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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Whorfian mind-lock</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../W.html" title="W"/><link rel="previous" href="whizzy.html" title="whizzy"/><link rel="next" href="wibble.html" title="wibble"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Whorfian mind-lock</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="whizzy.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">W</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="wibble.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Whorfian-mind-lock"/><dt xmlns="" id="Whorfian-mind-lock"><b>Whorfian mind-lock</b></dt></dt><dd><p>[from the Lojban-language list] Software designs are often restricted
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in unavoidable ways by the capacities of the operating system or hardware
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they have to work with. Sometimes they are restricted in avoidable ways by
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mental habits a developer has picked up from a particular language or
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environment (perhaps a now-obsolete one) and never discarded. When a
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design develops complications that are the result of a mental habit that is
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no longer adaptive, the developer has succumbed to Whorfian mind-lock. The
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design itself has been ‘whorfed’.</p><p>For example, some Unix designs are whorfed by the assumption that
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directory searches are linear and expensive for large directories;
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therefore directories must be kept small. Another common way to succumb to
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Whorfian mind-lock is to do serial processing with a small working set
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rather than slurping an entire file or data structure into memory; the
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hidden assumption here is that not much core is available and virtual
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memory works poorly if at all. Detecting Whorfian mind-lock is important,
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because it tends to introduce unnecessary complexity and bugs.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="whizzy.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../W.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="wibble.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">whizzy<EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>wibble</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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