PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Paul Rubin]

Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com> writes:
> > The main effect this had was to confuse the died-in-the-wool
> > programmers; it didn't make any difference for the newbies because
> > they had to learn the concepts anyway.  When you come in with a
> > blank mind it doesn't matter if a particular concept is called
> > "variable" or "waffle" -- you have to learn a new meaning for an
> > existing word either way, and the previous meaning you knew for the
> > word is barely relevant in the new context.
> 
> Couldn't agree more; I mentioned something substantially similar in my
> reply.  Inventing new, non-standard terminology in order to be "simpler"
> is rarely helpful; it doesn't substantially help newbies, and it only
> serves to confuse people actually involved.

This is born out by experimental psychologists, e.g.

    Landauer, T.K., Gallotti, K., and Hartwell, S., Natural command names
    and initial learning: A study of text editing terms, Commun. ACM, 26,
    7 (Jul. 1983), 495-503.

found that "unnatural" command names (think of grep, ls, rm) were
really no harder for newbies to remember than "natural" ones.