[sanderjd]

Oh wow I totally disagree. I have always found the computer science usage of "orthogonal" to be very analogous to orthogonal sets in linear algebra. It is only in two dimensions that it boils down to right angles; That's the uninteresting case! The more general concept is one of independence, of something being broken down into its constituent parts, such that each part is pulling its weight in some way that even all the other parts combined could not. Which is exactly how I see it being used here. I still remember the moment my programming languages professor introduced the concept of orthogonality in that field; I intuitively grasped the meaning and was awed by that power of analogy.