From mint-bounce@lists.fishpool.fi  Tue Jan 22 17:33:59 2008
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From: "Roger Burrows" <anodyne@cyberus.ca>
Organization: Anodyne Software
To: mint@lists.fishpool.fi
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:28:28 -0500
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Subject: Re: [MiNT] Canonical
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On 14 Jan 2008 at 11:38, p.slegg@scubadivers.co.uk wrote:

> Quoting Andreas Schwab <schwab@suse.de>:
> >
> > If you want a different name just specify it explicitly via
> > --build/--host/--target.  There is nothing wrong with putting the
> > release in the canonical name.
> 
> Completely off-topic but the word "canonical" is used in American
> software literature and I have never worked out what they think it
> means.
> 
> According to Chambers English Dictionary:
> 
> "canonical adj
> 1 according to, of the nature of or included in a canon.
> 2 regular.
> 3 orthodox or accepted.
> 4 ecclesiastical."
> 
> None of which looks likely in the context it is used in.
> 

A good place to start is "The New Hacker's Dictionary"  by Eric Raymond, which 
is an outgrwoth from the Jargon File.  It devotes about a page to "canonical", 
well worth reading :-).  As is the book as a whole, although probably not in 
one session, straight through from abbrev to zorkmid (and beyond).

Roger