Re: Temporary variables

["Alex R. Mosteo" <alejandro@mosteo.com>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> Recently, more and more WWW writers writing about programming
> seem to prefer the phrase "temporal variable" to "temporary
> variable", for exmple, in the Ada wikibook.  I don't know
> English well, but I had thought (and have checked) that
> "temporal" is not the same as "temporary".  It is either
> 
> (a) "temporal", the opposite of "spiritual" (that which is
> not eternal like the spirit, but physical), or
> 
> (b) an adjective next to dimension as in "temporal and spatial
> dimensions of the universe", or
> 
> (c) referring to temple, a word of cranial anatomy.  See the
> "temporal line" in
> http://www.face-and-emotion.com/dataface/physiognomy/cranium.jsp
> 
> Translations of "temporary" into the dialects of Latin
> do not seem to justify "temporal" for "temporary" either.
> On the contrary.  Neither do these sources, AFAICT:
> 
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/temporal
> http://www.wordreference.com/enru/temporary

In Spanish, "temporal" is a proper translation for "temporary". The 
authoritative source[1] lists your "temporal(en)" meaning as first one, 
while "temporary" would be the second one:

[1] http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=temporal

You have right there a false friend going around, perhaps, adding to the 
noise.

One could argue that in Spanish, "transitoria" is a more precise term (and 
indeed the first meaning /is/ "temporary"). But it is longer, and I have 
never heard it either in class or in work. "Variable temporal" is the 
standard form over here.

Google speaks:

"Variable temporal" 42.000 results.
"Variable transitoria" 72 results.

> There is also temporal logic which does not seem to focus
> on temporarily used variables but on the logic of
> when things are true.
> 
> Should there be corrections made to the Ada wiki book, then?
> E.g. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Errors
> 
> 
> (Where does this use of "temporal" with "variable" come from?
> It seems wrong, really?  Guesswork?  Mechanic use of grammar?
> Or do people start checking the use of phrases with the help of
> the number of occurrences of the phrase in Google search?
> If so, Google might leed to an unfortunate self-fulfilling
> prophecy.
> (I am guilty of creating misunderstandings myself when trying
> to speak English but all the more I would not want this to
> be an excuse for not trying to avoid whatever mistake there is.))