Horrible homonyms
14 Mar 2006I’m not even thinking of homonyms so much (though that may be true of the word in question, if you ignore similar meanings) when I get upset (as I am at present) about the untenable nature of the word “class” or “classes” (as in school/education) in any context where it could possibly be confused with programming of any sort.
As usual, it’s the geeks’ fault. I suppose classes in programming generally refer to a grouping of objects, as a class of students is a grouping of the same… so perhaps context should make the distinction clearer. But still, waaaay too much potential for confusion. Roget’s was thoroughly unhelpful in this regard… “course” is inaccurate, “grade” is too broad, and everything else was way off the mark. I think I’m going to go with “course” for the minute, at least until/unless I come up with something better.
For those wondering why I’m talking about something IT-related outside of the murky realms of semantics (though this arguably relates, albeit in a different sphere!), pseudo-design/browser-bug-fighting, and my all-encompassing-JavaScript-ineptitude… well, I’m playing with Ruby on Rails again. Or rather, properly for the first time. Because, you know, I don’t think there are enough balls I’m trying to juggle already ;-) Meh. If Rails is really fast and I don’t run out of time and make this drag out forever (which I inevitably will… bleh) this’ll probably take about a month. If Rails actually sucks, which by most reports it doesn’t — speculation about crap performance for large-scale services and concern over the small bus-factor (if one dev member got hit by a bus, what’d happen to the project?) aside — then I might give up for another couple of months. Whatever!
If nothing else maybe I’ll learn some stuff about MVC along the way. Not bad for an Arts student, hey?