English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 23 May 2011 20:56:03 +0200, Rikishi42 wrote:

> On 2011-05-20, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info>
> wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 May 2011 22:13:14 -0700, rusi wrote:
>>
>>> [I agree with you Xah that recursion is a technical word that should
>>> not be foisted onto lay users.]
>>
>> I think that is a patronizing remark that under-estimates the
>> intelligence of lay people and over-estimates the difficulty of
>> understanding recursion.
> 
> Why would you presume this to be related to intelligence? The point was
> not about being *able* to understand, but about *needing* to understand
> in order to use.


Maybe they don't "need" to understand recursion. So what?

Recursion is a perfectly good English word, no more technical than 
"accelerate" or "incinerate" or "dissolve" or "combustion". Do people 
need to know the word "combustion" when they could say "burn" instead? Do 
they need to know the words "microwave oven" when they could be saying 
"invisible rays cooking thing"?

I wonder whether physicists insist that cars should have a "go faster 
pedal" because ordinary people don't need to understand Newton's Laws of 
Motion in order to drive cars?

Who are you to say that people shouldn't be exposed to words you deem 
that they don't need to know?



-- 
Steven