Metaphors in Man Pages | Hacker News Reader

Metaphors in Man Pages

jvns.ca

94 pointstodsacerdoti46 comments

I think the author is overreaching, or rather, this is how natural language works for all fields of discourse (um, "fields", am I using a geography metaphor?)

The author mentions a talk by Maggie Appleton (which I've not heard, so maybe she's being misrepresented [1]) where she asks "Aren’t metaphors just a frivolous distraction?". But it becomes impossible to talk about anything, software included, without using them. To the point where I question whether it's useful at all to think of them as metaphors.

How else talk about what a string or a file contains without using the word "contains"? Is "she had no more ideas" clearer than "she ran out of ideas"? (And wouldn't the former be a metaphor of possession, as if one could "have" ideas? Maybe it's better to say "she was idea-less"?)

How would you say "he reused this variable name" without a metaphor of resources? "He chose a variable name that was also the name of another variable"?

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[1] edit: I've now watched Maggie's talk, and her point is that metaphors are useful and indeed inescapable.

This reminds me of the book Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo363799...). Edit: of course it's mentioned in both the article and the talk, no wonder it's so relevant :)

It discusses how metaphors in language fundamentally shape how we think and behave, even when we aren't aware of them. For example, in the second chapter they write about the concept "Time is money":

== (this is a quote, including the italics for emphasis)

TIME IS MONEY

You're wasting my time.

This gadget will save you hours.

I don't have the time to give you.

How do you spend your time these days?

That flat tire cost me an hour.

[...more examples omitted here for brevity]

Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource that we use to accomplish our goals. Because of the way that the concept of work has developed in modern Western culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by the hour, week, or year. In our culture TIME IS MONEY in many ways: telephone message units, hourly wages, hotel room rates, yearly budgets, interest on loans, and paying your debt to society by "serving time." These practices are relatively new in the history of the human race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures.

== (end quote)

Reading that passage, especially the last line, by no means do they exist in all cultures, really hit me. I never really realized how common these time=money metaphors really are, and I literally can't imagine a world where time is not money myself - the metaphor is that internalized.

Very interesting! Both Julia (the article's author) and Maggie (the person she quotes) mention this book, Metaphors We Live By.

I've now heard Maggie's talk and she seems reasonable. It's only the article's author that seems to be stretching it too far...

There as basically two types of ontological relations: membership (X is a Y) and attribute (W has a Z).

Metaphors are an interesting abstration because they are like a functor from one ontology to another.

I don't think the point is avoiding these metaphors, but instead about being aware of them. The next slide in that talk is "You're thinking of figurative metaphors", and goes on to distinguish cognitive metaphors which are basic tools of thought from the kinds of metaphor that are analyzed in literature for their symbolism or meaning. The speaker encourages the listener to make these cognitive metaphors because they are powerful conduits for transferring understanding.

I believe the goal of this blog post was a fun exploration to try to explicitly consider the ways we use these cognitive metaphors in our technical language, so as to be more aware of them and to able to use them more effectively in communication.

I agree Maggie's talk wasn't arguing against metaphors. I had to watch it to find out ;)

I also agree with you about the point of the blog post, it just wasn't very clear when I first posted. I see Julia has since re-written parts of it, for example removing Maggie's "frivolous" quote, which was a bit misleading for those of us who hadn't listened to her talk.

I must have commented in those moments between Julia editing the post and you editing your comment. Thanks for clarifying!

> Why would I pollute my [concepts] with these fuzzy misleading stories that are completely unrelated?”

> And I definitely wonder this sometimes! I really like explaining things in straightforward ways.

Pollute, misleading, unrelated are not words I associate with merely "being aware". An overly charitable reading I think.

Replying to myself as edit time expired, to clarify:

The author edited the article in the mean time. It was initially fairly negative towards metaphors, and now appears more neutral.

Absolutely it's how language works for all fields!

That's why it's important to examine these kinds of things as metaphors; it at once conveys that there's probably some 'meta-meaning' going on modeling discussion around one idea using the terminology and implied mechanism of another, and at the same time that these models may not be perfectly encapsulating, so reminding us to be careful assuming too much about the extent to which the metaphor maps.

>>> How else talk about

exactly! By being aware that they're metaphors, we can genuinely ask these questions, and wonder if there might be different, or even better, models. Metaphors are especially interesting where they break down, and deceive.

See also bobbiechen's comment about Lakoff's work.

Definitely seems overreaching.

Broadening a definition and a metaphor are not the same thing. Basically every "metaphor" mentioned is just a word that has more than one definition. Sure, the origin of the new definition was likely at first someone making a metaphor, but now they're just words.

It reads like a vulcan who just came across human language and is baffled at how illogical is, while missing the meaning behind the phrasing entirely.

It hurt its self in it's confusion dot jpg etc

Right, this is how natural language (at least English certainly can't speak for others) works for all fields of discourse.

So it can be interesting to see which metaphors we use. Do they say something about how we think about things? Do the metaphors we use effect what ideas we come up with? Would switching the metaphors up give us different ideas? Probably. Are the metaphors the same for all fields of discourse? Probably not, but only one way to find out. What does that tell us?

I think it's interesting. I think lots of metaphors become so 'trite' that we forget they are metaphors at all, but they are probably still having influence on how we conceptualize things.

(The 'processes [or other subsystems] as people' metaphor is one I (and I'm sure others) use intentionally and find useful; I think this is one of the more intentional ones; it's not meant to be bad to use metaphors; but the map still isn't the territory).

I don't think OP argued that this was a bad thing. It's just a quick exploration of the use of metaphors, if anything showing just how prevalent and effective they are.

I've barely started reading Douglas Hofstadter, but isn't all language a heap of metaphors? I mean, in a man page, how could you talk about a program without using metaphors? The closest thing you could get is probably code or pseudo-code, and even that is just the top of a massive pile of metaphors all the way down to moving electrons around.

> I don't think OP argued that this was a bad thing

Maybe, thought it wasn't clear from her initial article. I see she's now re-worded it (she removed Maggie's quote about frivolity), which indeed makes it clearer it's not a criticism, just an exploration.

Indeed, language is a heap of metaphors and idioms. It's interesting to consider which ones occur in different languages and which ones don't (in Spanish you are not "moved" by an emotion, for example).

"She did not produce further ideas, perhaps being unable."

The author mentions "generate" as a metaphor for "ideas as products". I suppose "produce" would fall in the same category.

(Absurd, I know!)

Ah. "think of"? Or maybe "voice" if we are being behaviorists.

"She did not think of [further] ideas [, perhaps being unable to]"

Hmmm. Isn't "further" somewhat related to space or distance? And in any case, it doesn't convey the same meaning as "she ran out of ideas", which is quite definitive -- we're not unsure, we know there are no more ideas left in her mind.

I'm sure we all agree (even Julia and Maggie, it would seem) it's not practical or clearer to talk like this.

Good point. Maybe "additional"?

> I'm sure we all agree (even Julia and Maggie, it would seem) it's not practical or clearer to talk like this.

Yeah, I'm just having fun trying to play by rules I haven't fully grokked.

yes great agree on all of you

I really appreciate NDPI (Not Deep Programming Insights) like these. As programmers we seem to continually seek Grand Unified Theories in the hopes of simplifying our life or ascending to a new level of existence. It's nice to file information away for use later that doesn't have broader implications. Next time I work on a small, single use tool I'll definitely refer back to this and consider what metaphor works best for my documentation.

Calling a lot of these "metaphors" is really stretching it - many of them are just homonyms with some distant shared etymology that may or may not have been metaphorical like 500 years ago.

Fwiw the word you’re looking for is synonym. Homonyms have the same pronunciation but different meanings.

Homonyms is correct. "Dies" applied to a process means something completely different from "dies" applied to a person. They're two different words with the same pronunciation.

I've always grappled with why you call something a "metaphor" if you have no other word to call it. It always seemed to me that metaphor was something you used instead of the common term for something, for poetic or rhetorical effect; if there is no common term, why does a homonym become a metaphor? For example, what is the non-metaphorical term for the legs of a chair?

It is a metaphor in the literal meaning of the word metaphor (i.e. it's a word that "carries many" meanings).

To me, prose is a metaphor if it deliberately plays with the double-meaning, or uses it as an analogy to explain an example.

"I killed the process" isn't a metaphor to me.

"I killed the process, but its life wasn't too exciting anyway, it was just a spin-lock" would be a metaphor.

"The server's dropping packets": no metaphor.

"The server's dropping packets, and it's made a mess all over the client's carpeting.": metaphor, kinda pushing the utility, though.

If you go with the single-word definition, and care at all for etymology, almost everything is a metaphor. It's kind of fun to go on those adventures. Most of the words we use to describe cognition are metaphors for physical activities. "Understand", "Comprehend", "Grasp".

> a metaphor is something you use instead of the common term for something

i don't think the "instead" part is strictly necessary, and the chair example is a good showcase for that. animals stand on four legs, and by analogy, we call certain chair parts "legs" too; it's clearly metaphorical in nature, it just also happens to be the "official" term

in general i think "metaphorical" is more usefully defined as sth like "re-using your knowledge of thing X to talk about thing Y, by analogy". and you might use a cool metaphor for rhetorical or poetic effect, but they're just a common element of language – see several mentions of Lakoff in other comments for examples.

I agree with you, but for fun's sake let me try:

"The sticks supporting a chair"?

I don't understand how "backend" is a metaphor for orientation like "up", "back", "forward". It's a term that etymologically comes from "back" but has no semantic connection to the word.

Surely it's a very literal semantic connection? The backend is in back of (in the sense of behind, from the user's point of view) the frontend ….

That’s still a metaphor; how processes actually occupy space isn’t relevant to the distinction. If the backend is running on a laptop right in front of you, it’s still a backend. The frontend is probably on the same machine, nether in front of or behind the backend “really.” But we see the frontend’s display, just like we see things that are in front of other things (and not things that are behind other things,) thus the metaphor.

I agree that it is a metaphor. I meant to reply to the claim that there was no semantic connection, but I agree that I chose wording that unfortunately seemed to contrast literal truth with metaphorical truth.

i always read frontend/backend as an analogy to how e.g. a store has a front (for customers) and back (not for customers), or like how a stage has a back-stage.

so the metaphor, and "semantic connection" would be that "back" means "the bits you don't see and don't directly interact with"

Woah. There's something deep about the way we describe ideas/ingenuity.

> ideas as cutting instruments: “that’s an incisive idea”, “that cuts right to the heart of the matter”, “he’s sharp“

Ideas as fire: bright idea, that's lit, spark of inspiration, burning passion.

Sharp rock. Fire. Earliest inventions.

Also, data is food (early connection to resources):

The algo barfs on ill-formatted csvs. The database is full.

Arguably, pipes - mode of conveyance of water, sustainer of life.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

> “semiotics has become quite chic“

Hehe, does anyone know some good resources for semiotics self study?

I've been told that C.S. Pierce wrote some interesting stuff. A lot of the theory behind the semantic web is also relevant.

Light orange links on white aren't easy to read.

looks pretty good to me

Contrast ratio of 3.06:1, fails WCAG. I'd call that pretty dire.

it's pretty easy for me to read

And the code works on my machine, but the deploy still failed.

what do you mean

Sibling comment explained my point correctly, but in the interest of fleshing out my comment more nicely:

There is a meme in software development, of a developer who writes code, tests locally, and pushes, only to be told that the code fails for other devs, or on CI deployment to a testing environment, or whatever, and responding "well it works on my machine". Depending on the case and how charitable you're feeling, the dev in question can mean that as anything from "how strange that it worked here and not there; let me start debugging", to "well it worked for me so your system must be the problem".

My analogy was that you are a single person who appears to be claiming that the text style in question is totally fine because on your screen and with your eyes and brain, the text is readable. And this is not without value, but it comes across as a bit tone-deaf when others pipe up and say that it isn't readable to them, and even offer an objective standard by which the claim could be assesed, and you simply repeat that it works for you. Like... we believe that you don't see a problem, but clearly other people do, and they've even offered a way to remove the subjective human evaluation and you still don't seem to believe that they might have a point.

He/she means that because you can read it doesn't mean everyone can.

I can read it fine too, but because I care about accessibility I also noticed that it's very likely to be unreadable by many people.

This is proved by the lack of contrast; by the WCAG standards it's a failure.

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