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Language changes the way you think. For example, before React, I never thought much about "declarative" versus "imperative." Surely I was aware of the difference subconsciously, but it's not something I considered important. Now that I have the words, I see it everywhere.

It's like words are an abstraction for a whole bunch of lower-level ideas. A short-cut for modeling problems in your head. That's why, over time, I've become more willing to tolerate jargon, if the jargon is more specific than the generic word it replaces.

Another example is push versus pull. If you don't know what those terms mean, it can be incredibly frustrating to follow along with the conversation. But if you do know what they mean, you've just saved a bunch of mental energy having to re-learn the problem space.

So regarding this tweet, I was thinking, maybe I shouldn't have used the words "retained" and "immediate." But OTOH, if I had tried to shove the definitions into a single tweet, it likely would have been more confusing than just using the actual words.https://twitter.com/acdlite/status/960247932753555456 …

Another way I think about this: swapping out a specific jargon word for a more generic word is like using an analogy. Analogies are often a great tool. But there's an inherent loss of fidelity. That loss of fidelity can end up being more misleading than the analogy is worth.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of using an analogy to describe why analogies are imperfect.