[e2e] evolution of bandwidth as a term

Cannara cannara at attglobal.net
Thu Oct 2 15:36:08 PDT 2003


The moral of any story like this, Noel, is:  "Never give up."  There's a
better phrase in an old Henry Fonda movie, but some might be offended.  :]

If nothing else, from this discussion, some new students can learn how weak
and frivolous even vaunted academes can be.

Alex

"J. Noel Chiappa" wrote:
> 
>     > From: John Day <day at std.com>
> 
>     > Getting terms right and sticking to them is crucial for all scientific
>     > pursuits, if not intellectual pursuits.
> 
> You have provided an irresistable hook for one of my favourite quotations:
> 
>   "I am far from thinking that nomenclature is a remedy for every defect in
>   art or science: still I cannot but feel that confusion of terms generally
>   springs from, and always leads to, confusion of ideas."
> 
>         - John Louis Petit, "Architectural Studies in France", 1854
> 
> which a friend of mine located some years ago.
> 
> Alas, I'm going to slightly disagree with you about terminology: sometimes
> you do just have to stand back and get out of the way of the masses. If
> everyone decides <foo> means <bar>, then you pretty much have to live with
> it, and if <foo> used to mean <quux>, where <bar> and <quux> are
> well-defined, different, concepts, then you need to come up with a new label
> for <quux>.
> 
> I lost this fight some years ago for "address", which in computer science
> (unlike the real world) now includes a meaning of "who" as well as "where".
> We had to make up "locator" to have a term that only meant "where".
> (Actually, "locator" originally had an even more specialized meaning, but the
> masses took it over and defined it as "where". You can't win....)
> 
> So I think the fight may be lost on "bandwidth", alas...
> 
>         Noel




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