Comment by Kydlaw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kydlaw | Hacker News Reader

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I am so puzzled by this attitude. People are free to make any distinction they want, the way they want, but the representation you have of a scientific literature is erroneous.

Scientific articles are informational tools that report results of experiments and nothing more. If the results are interesting to the peers, they are published. By they are not world's laws made paper unless sufficient replications are made. This means that each article need to be read with the context of the literature in mind and with a critical eye. Each are a single point of evidence to a phenomena.

Hence, there are subjective informational tools, written toward a specific audience (the experts of the domains) to inform of a specific result in a specific case.

On top of that, their are specific journal/issues where these types submissions are allowed. Don't read these submissions if you are looking for serious "information tools"

Scientific literature must be handled the same way as legal literature. If you are not a law expert, you ask a lawyer. If you think you are a legal expert when you are not, surprising consequences may arise.

In universities, they are classes dedicated to handling the scientific literature. They are provided for a reason.

So please, don't use cat's physic for liquid simulation in game engine... or please do?

Let's imagine someone interested in the biology of cats and felines at large. A specialized biologist. They might choose to personally catalog all publications which have use for them, like this article surely might.

But in their catalog of articles, one will have the title: Cats are (almost) liquid

And this is cute, slightly funny, but not correct. From an informational standpoint, this is not related to whether or not cats are liquid. From a material standpoint they consist of both solid, liquid and even gaseous substances. (to the extent we can consider co2 a part of their bodily function)

In a newspaper or such, this would not be a problem, you read it, enjoy it, and move on. But not for serious science. A dry and purely objective title is better in that case, just like how a function should be named based on what it does, not based on some meme regarding what it does.

The paper could be named: Awareness of body flexibility among cats. A function should be named get_employee(), not get_luser().

And the reason why this is true, is because the fad of naming a function get_luser() will become "not worth it" the day someone who didn't understand the meme comes across it, and has to ask you about it. Again especially if you're making a driver/library, something to be used by many, not by just yourself or a few others. And also, the "funny" aspect of it will present a mental hurdle. Instead of simply calling get_employee() in your new context, you will be calling get_luser(), and laughing for a bit and thinking about the bofh comics. Train of thought is lost.

The human mind is limited, and attempting to "capture" it attention leads to an attention arms race. And this arms race leads to tiktok. Which is why we use dry naming for serious pursuits.

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