[jacquesm]

Content is not determined by the quantity of words on a page.

Some of the deeper links between linguistics and programming can be quite eye opening and it does not require a large number of words to put those down. If you find one of these, especially through your own work (as in 'from the trenches') then that should carry some weight with you.

If you're doing this independently and re-discovering something that apparently a lot of people such as you have already found out or learned about elsewhere then indeed it is devoid of content. But I'll bet that it wasn't the case for the majority of those that read it.

Lots of programming wisdom is so terse that we have acronyms for it (DRY for instance), that does not mean there is no content there.

Anyway, enough said, I think it is worth reading, and worth 'grokking' for want of a better word, in case you had not already discovered this. Naming stuff is one of the harder things in programming, that different streams of programming should lead to different groups of words being used to describe the code should probably come as no surprise and yet I find myself amazed that there are such deep connections.

[olalonde]

For me, the big confusion comes from the fact that if you simulate people, you almost inevitably have to deal with data about people. How can those two be mutually exclusive?

Without a clear definition or concrete examples of what the OP meant by "simulate people" versus "data about people", the post is almost devoid of information (to me; apparently, a lot of people understood what OP meant).

[chongli]

For me, the big confusion comes from the fact that if you simulate people, you almost inevitably have to deal with data about people. How can those two be mutually exclusive?

They're not mutually exclusive: the inverse is not necessarily true. This is basically the entire point of the article. When you're just working with data, don't use constructs which are meant for simulation. It's a subtle way of saying "Don't model data about people (or any other piece of pure information) with mutable objects; prefer values instead."

[semiprivate]

I agree, being long-winded is no substitute for being substantive.

And, if you respect that man's uncommitted, unexplained opinion, then his article is a good starting point for further research that draws conclusion.