I think it isn't as sexy/interesting as what I thought the article was going to be about (about a different way of talking about our history, in eras maybe vs centuries or something).
this strikes me as kind of like a small PR to our language that makes an incremental improvement to a clearly confusing thing. Should be easy to merge :)
Seriously, though, we should have learnt at this point: we cannot solve social issues with technology. Everybody is working on a different tree, and social dynamics that govern the spread of idioms and from which fork you cherry-pick or merge is much more complex than what git is designed to handle.
I'm not going to give you any proof of this, because I know you've seen it, but I think I just wasn't very clear on what I meant here.
I'm talking about PRs that fix a typo in the docs, or tweak confusing wording. You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that get merged immediately because it's clearly just better
Maybe not easy to solve, but not of enough importance/impact that would justify spending an extended amount of time changing the current practice.
My original post got downvoted, but I stand by it because empirically, it seems to be clear: the current practice may not be perfect but has obviously stood the test of time. So let's move on, there's more important things to worry about.
"the current practice may not be perfect but has obviously stood the test of time"
has it stood the test of time? or is just an arbitrary choice that no one has bothered to change?
I'm sorry, it just seems like we're looking at spilled milk in the middle of the room saying, "well, it's been here since I walked into the room, obviously it's supposed to be here?" no we can just clean it up, no one's going to stop you
it's actually super, super easy to change this: you just starting using the new term. You don't even need to get anyone else on board, everyone understands what the new term means (this isn't even like inventing a new word, it's just a rephrasing that's just easier for the speaker & listener).
The goal isn't to get everyone to switch overnight. That's not how conventions are created nor how they spread. You just start doing the thing if it's useful to you. Whether it spreads beyond that is not up to you.
My takeaway from the post is simply: hey, if you find this confusing, here's a much simpler way you can talk about it! I am personally going to start using this, and I am going to get immediate benefits from this, and so are my readers. That's it, that's all it takes.
I am personally going to start using this, and I am going to get immediate benefits from this, and so are my readers. That's it, that's all it takes.
More power to you!
My point, however, is that why most people would be bothered by spilled milk in the middle of a room and clean it up, the fact that we've stuck with "counting centuries" for a long time implies that it really isn't a big deal to most people.
If it's important enough for you to adapt your speech patterns, there's nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't expect most people to follow suit, though, because no-one cares.
