
Never use the word “User” in your code - iTokio
https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/09/21/users-considered-harmful/
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PaulHoule
I had a boss who said "drug dealers have users, but we don't..."

Then you often wind up with a set of "personas" that are set from the top down
and that are inconsistent and have the kind of mismatch with reality that
never seem to bother neurotypicals but they sure make it hard to implement
things on a computer!

~~~
eesmith
FWIW, "user" predates actual electronic computers.

For example, the article "Punch Cards for a Chemical Bibliography" from 1945,
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/cen-v023n018.p1623](http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/cen-v023n018.p1623)
describes a "simple punch card system of indexing and sorting of scientific
bibliography". The authors write:

> The manner in which the meanings are given to the holes is dictated by the
> need and the ingenuity of the user and by the classes into which he wishes
> to sort the cards.

My working hypothesis is that the term "user" in software came from earlier
use in library system and earlier information management systems like punched
cards. (I haven't done any sort of extensive analysis to see if my thought it
true, just that I came across 'user' in several papers from the 1940s.)

~~~
PaulHoule
Back when I worked in the library world, we always used the word "patron".

~~~
eesmith
Styles and practices change.

I did a Google Scholar search for "library user" pre-1950.

Here's a link to the 1937 book "Prolegomena to Library Classification" by
Ranganathan, the famed librarian who, among other things, developed faceted
classification.
[https://dspace.gipe.ac.in/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10973/19232...](https://dspace.gipe.ac.in/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10973/19232/GIPE-011296.pdf?sequence=3)

On page 121 he quotes Bliss's "Organization of knowledge in libararies"
(1934):

> Bliss comments on the value of mnemonics as follows: "Notation, as a kind of
> symbolic language, depends extensively on memory of meanings. In learning to
> read and write a new language we gradually learn the words and their
> meanings and remember more and more of them. In like manner librarians and
> the users of libraries gradually learn the order of the classes and remember
> the class-marks, tho they continue to make use of the catalogs, shelf-lists
> and index to schedules. ...

On page 156, Ranganathan writes:

> The advantage of having to go to such lengths to individualise classes of
> great intension is, however, great from the point of view of the users of
> the library.

There are other uses of the word 'user' in the book. Most are variants of
'users of classification scheme'.

The word "patron" is used once, in "patron saint".

------
msie
Hmmm, code without rules eh?

