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Subject:Re: Inventing new words? From:Len Olszewski <saslpo -at- UNX -dot- SAS -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 8 May 1996 16:01:12 GMT
In article <199605072024 -dot- NAA11534 -at- rtfm -dot- cse -dot- tek -dot- com>, Chuck Melikian
<chuckm -at- mdhost -dot- cse -dot- tek -dot- com> writes:
|> With respect to whether prepend is a word or not, it is a word.
|> But, it is jargon. It is, I think, a fair example of a language
|> growing and adapting. While append means to attach or affix (see
|> Webster's 10th Collegiate), in the realm of programming, append
|> means to insert additional data at the end of a file.
[...]
There is also a body of processing which deals with file *names*, and
building search paths and addresses. In these cases, whether you append
something to a path, or prepend something to a path, is very important
indeed.
Similarly, cases where the semantic meaning of a command changes based
upon standard prefixes or suffixes (for example, WRITE puts something to
a file, SOWRITE puts it to standard output, and SOWRITED puts it to
standard output and deletes the initial stream) are not uncommon in 3
and 4 GL's. Not necessarily good design, mind you, but still not
uncommon.
I've cheerfully used "prepend" before in product documentation. Nobody
complained. YMMV.
Now, don't get me started about "populating" databases, or windows for
that matter. ;-)
--
Len Olszewski My opinions; you go get your own.
saslpo -at- unx -dot- sas -dot- com
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