[Mono-list] laus stultitia

[Hans Van Wesenbeeck]

On Thu, 2002-10-17 at 21:46, Zaphod wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 11:55:53PM +0200, Erik Poupaert wrote:
> 
> > Into how many different, arbitrary dimensions can you actually subdivide the
> > same system, before it becomes absurd?
> 
> Any project needs Jargon, so that new people are impressed by the buzz
> words or just dazzled by the "knowledge" of others ... No project is 
> safe from this language corruption ...
A good portion of the jargon introduced by M$.NET is solely motivated by
a certain model of software deployment which discourages the
dissemination of the sources, and promotes and facilitates dissemination
of binaries. It seems to me it is the desirability of an unconditional
adoption of this model, and the jargon that comes along with it, that
Erik questions.   
> And of course `The Empire' usually goes by the principle of "Divide and Rule"
> for any problem (software,markets, or even rivals).
Jargon typically comes about to create an artificial barrier between an
in-crowd and the outside world. "Do you speak M$?"  Terminology comes
about to effectively communicate ideas. It seems to me it is the latter
we should be after. Namespaces, classes, interfaces. These terms have
gained meaning after years of use. Either they already had meaning in
day to day language, or the meaning could easily be derived, e.g.
name-spaces, scope. Internal assemblies (as opposed to external ones?),
sets of P/Invoke (as opposed to internal call wrappers?). Your audience
is shrinking...

Without doubt, the Mono undertaking has opened up new thoughts. Any
serious developer is concerned with the development tools he/she/it will
be using tomorrow. First of all it has reconfirmed that going head to
head with a giant is not all that ludicrous. But secondly, it forces us
to think: "is this what we want?". "CLR, CLI, JIT, AOT, internal
assemblies, outer modules, p/invokes?". Maybe it is a neccesary step to
be taken before coming to a sober conclusion? 

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