Re: "Documentation by paper"

[Robert Dewar <dewar at gnat dot com>]

Felix Lee wrote:

> how about, any term that yields more than 500 pages at Google can
> be assumed to be common knowledge in the field. 

If any term yields more than 500 pages, you can almost COUNT on the
fact that there will be subtle variations in the definition of the
term!

There is a reason why scientific papers (including computer science
papers) define their terminology.

Now in some cases, is it reasonable to refer to some standard
reference for the definitions being used, but at LEAST that should
be done. It is definitely a bad idea to assume that everyone has
the same understanding of a term that you have. Just because you
learned a term in a compiler course, or read it in a compiler
text book does NOT mean that everyone uses the term the way you do
and subtle differences are the details that the devil hides in!

In a case like dominator, the definition is easy and
straightforward, and might as well be repeated. That's not
true of all terms, and indeed for some more complex terms
it is reasonable to use references for definitions.

So something like "we use the term XXX" to mean [brief
overview of definition]. For a precise definition of the
way this term is used here see YYY." is appropriately
helpful.