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Subject:FIFO-once more From:Anatole Wilson <aw3a+ -at- ANDREW -dot- CMU -dot- EDU> Date:Wed, 5 May 1993 17:09:32 -0400
Maureen J. Akins writes:
>Okay - for all you non-computer scientists. Here's the real info behind
>FIFO.
<long deleted explanation of how FIFO, arrays, and stacks are related>
This is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier when I asked if
FIFO might be jargon we want to avoid. Clearly it sums up a great deal
of information that someone new to the term may not know or understand.
Unless the document contains a full explanation of the term either in
the text or in a glossary, we're assuming an awful lot of knowledge on
the reader's part. The number of posts that made "informed guesses"
about the meaning and use of FIFO shows (to me, anyway) that the term
can cause a lot of confusion when it's not properly explained.
Personally, I find writing "the printer will print the files out in the
order they are received" a lot more comprehensible than "the printer is
a FIFO processor." A little more work for me, but less work for the
reader.
I really hate it when someone takes a piece I've written and throws it
down screaming...
