tech jargon, with stuff like: orthagonal -> unrelated immutable -> unchangeable idempotent -> (is there a very short phrase that works here?)
is already there :)
Doesn't the phrase "add color" go back at least to the century-old idea of a "color" commentator (who operates opposite the "play-by-play" commentator) of sports radio and later sports TV? I'd be pretty surprised if this wasn't used for things outside of sports before MBAs started using. And if the MBAs invented the turn of phrase, I'd say it's clever and evocative! This seems very different than mere business euphem…
I do wonder if they arose in the same way, from color commentators
It's not necessarily the words themselves, but the type of person who is associated with them. And I hate it when a word I like gets appropriated by unlikable people. "Touch base" and "Bio break" are an exception. Makes me squeal every time, no matter who uses them.
"Synergy" haunts me, as well as repurposing words like "ideation". If I play word association, "suicidal" is the only context where "ideation" sounds correct.
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I don't mind that one, but "rockstar" in job descriptions drives me batty. As do "send it" and "stan". So, it's across all cultural borders these days.
OK boomer. I'm stanning so hard I'm just gonna send it, fam. Just kidding. I'm old too. Get off my lawn, unless you are playing lawn darts.
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> side-effect-free? No, those are pure. A pure, idempotent function would be one where f(f(x)) = f(x). An idempotent function could have side-effects. Imagine turn_on() where if it's already on, then nothing happens and it just stays on.
I think there's two different readings of "side effect free" here. The fact that nothing happens on the second+ invocation is, for me, the example of no unwanted side effects. An unwanted side effect might be sending more voltage down the line on each invocation...120, 240, 360.
> In computer science, an operation, function or expression is said to have a side effect if it modifies some state variable value(s) outside its local environment, that is to say has an observable effect besides returning a value (the main effect) to the invoker of the operation.
> The fact that nothing happens on the second+ invocation is, for me, the example of no unwanted side effects.
I don't think you'll ever find a definition that says something about second invocations.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_effect_(computer_science)
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idempotent -> side-effect-free? safely-repeatable?
> side-effect-free? No, those are pure. A pure, idempotent function would be one where f(f(x)) = f(x). An idempotent function could have side-effects. Imagine turn_on() where if it's already on, then nothing happens and it just stays on.
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idempotent -> side-effect-free? safely-repeatable?
Ah, that's helpful. "Safely repeatable, with no side effects" will be my new answer if anyone asks.
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> side-effect-free? No, those are pure. A pure, idempotent function would be one where f(f(x)) = f(x). An idempotent function could have side-effects. Imagine turn_on() where if it's already on, then nothing happens and it just stays on.
Quite right. How about "same-result-returning"?
I prefer entropicdrifter's "one-and-done".
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I like that orthagonal suggests that they definitely intersect, but go in two different directions. Unrelated is too harsh in most of the situations you'd use orthagonal.
Well, orthogonal lines don't have to intersect in in geometry (you just need more than 2 dimensions), and "intersect" is meaningless in algebra. So, I don't think that's really implied.