I'm such an ass

Names preserved to expose the guilty.


What started it all

From: John Kuhns
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:17:06 -0400
Subject: Abbreviating symmetry

Everybody,
 In the interest of consistency, when abbreviating symmetry,
the right place to chop it is between the two m's. That is,
shorten it to "sym" not "symm". You can find this stuff out
by looking a word up in the dictionary. They put dots between
the syllables (e.g. sym·me·try).

-John

>The following API methods have been added to neogeo:
>
>   setNetSymmStatus(netID, state)
>   getNetSymmStatus(netID)
>   getNetSymmStatus(netName)

And then...

From: Donald B. Reaves
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:20:54 -0400
Subject: Re: Abbreviating symmetry

Another engineer's opinion:

Seems like sym is a good abbreviation for symbol.  That would imply
that symm would be a better abbreviation for symmetry.

Don

Start the flames...

From: John Kuhns
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:29:31 -0400
Subject: Re: Abbreviating symmetry

I agree sym is a good abbreviation for both symbol and symmetry.
And in fact, whenever you abbreviate you run into this kind of
aliasing. So that's why we depend on CONTEXT to determine what
the abbreviation stands for. (Almost anywhere in NeoCell where
you see sym you can safely assume symmetry.) I think this dependence
on context is a better solution than resorting to unnatural
abbreviations. If you work in a context where both are equally
valid then maybe you can't abbreviate or clearly define which
abbreviations go with which terms.

-John

Adding fuel to the fire...

From: Lynwood E. Hines
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:42:50 -0400
Subject: Re: Abbreviating symmetry

I agree that we should be consistent with how we abbreviate.
I also agree that sym is not a good choice because it is ambiguous.
There is no "right" way to abbreviate this, dictionary or no,
because it's up to us to decide which letters we want to include or
exclude based on factors more significant than phonetic breaks.  I
personally prefer symm because it clearly is not short for symbol.
Reliance on context is dangerous as it assumes an unambiguous
context, which is not guaranteed.

I vote for using "symm" throughout the tool as the abbreviation for
symmetry.

LH

Into the fryer...

From: Phil K. Yoon
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 10:51:24 -0400
Subject: Re: Abbreviating symmetry

I want to discuss following words.

str -> is it for string or for structure?
const -> is it for constraint or for constant?

the list can go on and on...

Happy wording everyone :)

It's roaring now...

From: John Kuhns
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 11:05:58 -0400
Subject: Re: Abbreviating symmetry

"Lynwood E. Hines" wrote:
> I also agree that sym is not a good choice because it is ambiguous.

I disagree. In NeoCell (atleast in the backend), it is not ambiguous.

> There is no "right" way to abbreviate this, dictionary or no,
because it's up to us to decide which letters we want to include or
exclude based on factors more significant than phonetic breaks.

I also disagree with this statement.  There is a "right" way to
abbreviate just as there is a right way to spell. Wrong
abbreviations "look wrong" (atleast to me).

We could agree to not abbreviate symbol if anyone ever uses it.
The fact is, symmetry is used everywhere in our tool and symbol
almost nowhere. So why clutter the widely used abbreviation in the
off chance of someone somewhere getting the context wrong?

As Phil points out, context is already commonly used. Anytime you
overload a function you are depending on context. Context is a very
common way of delineating things. (PERL, for one, has many actions
dependent on context).

-John

I figured that BugZilla was the only way to resolve this dispute.

From: David Cuthbert
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 11:21:06 -0400
Subject: [Bug 1801] New: Incorrect abbreviations on machines

http://neozilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1801

           Summary: Incorrect abbreviations on machines
           Product: Neolinear IT
           Version: NeoIT-v1.0
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: B1_Blocker
          Priority: P3
         Component: Other
        AssignedTo: cappucci@neolinear.com
        ReportedBy: dacut@neolinear.com
         QAContact: cappucci@neolinear.com

As per the discussion on neocelldevel this morning, I've discovered that
a number of directories on our machines are misnamed.

All abbreviations must be context-sensitive and split on syllables. Thus,
the following directories are invalid and must be fixed:

/bin (from bi-nar-y) Change to /bi
/dev (from de-vice) Change to /de
/etc (from et cet-era) Change to /etcet
/lib (from li-brar-y) Change to /li
/misc (from mis-cel-la-ne-ous) Change to /mis
/mnt (from mount points) Change to /mount\ points
/sbin (from su-per bi-nar-ies) Change to /su
/tmp (from tem-po-rar-y) Change to /tem
/usr (from co-caine) Change to /co
/var (from lam-ba-da) Change to /lam

NeoCell's future install scripts will automatically correct these misnamings at customer sites.