Website message overhaul, pass 2

[Peter Alexander]

On 20/11/11 2:20 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Sunday, November 20, 2011 14:22:16 Peter Alexander wrote:
>> On 20/11/11 1:46 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> On Sunday, November 20, 2011 13:47:31 Peter Alexander wrote:
>>>> On 20/11/11 8:40 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>> Thanks to all who provided feedback! I read again the entire thread,
>>>>> then made one more pass:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://d-programming-language.org/new/
>>>>
>>>> Much better :-)
>>>>
>>>> A few comments:
>>>>
>>>> Can we please not use the term RAII? First, only C++ people know what
>>>> it
>>>> means, and second, its expansion doesn't tell you what it does or what
>>>> it is used for. Just say something like "scoped deterministic memory
>>>> management" or something like that. I'm sure C++ people will link that
>>>> to RAII, and non-C++ people will have a better idea of what it means.
>>>
>>> Making it a link to wikipedia should be plenty. The C++ will know what
>>> RAII is, and anyone who's learning D should learn it. The combination
>>> of an example, the brief explanation that's there, and a link to
>>> Wikipedia should be plenty for people to be able to figure out what
>>> they need to know. And it _is_ a very important feature for those who
>>> know what it means.
>>
>> I just think it's a terrible acronym and that we shouldn't be promoting
>> its use. What part of "resource acquisition is initialization" tells me
>> that its main purpose is deterministic, scoped resource management?
>>
>> They should learn the concept but not the acronym ;-)
>
> It's well-established at this point. It would _increase_ confusion for many if
> we tried to avoid the term.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

It's *only* established in the C++ community, and I would even suspect 
that majority of working C++ programmers don't know what it means (even 
though they know the concept).

The vast majority of programmers (i.e. non-C++ programmers) have no idea 
what it means, can't tell from the name, and when they learn it they'll 
have no why it was called that.