[uwydr]

That is how it works here, you collect upvotes if you use fancy words. That's why everybody uses the word "orthogonal" here all the time. Have you ever seen that word anywhere else?

[thaumasiotes]

> That's why everybody uses the word "orthogonal" here all the time. Have you ever seen that word anywhere else?

Yes, frequently. It is common in various areas of math -- mathematical background is not something "normal people" usually flaunt, but there are good reasons to expect programmers to have much more such background than average.

A good rule of thumb is that people are probably using the words they use because those words make sense to them. See the first panel here: http://www.basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2009/1/2...

[staticautomatic]

Yes. I'll take orthogonal any day over HN things like "foot gun" or the cryptic invocation of so and so's "law"

[reallydontask]

isn't that orthogonal to the discussion?

[vectorEQ]

i'm orthogonally inclined to disagree, but mainly because i'm sitting on a chair

[MiroF]

> Have you ever seen that word anywhere else?

Unfortunately far too often both in tech and in CS academia (and I'm talking about informal conversations ie. this is an 'orthogonal idea')