[rockzom]

To be clear, I don't have a deep understanding of Linux. But let's keep going with your train of thought regarding abstraction.

When I know it's "January" for whatever reason, and not "First Month", without knowing HOW and WHY this is the convention, it sucks. But then you see what Janus looks like - which, in this case, makes it even better for some reason than "First Month." In the case of programming languages and systems, many of these mythological figures are still alive and we can ask them questions.

So, with Linus, I'm approaching it from the individual differences angle. Some people will call IT if "Smooth edges of screen fonts" is turned off. "Why is this like this?? I can't work like this!"

Whereas I don't think Linus would notice, and if he did I doubt he would care. There's something about understanding where a creator of any given thing falls on that continuum that I find really helpful in overcoming friction with the "why is bad thing that could be good, by my likely ignorant definition, so bad!!" when it comes to new languages or systems.

Tangential, but I want to go back in time and ask some ancient Danes why #70 and #90 in Danish simply had to be absolutely ridiculous, given any possible alternatives. It still wouldn't be my preference, but something about understanding their perspective would be helpful.

[codeflo]

> When I know it's "January" for whatever reason, and not "First Month", without knowing HOW and WHY this is the convention, it sucks. But then you see what Janus looks like - which, in this case, makes it even better for some reason than "First Month."

That's interesting, especially because I can't really relate to that. Don't get me wrong, I love this kind of trivia, but not knowing something like that has never been a problem for me at all.

[iainmerrick]

I had the same thought!

Is this perhaps related to learning a language as a child versus as an adult?

As a child in an English-speaking household, "January" is just one of a million other things to pick up, and you just pick it up. As an adult learner, I can imagine it's very difficult because it seems so random; it's yet another thing that doesn't fit into a system so you have to memorise it and try to internalize it.

As a native English speaker, I find it very difficult to remember weekday names and month names in other languages. Mnemonics help, and knowing the derivation of the word can make for a good mnemonic.

Edit: re-reading the GP comment, sounds like it's not so much about mnemonics, more that knowing the historical reasons for weird design decisions can make it easier to accept them. Like knowing why "October" isn't actually the eighth month.

[rockzom]

I think it's easier for me to accept weird natural language things from the distant past.

But for relatively recent programming language things? Oh man.

std::cout << "why"; std::cout << "why"; std::cout << "why";

[bqmjjx0kac]

std::cout << std::endl;

// It just rolls off the tongue.

[codeflo]

    using namespace std;

It's fine, I won't tell anyone.