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> From: David Oberstadt <uunet!VNET.IBM.COM!daveo>
> ...
> I looked up Abort and Fail in my handy 1994 IBM Dictionary of
> Computing (c). Here is what it has:
> Abort
> In data communications, ...
My 7th edition (1991) also has:
(2) In data processing, _deprecated_ term for end abnormally, stop. (emphasis
mine)
So, at least in _that_ edition IBM agreed that "abort" is not the correct term.
Computer programming has long had may violent terms, for example, "killing" a
program and "postmortem" dump. These are, after all, just jargon. Others may
speculate about and study how and why these terms came into use. We should ask
ourselves whether they belong in the user interface or documentation. I, for
one, can't see why they do.
On the distinction between "abort" and "fail": When the user chooses "fail,"
it _should_ mean that the current operation terminates and reports back to
whatever initiated it that it failed. When the user chooses "abort," the
whole program or process should terminate immediately. I don't have a
reference, but I'm pretty sure that these are the common meaning of these
terms in programming. If particular programs don't do this, well...
-Fred
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