Jargon

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

This is in the wrong place but I cant think of a better one.

I just got the books Windows Internals Vol 1 and 2 and I know they are technical but…

What is with parse and enumerate ?

Parse is process and enumerate is list so why not say so ?

[dwynnehugh]

Sometimes people who write instructional books prefer to show their ability to ‘confuse with words’ as opposed to ‘using words to explain simply’.

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[Ed P]

I think that while your interpretation of the commands is OK at one level your simplification conceals a lot of ‘richness’. Appropriate use of jargon is a way of using just a few words to stand-in for a large amount of information or methodology and so it is with your apparently simple examples.

Parsing normally means the syntactic analysis of a statement or code and breaking it down into its elements for further processing (sometimes iteratively looping back to further breakdown). while you could I guess lump this under the general heading of processing, it means a bit more than that to me.

Equally, Enumerate means more than just list in a programming context. It is normally taken to mean ‘Enumerated TYPE (i.e. a list of key words that can be used in other contexts). Wikipedia has a good simple example:

“For example, the four suits in a deck of playing cards may be four enumerators named Club, Diamond, Heart, and Spade, belonging to an enumerated type named suit.”

I do however agree that jargon can be a ‘killer’ as the use of such short-hand means that you really have to know the ‘language’ at a detailed level before you can understand a ‘simple’ high level bit of jargon. Imo Linux is much worse at assuming knowledge of jargon, and I often find that looking up something then results in a whole series of lookups just to understand what I first found!

 

[Bob Williams]

Ed that was a perfect example of a fitting and accurate explanation.

But in other respects and other publications, Graham can be right about Jargon. The other day I met a ‘knowledgeable’ guy who interrupted my explanation to a neighbour about which laptop he should buy and which ISP he should approach. He used so much ‘learned’ jargon that the subject’s eyes were visibly glazing over. I cancelled this rude interruption with one of my own, and gave the advice in Plainspeak, then offered a quick search through my own PC. Then I asked the Jargon guy what PC he owned. “Oh I don’t have a computer, never needed one. I read a lot.” :scratch:  :wacko:

Sound of (awkward) silence. I took the guy needing advice (an old mate) to my house and showed him alternatives, printed out a couple of sheets and away he went. I know this bloke will not be knocking on my door for Support, otherwise I would not have said anything.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I know my interpritation is over symplistic in general but the use of “hip” words in this book is extreme.

I wouldnt be surprised if these guys enumerated their shopping requirements before parsing them in the shop.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I do recomend the books to the terninally nosey though. Lots of good stuff.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I also hate “name space” but i cant think of a better word. If you want to explain it a bit it’s like you cant have two files with the same name in a directory. The directory is the name space.

[Ed P]

There are lots of terms I do not like, but topping the list is the over-hyped word ‘paradigm’. Nine times out of ten this can be simply replaced with ‘idea’ or ‘concept’.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

1. Oh I forgot that one ?. I was working for mercury communications in 1994 when they decided to send everyone on the ” Inagine 97″ course. They spent millions hiring a US motivaton firm and building some domes in the NEC car park. Spouted a load of nonsence about breaking out of our paradigm and how we were “already listening” until one of our team stood up and said we already have a word for that in english and its a preconseption.

[Bob Williams]

(Job interview) “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?” – this when I had become disabled, flogged my late 50’s brain at two colleges, 6 days a week for almost 12 months. I had gone for a job at a County Council HQ, allocated as a Disabled post. I was not really sold on the job, but had been out of work a year and suffering various op’s and treatment for over 5 years. I gave a rather flippant reply, (my mouth often ignores my brain) “I have no idea. This is an absolute change of career for me and my crystal ball is at home. I will certainly give the job my best efforts, the future will take care of itself.”

Stunned silence. It was Friday afternoon and my college tutor had told me to go home after the interview. I went home and went back to college on the Monday for the last two weeks. My tutor told me that the CCHQ had phoned the college and asked for me. I had the post, which was Common Land & Boundary Searches, within Legal Services. It involved researching the history of property and land boundaries, when someone, usually a developer, wanted to buy a piece of land, and employed a solicitor to deal with the Council. My work would eventually involve and guide a Planning Officer’s decision.

I met so many jargon speakers at the County Council. One Legal Officer actually told me that “… I have (that) in hand. At the end of the day we will process the arrangement and bring it to a successful conclusion.” I was so impressed with that particular piece of crapspeak, that I wrote it down. :mail:  🙁  :wacko:

He was talking about reviewing and signing-off a file that I had prepared, the result of several weeks work. None of the SLO’s really understood this work. They were mostly involved in Social and Criminal cases. Anything else was Sanskrit to them, consequently they disguised a lack of knowledge with as many meaningless phrases as possible. Listening to a group conversation between members of this over-educated elite, could be painful. By the time I was retired on ill health grounds, I had realised that the Sheep (us workers) held the Shepherds (the superior officers) in complete contempt.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

What can i say bob ? But i will. Those that can do. Those who cant get a job in admin ?

[dwynnehugh]

Jargon is the veil used by those who don’t understand to confuse those that do.

My now deceased uncle was a Prof of Physical Marine Oceanography at Bangor University – he held the first chair there having been a Prof at Cape Town University. During his life he worked for many government departments as well as the Admiralty, he was an ordained lay preacher in the Church of Wales and in relation to his work he had two phrases:

Preaching – if it can’t be said in 20 minutes – shut up.

Teaching – if it can’t be explained simply – shut up.

Not bad standards I think.

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[Ed P]

The worst teachers are actually those who know their subject inside-out and have forgotten the baby-steps that are sometimes necessary to gain understanding. Conversely the best teachers are often those who have some difficulties with their subject and only really know the baby-steps!

There is a world of difference between lecturing and teaching, and in this context Profs are often the worst teachers of the lot, as their main role in any Uni is to guide and lead the post-grad researchers.  Often their ‘teaching’ is just to say “Read my book pages 75 through 120 then work your way through these questions!”.

Been there and somehow survived.

[The Duke]

Jargon and acronyms, is just something all sectors use, it’s a way to confuse outsiders and make their role in life more exclusive. Keeps the presents at arms length, and make a nice barrier to enter too.

It’s as simple as that.

 

ED in uni I had a maths professor, that I doubt had ever been outside of a education setting, he was extremely smart, but the worst teacher I’ve ever encountered,he just spent hour on hour with his back to the hall, doing very complex maths, and getting annoyed with whole lecture halls as we couldn’t keep up.

In year 3 we was doing far more complex economic equations, but the tutor, Ironically terrible at English, was great, as he would tell a story, frost telling you why you are doing what your doing, and the reason for it. Personally if I can attach a maths issue to its real life purpose, the maths stick, if you just through numbers and letters at me, most of it goes missing.

The first guy, obviously a super clever guy, operating at a very high level, but had no teaching skills. Eventually no one went his lectures because, you’d have to do a few hours of homework just to figure out his lecture. So it was more efficient to skip the lecture, download the lecture notes and decipher it. Save the 2hours of lecture time.

[Bob Williams]

Ed, I know exactly what you mean: teaching and educating are not always the same process. My daughter is a”one to one”  teacher, specialising in those children who have problems with education, from those with learning difficulties, across the Autisitic spectrum, into ADHD and the real problem kids. She began simply as a primary teaching assistant, but after our gson was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, developed an interest in those children with problems. She was a single parent for a few years, held down two other jobs, eventually worked her way into what she does now. She has said that, of all the children she has taught, only two were absolutely unteachable and she could not get through to them. However, she fought to get those two into a special school.

I have walked through town with her at weekends and lost count of the number of her ex-pupils and their parents, who greet her. All the way up to teenagers who were the first of her charges, and all want to praise her. It makes me very proud as you can imagine, but behind those events, is a history of my daughter and her Head, struggling against a reactionary system and some Oldphart governors, to get the special demands and qualities of her post recognised.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Since we have mentioned maths teachers then I have to say that in my experience the worst one’s are those that really don’t understand their subject. I can spot them because they can’t explain. They have learned enough method to pass their exams but thats it. If you ask them to put things another way they can’t. The worst case was a teacher I had in secondary school who’s answer to every question was “it’s on the board”.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Oh and a shout out to my private teacher Evlin and my collage tutor Mr Page. Those guy’s really know their stuff.

[Ed P]

Brilliant mathematicians unfortunately have a mental ‘tic’ that results in them looking at the world in a very different way from us common mortals. I’ll confess I used to get totally lost in some areas of mathematics during my Quantum Mechanics course – the book that actually clarified it all to me a few years later did not even cover things like ‘Hermitian Symmetric Space’ (how about that for a piece of jargon!), instead it taught me to look at problems in a very different way.

The author Wayne Wickelgren covers the objectives of his little book “How to Solve Problems” in his intro:

“In the mathematics and science courses I took in college, I was enormously irritated by the hundreds of hours that I wasted staring at problems without any good idea about what approach to try next in solving them . . .”

I’ve linked to his original book, but I see that he now has some newer maths related titles. I would thoroughly recommend this book to any teenager just starting his maths or science A-Levels, or entering Uni for a science or engineering degree. In the book he teaches a way systematizing the basic methods of solving mathematical problems – he reveals the secrets of the ‘mathematician’s tic’ to us mere mortals!

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Ed. What course was that ? Quantum mechanics is pretty heavy stuff. The book you recomend sounds like the sort of thing I was looking for years ago. You can’t invent an understanding of a problem by yourself every time without a few hints.

 

[Ed P]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

Ed. What course was that ? Quantum mechanics is pretty heavy stuff. The book you recomend sounds like the sort of thing I was looking for years ago. You can’t invent an understanding of a problem by yourself every time without a few hints.

It was my first degree course in Chemistry. I would guess that QM and Statistical Mechanics were in the course as they could (in theory) be used to explain things like why the periodic table works to predict behaviours and lead to an understanding of organic chemistry and perhaps topics like  hydrogen bonding for anomalous materials like water.  In practice the best part of fifty years has elapsed before the techniques for ‘seeing’ bonds became viable. AFAIK the computing horsepower to ‘solve’ the QM equations for molecules such as benzene is still not available.

Although I had an interest in this stuff, money was even more of an attraction so I went to the dark-side. I flirted for a bit with biochemical engineering, but I was told by some Pfitzer employees that their pay and prospects were diabolical, so I went totally to the dark-side and transitioned across with a post-graduate course in full-blown Chemical Engineering.

 

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