Gary McGath <
garym@mcgath.com> wrote:
Joy Beeson wrote:
When I turn off a program, sometimes I "quit", sometimes I "close",
and sometimes I "exit".
Is this a matter of taste and programmer's whim, like choosing a
typeface, or do the different words mean different things?
Thanks for asking. I'm glad to see discussion here that has nothing
to do with Doctor Who.
I think of closing as removing a specific activity. You close a
connection, process, or window, which doesn't necessarily imply
quitting or exiting from the whole program.
I've long considered "open" (and, by extension, "close") in a computer
context to be a perfect example of what Ayn Rand calls an "anti-concept,"
i.e. something that causes confusion by conflating unrelated concepts.
How can one interact with a file? If it's a text file, you can
display it as text on the screen so you can read it. If it's an audio
file, you can play it through speakers or headphone so you can hear
it. If it's a still photo or a video you can view it as an image on
the screen. If it's an executable file, i.e. a compiled program, you
can run it. These are very different actions. Placing them under a
single word leads to confusion over things such as whether there's any
risk from "opening" an email. I never want to "open" an email; I want
to either view its text on my screen or copy it to another location.
Very rarely, I might want to print its text to paper or to take some
action with an attachment it contains.
I never ever want the computer to figure out, based on what's in the
email, what to do with it (other than discarding it as spam). For
instance just because it has an executable attachment doesn't mean
I want that program to run. That would be like my finding a random
discarded hypodermic needle on the sidewalk and injecting myself with
it because that's what one does with hypodermic needles.
To "close" an email, or other file, is even more ambiguous. ("Quit,"
to me, means to cause a program to stop running.)
I strongly dislike pop-ups that give me unclear choices. Often, one
of the choices, or even the only choice, is "OK." Is *what* okay?
What exactly am I consenting to or agreeing with by clicking there?
In some cases I've gone as far as rebooting the machine to avoid
having to click on "OK."
--
Keith F. Lynch -
http://keithlynch.net/
Please see
http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
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