[LON-CAPA-dev] helper terminology

[Jeremy Bowers]

Felicia Berryman wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I don't want to debate the term helper used in LON-CAPA.  I just found 
> it interesting that gnucash (which I've been using at home quite 
> frequently lately) uses the term "Druid" intead of "Wizard"  :)
> 
> I read this list digested so don't worry about replying.
> 
> Felicia

I kinda ended up choosing the final term after feedback from others. I 
started with "wizard" (I think if you poke around in the CVS archive, 
you can still find a "lonwizard.pm" in there, though it's deleted), but 
there were trademark concerns, and also concerns over potential offense. 
(Maybe that was just me, but I think some others expressed it as at 
least a possibility.)

"Druid" fixes the copyright concern, but has the same basic 
potentially-offensive issues as Wizard (same basic groups being 
offended), so I dropped that whole semantic area. The other problem I 
saw is that while people may know what a "Wizard" is, they don't 
necessarily know what a "Druid" or "Sorcerer" or (heh heh) "Logomancer" 
is. ("Druid" in particular really bothers me; I don't think my wife 
would see it as a synonym for "Wizard", and www.m-w.com doesn't either. 
IMHO they should have gone with something a bit less cutesy and more 
descriptive too.)

"Helper" is kind of dull, but is at least descriptive and suitably neutral.

http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/2ACV02/06.mp3