[da39a3ee]

Just saying that if I were working with this person it wouldn't make me think highly of him, and in my fairly extensive experience I can report that there's a strong correlation between silly commit messages and not great code. I didn't mean to imply that I was qualified or skilled enough to evaluate the JIT compiler for Python.

I think I missed what your point was?

[austinjp]

I understood the point to be about using accessible language rather than jargon.

[da39a3ee]

You think "my prior" is jargon? I'm not sure what to say to you then. You realize Bayesian thinking in statistics has been around since the 1950s if not 1930s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_statistics#Bayesian...

[austinjp]

Bear in mind I'm interpreting the previous comment.

I'm familiar with many things Bayesian thanks :) However, I wouldn't assume everyone else is, even here.

Are you familiar with the meaning(s) of the word jargon? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/jargon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon

Just to provide an example, your previous comment could have been written something like this: "Being honest though, the guy's commit messages changed my preconceptions about how reliable and well-designed his code will be."

No knowledge of statistics required, Bayesian or otherwise.

[da39a3ee]

OK, fair enough, your suggestion is totally reasonable. However I've been referring to people's "priors" though in informal conversation for about 25 years, to friends, romantic partners, and family as well as academics and programmers, and I know several other people who do the same. Apart from anything else it's a nice non-technical sounding word. I'm not a Bayesian statistics zealot (I don't even work in statistics any longer). But I definitely think all educated people should be familiar with the _idea_ of Bayesian inference. I think that goes without saying. I'm no expert on such matters but clearly our own perception/cognition has some sort of Bayesian flavour to it (you think a mammal dimly perceived on the horizon is probably a dog etc). What I'm saying is -- it sound like perhaps you also have had some involvement with the academic subject -- I think you don't need to push that word quite so far away from mainsteam culture. It's perhaps even a little patronizing to mainstream culture? And I think that if we are ever going to overcome CP Snow's Two Cultures problem then making little gestures like this in the right direction is actually important; especially from people like you and me.