On 7/20/07, Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/20/07, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > Multics had an interesting naming convention, which we may want to
> > consider. Commands had a full name (e.g. change_working_directory,
> > list_directory), and then standard short forms for the *components*,
> > e.g. change => ch, working_directory => wdir, so that there would be
> > predictable short forms, something like ch_wdir, ls_dir, etc.
>
> I don't know how seriously you are proposing this, but for the record,
> I'm pretty much completely opposed to officially-blessed abbreviations.
And the reason is...?
Do you really like the current situation, where there is no standardization
of abbreviations? Consider that "factor" (= factorization) can be
represented as any one of "fac" (ratfac, facsum), "fact" (factcomb,
berlefact), or "factor". "Fact" can also mean "factorial" (factcomb,
factlim, genfact) and "factor" (= coefficient) (numfactor).
-s