Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 14:14:45 +0000 From: Steve Kudlak <chromexa@ovis.net> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> Cc: David Chavarria <davidc@huyett.com>, FreeBSD Newbies <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG>, Steve-o Kudlak <chromexa@o.q.net>, ulmoq <ulmo@q.net> Subject: Re: Hard words [was: Dictionary of Terms] Message-ID: <3E71E3D5.57838161@ovis.net> References: <KAEAKMACDAGFNDDHIBJIOEGPCAAA.davidc@huyett.com> <20030314121550.J67648@welearn.com.au>
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Sue Blake wrote: > On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 02:15:59PM -0600, David Chavarria wrote: > > I like the man pages and the handbook, but I was wondering if anyone knew > > of a dictionary that alphabetically listed FreeBSD/Unix terms? > > > > Or, is my best bet to just man a term I don't know when I come across it? > > Some of those words will have man pages, but for a while I've been > concerned about another group of words that newbies might struggle with. > > These are ordinary everyday words that have been adopted with a > specific relevance to unix which isn't always very clear despite > the familiarity of the word. Also it can be a bit hard to translate > from the word's everyday concept to the unix concept. > > Some other words are just plain English words, but not ones we all > use often. Some people would use or hear them in their work or study > while others would never encounter them. Ten years ago the average > computer user had a large vocabulary and was in the habit of growing > it daily, but that is no longer the case. If you're sweating over a > man page about some new complex thingy, the last thing you need is > to be diverted by a difficult word or concept along the way. > > Let me try to think of some examples... > recursive > precedence > canonical > dynamic > architecture > delimiting > collation > primaries > lexicographically > descend > string > precedence > hierarchy > default > operator > spool > traversal > pseudo > cooked > raw > affirmatively > escaped > superseded > interface > verbose > statically > contiguous > append > construct > implicit > adjacent > meta > truncated > indirection > operand > options > argument > parameter > reiteratively > asynchronous > > I bet you're all saying that some of those words are easy, but not > everyone would agree on which are the easy words. New unix users > might find it easier to ask "what does inode mean" ( = I'm new to > this unix stuff) than "what does implicit mean" ( = personally I > don't have a good vocabulary). > > Although all those words can be found in a dictionary, the dictionary > isn't going to help the task at hand very much. Most are not > likely to be found in a dictionary of computing because they're > regarded as ordinary English words. > > You might also encounter concepts which a basic unix book or course > should make clear, though they often don't spell it out in a way > that's easy to look up: > link to/from > mounted on > links are followed > indirected through > soft limit > null string > span filesystems > rooted in > referenced by > mutually exclusive > > Have other people been stalled by words like those listed above, > or is it not such a big deal after all? > > This sort of problem is sometimes addressed in freebsd-questions, > where all FreeBSD help requests and answers should go. > > On the other hand, in freebsd-newbies we can look at this stuff > preemptively (yikes there's another word!) in order to help > each other navigate the documentation for themselves, and it's > not really a question about FreeBSD after all. > > If anyone has any ideas or resources that might help others to deal > with the general vocabulary, I'm sure your contribution would be > welcome. > > -- > > Regards, > -*Sue*- > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message Maybe there should be a hardwords dictionary. I am hardly a newbie so I think of those words in the various situations, dare I say "contexts" where I used them. Like did those things mean different things in the PDP10/ITS/TENEX world, uh like when I was a real newbie, from the world in which I am now inwhich is Unix and its flavours. For more fun remember what the word "preempt" meant in Multics and what "You are Protected from Preemptipon" really means. So perhaps one should look at what these words mean in various technical contexts. A little technical dictionary would be a great idea as these words come up time and again in various situations. To me it was being able to read through things and see the terms and have them mean something to me and "get the gist" of things that convinces me I am on the way to understanding things. I think/feel this applies to a whole variety of technical fields. I mean I could prepare a bunch of words like that from biology and medicine like "sense" and "anti-sense" among others. I mean there should be a T-shirt that says "anti-sense is not nonsense!" Not none of this gets as weird as some version of art jargon. I certainly like that and many people now get what (dare I say "grok") the phrase "informed by" means. Hmmm should I throw in the aesthetics folks just for good measure here? Have Fun, Sends Steve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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