English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[GSO]

On 20 May 2011 18:21, rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:

> On May 20, 1:48 pm, Hans Georg Schaathun <h... at schaathun.net> wrote:
> > On 20 May 2011 06:55:35 GMT, Steven D'Aprano  <
> steve+comp.lang.pyt... 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.
> >
> > Could we then say that «recursion is a technical word that should
> > not /unnecessarily/ be foisted onto lay users»?
>
> Yes.
> Steven is talking about the fact that the intelligent lay user may be
> intelligent.
> I was referring to the fact that the intelligent lay user is a lay
> user. [Not my main point except to say that dragging in
> alt.usage.english into a discussion of recursion seemed a tad
> unnecessary and unfair]
>
> So the ILU may understand recursion
> He may not know "recursion"
> --
>
>
As a trainer there is an issue as to whether or not you should use words
that your trainees will not understand, the argument being that if you don't
use new words your trainees will not learn any new words.  It is also very
much a Unix philosophy that if you want idiots, feed them idiot food, so
think very carefully about what you put on the menu.  I think recursion was
very much a list processing concept for list processing languages.  I like
the purity of LISP, but COBOL for business applications any day.
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