On 6 Jul 2020, at 10:06, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
Hi Chris,
On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 12:45:34PM +0000, Chris Mason via
Ksummit-discuss wrote:
On 5 Jul 2020, at 0:55, Willy Tarreau wrote:
Maybe instead of providing an explicit list of a few words it should
simply say that terms that take their roots in the non-technical
world
and whose meaning can only be understood based on history or local
culture ought to be avoided, because *that* actually is the real
root cause of the problem you're trying to address.
I’d definitely agree that it’s a good goal to keep out
non-technical
terms. Even though we already try, every subsystem has its own set
of
patterns that reflect the most frequent contributors.
That's an interesting point, because to me, it's the exact opposite.
One
of the intellectual rewards I find in working with the kernel is that
our community is international and multicultural, allowing me to learn
about other cultures. Aiming for the lowest common denominator seems
to
me to be closer to erasing cultural differences than including them.
I hadn’t thought of it from this angle, but I do agree with you. I
think the cultural side comes through more in discussions and in-person
conferences than it does from the code itself.
I do try to avoid local idioms or culture references unless I’m
explaining them as part of a discussion or a personal story, mostly
because I’ve gotten feedback from coworkers who had a hard time
following my bad (ok, terrible) jokes or sarcasm. One internal example
is commands that take —clowntown as an argument. It’s pretty
therapeutic to type when you’re grumpy about tooling, but a lot of
people probably have to look it up before it makes sense.
-chris
