Re: [PATCH] doc: replace jargon word "impact" with "effect"/"affect"

["Michal Suchánek" <msuchanek@suse.de>]

On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 12:13:08AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> Michal Suchánek wrote:
> > On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 10:43:38PM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> > > It is a paradox called "the bikeshedding effect". When you contribute a
> > > complex and convoluted change it's easier to get it in because few people
> > > can object (as few people can understand it). But when you contribute a
> > > change as simple as changing the color of something, then *everyone* can
> > > opine (literally).
> > 
> > You forget that what you are doing right now is bikeshedding after the
> > fact.
> 
> Except that's not what I'm doing.
> 
> > You can use 'affect' or 'impact' and it generally conveys the same
> > meaning.
> 
> That's clearly *your* opinion, but that's not my opinon.
> 
> I'm not arguing between blue and red; I'm arguing between water-based and
> lead-based paint.

No, you are not. There is no clear problem with 'impact', either.

So if somebody comes along later and says that they find 'affect'
confusing and impact should be used does that need to be accepted as
well, back and forth ad nauseam?

> The difference may not matter to you, but it matters to me.
> 
> If it's bikeshedding to you, and it "gnerally conveys the same meaning",
> why are you arguing against?

So if 'for' loops and 'while' loops generally convey the same meaning
should we accept patches that replace some 'for' loops with 'while'
lopps or vice versa?

Surely not. There are different situations in which loops can be used,
and different people find 'for' and 'while' loops clearer and and easier
to understand in different situations. If you rewrite the piece of code
that includes a loop it might be worthwhile to change the loop type for
clarity, and at the time when the code is added or modified it is time
to discuss which one is better, not after.

On the other hand if you state the goal to not have redundant semicolons
then even if code with and without redundant semicolons is the same and
in most cases it does not make any difference for human understanding
either patches that just remove redundant semicolons work towards a
specific goal. That makes them acceptable even if they are very minor
because there is clear metric they improve which makes the inverse patch
not acceptable.

If you want to make the case for 'impact' in general being obscure or
hard to understand you will have hard time doing so. There are
dictionaries that recognize 'impact' as synonymous to 'affect' without
any difference in degree. In the COCA corpus there is around 200k
instances of 'effect', around 100k instances of 'affect', and around
100k instances of 'impact' which makes effect/affect about 3 times more
frequent than 'impact'. That's not even an order of magnitude - clearly
not enough to claim it obscure. All of the words are within first 1k so
arguably if you have intermediate knowledge of (US) English you should
be familiar with all three.

However, there is a different corpus that is much more relevant for the
git project:

✔ ~/git [master|…9] 
06:35 $ git grep affect | wc -l
368
✔ ~/git [master|…9] 
06:41 $ git grep effect | wc -l
350
✔ ~/git [master|…9] 
06:42 $ git grep impact | wc -l
54

There are only 54 instances of the word 'impact' in the git repository
which make up only 7.5%. It is feasible to eliminate those 54 instances
completely. In doing so you will make the git project use the same
wording consistently which makes it arguably more approachable to
non-native speakers with limited vocabulary. That states a clear metric
that is improved by such patch which also makes the reverse patch not
acceptable and prevents potential for infinite back-and-forth changing
from one synonym to the other.

Bonus points if you add a test that prevents adding new instances of
'impact' in the future.

Thanks

Michal