Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: "Paradigm" (Re: OOP in C)
Message-ID: <1502@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 3 Jan 90 22:26:23 GMT
References: <77500020@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <11345@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 47

In article <11345@goofy.megatest.UUCP> djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes:
>From article <77500020@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, by render@m.cs.uiuc.edu:

>> Written  5:19 pm  Dec 11, 1989 by djones@megatest.UUCP:
>>>Okay, now *everybody* look up "paradigm" in the dictionary. Don't
>>>put it off. Do it now.

>> I'll bite.  Here's what I get:

>> 	paradigm:  1. model, pattern.  (according to Merriam-Webster)

>> 	paradigm:  1. a pattern, example or model.  (Webster's Unabridged)

>> So, what's your point?  Do you think everybody using it incorrectly?

>Yes.

>Because you read the rest of the line in Merrium-Webster's, you know
>that it continued, 'esp: an outstandingly clear or typical example
>or archetype.'

That's because the dictionary is behind the times.  The authors of
that dictionary evidently weren't aware of (or decided to ignore) how
the meaning of "paradigm" changed after people discovered Kuhn's
_Structure of Scientific Revolutions_.

Actually, Kuhn's notion of "paradigm" is closely related to the idea
of a pattern or model (it's a move up a level of abstraction from the
example to what it's an example of), and it turns out that Kuhn used
several different meanings of "paradigm" (some of which match the
dictionary definitions quoted above).  So the new notion of paradigm
grew out of the older ones, which is not an entirely unreasonable
way for a language to change.

>I am aware of the fact that usage determines meaning, and hence the
>original meaning of "paradigm" is lost to the programming community. It's
>a pet peeve. (Perhaps I should post this to alt.peeves.) I think the reason
>it bothers me is that I suspect the new usage is only a pretentious way
>of obscuring the fact that when we talk about object-oriented things we are
>discussing very ill-defined notions.

It's not just the programming community that has now pretty much lost
access to the older meanings of "paradigm": all kinds of academics (at
least) now use (and overuse) "paradigm" in the new way and seem to be
unaware of any of the other meanings.  A lot of it is pretentious,
just as "methodology" is now often a fancy way to say "method".
Nonetheless, I think the new meaning can be used in a reasonable way.