Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other
by bumby on Saturday September 05, 2020 @04:13PM
(#24386536)
To a certain extent both sides are right. What it really comes come to is communication. The real question is who should the language be optimized for?
One side feels the intended audience is of the same field and sufficiently sophisticated enough to understand the somewhat obscure naming. Others don’t understand it because it simply isn’t for them.
The other side may come from other tangential domains with their own unique language. They don’t understand why those specialists use such obscure language meanwhile they do the same in their own field.
You see the same in any large organization. Seemingly random acronyms get created as lazy shorthand that conflict with other orgs understanding. It’s of course no consequence to those in the “in crowd” but it hampers communication between groups. Considering communication is one of the ever present hurdles between groups it seems reasonable to me to optimize communication between groups rather than within groups.
One side feels the intended audience is of the same field and sufficiently sophisticated enough to understand the somewhat obscure naming. Others don’t understand it because it simply isn’t for them.
The other side may come from other tangential domains with their own unique language. They don’t understand why those specialists use such obscure language meanwhile they do the same in their own field.
You see the same in any large organization. Seemingly random acronyms get created as lazy shorthand that conflict with other orgs understanding. It’s of course no consequence to those in the “in crowd” but it hampers communication between groups. Considering communication is one of the ever present hurdles between groups it seems reasonable to me to optimize communication between groups rather than within groups.