[shadowfiend]

Workflows being a dime a dozen in both the software industry and all industries more generally, saying that any word makes a workflow “something that should be adhered to” seems like an overstatement. It's absolutely clear that the author thinks it is worth adhering to, however.

“-driven” doesn't imply demand, it implies the center of a given workflow. antirez is stating that this approach (which is more than just taking notes, since taking notes just means “writing stuff down” and says nothing about interruption) boosts productivity, and that it is centered around the process of stashing thoughts and observations without interrupting the present task. He also outlines why he thinks this is the case.

You are mischaracterizing the blog post by underspecifying what it says, then attacking the mischaracterization… I'm not sure that approach tracks with your claim to care about semantics. It's not just words that matter, it's also how they're collected into titles, sentences, paragraphs, documents, and how they exist in their broader context (software industry parlance, in this case).

[mosselman]

You are, in turn, oversimplifying what I am saying. 'Language matters' might be closer to what I should have said and in that sense I oversimplified my own words.

This 'article' explains the trivial task of keeping track of todos and separating main and sub tasks. Something that I most people know how to do. 'Centralising' what we do around the written word is what separates us from animals and you find it everywhere.

I find coming up with a name with the word 'driven' in it for such a common thing somewhat grandiose. That is my critique.

[detaro]

Language matters indeed. I guess that if you'd said "I find coming up with a name with the word 'driven' in it for such a common thing somewhat grandiose." you'd not have provoked such a strong reaction, but you didn't. You said note-taking is "frivolous" (which to me suggested you think it's a bad idea!). You don't acknowledge the difference to "just taking notes", which might make it a not-so-common thing.