English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[rantingrick]

Americans might call it a gas pedal. We call it an accelerator. You
don't have a "decelerator pedal" though, because it's more accurately
called a "brake pedal" because it controls the brakes.

Actually the same argument could be applied to your observation of the
driver to vehicle interface. You say "brake petal" simple because it
controls the brakes. Well then what does the "accelerator" control
then?

Most wise observers would blubber... "I know, I know, it controls the
gas!"...and while partially correct they would be mostly wrong. Yes it
does control the "gas" but not in a direct way. Of course technically
it depends on implementation (a favorite word around c.l.py it seems
*rolls-eyes*).

In the days of carburetors the "accelerator" actually controlled a big
flap. This "big flap" (An attribute of which many round here seem to
posses and use generously) is opened to allow air to enter and the gas
is mixed into the air by secondary effect.

So if we really wanted to get pedantic we should call it an "air
petal"? However considering that any vehicle made after the early
nineties is fuel injected (which is controlled by a computer!) then we
may want to call it a "puter petal" to be precise.

Note: The remainder of your post was lucid and informative.

 

[Chris Angelico]

Yes "Gas Pedal"... that clears up all the confusion </sarcasm>.
However i would have thought if the vehicle had a "decelerator petal"
it would at least sport a complimentary "accelerator petal". You know
the whole "equal and opposite thing"?

Call the go-faster pedal the "Newton's Second Law pedal", and the
oops-here-comes-an-obstacle pedal the "Newton's Third Law pedal",
because if you hit that thing, you'll see the third law in action. We
then need a demonstration of Newton's First Law, which I think is the
ignition key. We should turn it into a pedal to be consistent.

For the humour-blind: </jesting>

Chris Angelico

 

[rantingrick]

I just conducted a rapid poll of a non-technical userbase.

(Okay, I just asked my sister who happens to be sitting here. But
she's nontechnical.)

She explained "recursive" as "it repeats until it can't go any
further". I think that's a fair, if not perfectly accurate,
explanation.

Yes but understanding of this sort is very general ESPECIALLY in the
case of destroying data!

What are the limits of the recursion? What forces can act on the
recursion to stop it? If (for example) I know that a "while loop" will
continue forever until "something" stops it then i really don't know
enough about while loops to start using them safely do i? I need to
know what a "break" will do or god forbid what if an exception is
thrown? What about if a condition is explicitly passed? I need to know
how to interpret the condition and it's consequences. Crikey, this is
getting complicated 8-O!

PS: Of course i could just cross my fingers, run the code, and hope
for the best but i'm not a Perl hacker.

 

[rantingrick]

I just conducted a rapid poll of a non-technical userbase.

(Okay, I just asked my sister who happens to be sitting here. But
she's nontechnical.)

She explained "recursive" as "it repeats until it can't go any
further". I think that's a fair, if not perfectly accurate,
explanation.

Yes but understanding of this sort is very general ESPECIALLY in the
case of destroying data!

What are the limits of the recursion? What forces can act on the
recursion to stop it? If (for example) I know that a "while loop" will
continue forever until "something" stops it then i really don't know
enough about while loops to start using them safely do i? I need to
know what a "break" will do or god forbid what if an exception is
thrown? What about if a condition is explicitly passed? I need to know
how to interpret the condition and it's consequences. Crikey, this is
getting complicated 8-O!

PS: Of course i could just cross my fingers, run the code, and hope
for the best but i'm not a Perl hacker.

 

[Chris Angelico]

Yes but understanding of this sort is very general ESPECIALLY in the
case of destroying data!

What are the limits of the recursion? What forces can act on the
recursion to stop it? If (for example) I know that a "while loop" will
continue forever until "something" stops it then i really don't know
enough about while loops to start using them safely do i?

That's true of anything. If I turn on the light switch, I expect there
to be a limit to the amount of light it produces; I don't want a
household fluro to produce the intensity of the worklights in a
theatre. Ought I to get the technical specs and find out exactly how
many lumens will be produced, or can I safely power it on in the
expectation that it will do the obvious thing?

Chris Angelico
PS. Why am I responding to rantingrick? I'm sure I'm going to regret this.

 

[rantingrick]

That's true of anything. If I turn on the light switch, I expect there
to be a limit to the amount of light it produces; I don't want a
household fluro to produce the intensity of the worklights in a
theatre. Ought I to get the technical specs and find out exactly how
many lumens will be produced, or can I safely power it on in the
expectation that it will do the obvious thing?

That is a very good argument however it does not consider the fact of
"technical users" verses "non-technical users".

Anyone can be expected to understand the consequenses of switching on
a lightbulb (even a child) because the action requires no logical
thinking abilites... simply flip it and forget it.

HOWEVER not everyone understands the consequeses of recursively
deleting a directory... or whatever that means in the current context.

 

[Rikishi42]

I think it's geographic. This list covers a lot of geography; I'm in
Australia, there are quite a few Brits, and probably the bulk of posts
come from either the US or Europe. (And yes, I did deliberately fold
all of Europe down to one entity, and I did also deliberately leave
Great Britain out of that entity.)

I allways found that odd. Especially if you're talking geography, not
politics. I can understand they want to be seen as independant, even they
are in it enough to allways opose anything someone else suggests.

To me, saying the UK isn't part of Europe, is like saying Japan isn't part
of Asia. Oh by the way, I'm Belgian.

Most things work out that way. A thing gets a name based either on its
implementation or on the brand name of the first/most popular one. If
the only microwave oven ever produced had been made by Foobar Corp,
and that company were not known for anything else, then quite possibly
everyone would call them "foobar ovens".

Yeah, when I was a kid a photo camera was called a Kodak.

 

[Rikishi42]

Chris Angelico
yes, bit of a Bible geek as well as a programming geek

So you don't believe in genetic algorithms, then ?


(ducking for cover)

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

I allways found that odd. Especially if you're talking geography, not
politics. I can understand they want to be seen as independant, even
they are in it enough to allways opose anything someone else suggests.


To me, saying the UK isn't part of Europe, is like saying Japan isn't
part of Asia. Oh by the way, I'm Belgian.

In my experience, the Japanese have the same attitude towards Asia as the
British have towards Europe: they will claim membership, or deny it,
depending on whichever suits their mood at the time.

Yeah, when I was a kid a photo camera was called a Kodak.

Sometimes brand names do become generic. "Personal Computer" once was a
specific IBM model, not just a description. Elevator and escalator were
once brandnames. In some parts of the southern USA, "coke" is used as a
word for any softdrink, not just Coca Cola.