Re: Off Topic: Pathalogical

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>]

Clark C. Evans asks about "pathological".

> Rick,
>
> I'm wondering about your usage of the word "pathalogical".  I've seen
> only a few times before (most recently in the book Learning Python).
>
> On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Rick Jelliffe wrote:
> > schema languages must be initially to identify pathological cases that
>                                                  ^
> In particular, I'm curious about the etymology of your usage
> of this word.  I've looked up the word in almost every dictionary
> and reference work that I have access to (the ones on my bookshelf
> date to the 70's and 80's so they may be out-of-date) and
> on-line sources below.  In each case, the word was either not
> found, or had the traditional (and expected), "compulsive" definition.
>
 I have always thought that it comes from "pathology", that is, some damaging
medical condition.  The pathologist examines tissue samples or a body to try
to determine what disease(s) contributed to the result.

Thus, a "pathological" case in programming is one that causes some damaging
condition (failure).  This is not a bug, but a test case whose construction
was not anticipated in the program (or language) design.

Metaphorically, I think that this would be "FAILURE IS A DISEASE".

Cheers,

Tom P