<p>What's the best way to contribute to the lexicon of computer science? There is an obvious organic nature to the naming of things in most sciences. The name of the discoverer is inherited or bestowed, the taxonomy of the subject lends a name directly, the author of the authoritative text names it with their full expertise of the subject behind them... But what are the other routes? What if something is poorly named, conflicts with other names, just ambiguous, etc? </p>

<p>In CS <strong>we frequently have semantic debates</strong> in the pursuit of good names, cause we're constantly creating things. CS is one of the few fields where these arguments really make a difference. A good deal of any developers time is being thoughtful about the names of things, and it becomes a sort of learned skill. Are there established routes for either renaming something, or proposing new names for things that are ambiguously defined? </p>

<p>There are endless examples of the need, but I'd like to provide <strong>a specific example</strong>: Dynamic programming. The history of the name is well known and it's not well named. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-08T23:50:50.917Z
Somewhat related: a chapter of Lipton, Regan; People, Problems and Proofs is dedicated to *Definitions*. After reading your question I read the [original post on their blog](https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/definitions-definitions-do-we-need-them/) (the chapter on the book is almost the same), and you can also find some nice comments there (e.g. the John Sidles' comment that says "... *names* are like plankton ..." in the {theorems, definitions, names} "engineering"-ecosystem  :-) :-)
Marzio De Biasi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-09T03:11:24.903Z
http://www.fecundity.com/pmagnus/humpty.html
Sariel Har-Peled
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-11T21:20:50.857Z
@MarzioDeBiasi That's a great post. Thank you for sharing. He does a great job of framing the problem (better than I have), but the comments quickly devolve into specific examples of the problem, and arguing about the problem. No solutions in sight.
Christian Davis
<semantics>
How do we contribute to the lexicon of computer science?
Christian Davis
# How do we contribute to the lexicon of computer science?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-08)

What's the best way to contribute to the lexicon of computer science? There is an obvious organic nature to the naming of things in most sciences. The name of the discoverer is inherited or bestowed, the taxonomy of the subject lends a name directly, the author of the authoritative text names it with their full expertise of the subject behind them... But what are the other routes? What if something is poorly named, conflicts with other names, just ambiguous, etc?

In CS **we frequently have semantic debates** in the pursuit of good names, cause we're constantly creating things. CS is one of the few fields where these arguments really make a difference. A good deal of any developers time is being thoughtful about the names of things, and it becomes a sort of learned skill. Are there established routes for either renaming something, or proposing new names for things that are ambiguously defined?

There are endless examples of the need, but I'd like to provide **a specific example**: Dynamic programming. The history of the name is well known and it's not well named.

**Tags:** semantics

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Somewhat related: a chapter of Lipton, Regan; People, Problems and Proofs is dedicated to *Definitions*. After reading your question I read the [original post on their blog](https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/definitions-definitions-do-we-need-them/) (the chapter on the book is almost the same), and you can also find some nice comments there (e.g. the John Sidles' comment that says "... *names* are like plankton ..." in the {theorems, definitions, names} "engineering"-ecosystem  :-) :-)  
> **username_2**: http://www.fecundity.com/pmagnus/humpty.html  
> **username_0**: @MarzioDeBiasi That's a great post. Thank you for sharing. He does a great job of framing the problem (better than I have), but the comments quickly devolve into specific examples of the problem, and arguing about the problem. No solutions in sight.  

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