Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

That's part of the reason why experts exist: to tell laypeople how to correctly use the language.

In other words: why should laypeople (who have no clue about the technology) decide how to call things? And why should someone who dedicated substantial effort to understanding, cataloguing and organizing the terminology give any thought to how non-experts, who haven't spent as much time and effort decide to go about it?

Imagine going to a medical doctor and demanding that they switch terminology they use in medical reporting or pharmaceutical nomenclature to work by the "rules" established by people who have no knowledge of, say, anatomy or pharmaceutics? Like, say, you decide that it's convenient for you to call all pills "paracetamol" -- do you think a doctor would humor such an "initiative"?

So, why should anyone in the filesystem making business humor laypeople concepts of files?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: