[FIX] SortedCollectionFix-sr
Richard A. O'Keefe
squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
Mon Sep 30 04:27:40 UTC 2002
Ian Piumarta <ian.piumarta at inria.fr> wrote that:
[performant i]s a perfectly good french adjective, and means precisely...
> "[something] performs well, has good performance" and is therefore
> "performant".
...that. If it isn't part of English, it should be. (Who do we
petition? L'Académie anglaise ?? ;-)
I like to count syllables.
I note that "more performant" is four syllables, "faster" is two.
The problem is that "performs well, has good performance" is seriously
ambiguous. For cars, for example, we can say unambiguously:
X accelerates faster than Y.
X uses less fuel than Y.
X is quieter than Y.
X uses less oil than Y.
X has more leg-room than Y.
X emits fewer particles than Y.
X costs less than Y to buy.
X costs less than Y to run.
X smells nicer than Y.
X pulls more birds than Y. (Sorry about the dated idiom.)
...
But what does 'performs better' mean?
With respect to computer software,
X is faster than Y.
X is faster than Y for large problems.
X uses less memory than Y.
X is more accurate than Y.
X passes more tests than Y.
X is cheaper than Y.
...
are all aspects of performance. If someone tells me 'X is more
performant than Y', then even with the French dictionary in front of
me I know nothing more than this: the speaker approves of X. I do
not know *why*.
In computing discussions, let us prefer *specific* terms to words
and phrases like "performant" and "performs well".
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