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Phrases in computing that might need retiring

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Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#61

Post by manuelabeledo »

falcor84 wrote: post #40
silisili wrote: post #17

Oh man, I wish most of this would go away. RE: Agile 'We have to find a new way to discuss the idea that maybe we focus on the working software and not on the organisational bureaucracy, and that way does not involve the word…' Which is rather hilarious, because the only people I ever hear use the word agile are the beaurocrats. RE: DevOps, I still don't know what it actually means. When I first heard the term, it wa…

Regarding DevOps, a major aim was to embed operational concerns into all stages of development. In that sense, it was a massive success; a developer cannot anymore just say "here's a binary that I made on my machine, make it work in production", throw it towards ops and sign off.

> Regarding DevOps, a major aim was to embed operational concerns into all stages of development. In that sense, it was a massive success...

I strongly disagree here.

If it was such a success, then why are there devops jobs at all? If it was meant to signify that developers should share responsibility on deployments and integrations, what's the role of a "devops engineer"?

It seems to me that self-proclaimed devops practitioners tend to draw lines to limit their responsibility in the software building process, which is also counterproductive.

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#63

Post by Jaruzel »

edrxty wrote: post #8

Strong disagree on "technical debt" Rather, the entire world is built on it and there's some level of acceptance required, but we definitely need a shorthand phrase for "we're doing something stupid that will save us time now and make us hate ourselves a year from now" Edit: thinking on it, also "devops". It's really job title for "sysadmin but paid and owned by the software department to keep ITs fingers out of ever…

In Corporate and Enterprise environments, the term 'Technical Debt' is now commonly used for systems and platforms that are beyond their supportable lifecycle, but are still in use for reasons, yet need to be replaced as soon as possible. These systems were never just hacked together with the knowledge they'd be problem in the future.

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#64

Post by peacemaker »

fishbacon wrote: post #25
silisili wrote: post #17

Oh man, I wish most of this would go away. RE: Agile 'We have to find a new way to discuss the idea that maybe we focus on the working software and not on the organisational bureaucracy, and that way does not involve the word…' Which is rather hilarious, because the only people I ever hear use the word agile are the beaurocrats. RE: DevOps, I still don't know what it actually means. When I first heard the term, it wa…

DevOps has in my experience become full stack + server maintenance + misc tool development.

I recently moved from software dev to devops and this sounds about right! I'm supposed to understand the product teams entire codebase, write the tooling, create/update terraform for the infra, implement CI/CD stuff plus act as some kind of IT guy with AWS access.

Don't get me wrong, it makes a nice change from pure development, but it's clear that in most places, 'DevOps' is not so clearly defined.

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#65

Post by silisili »

mrex wrote: post #54
silisili wrote: post #17

Oh man, I wish most of this would go away. RE: Agile 'We have to find a new way to discuss the idea that maybe we focus on the working software and not on the organisational bureaucracy, and that way does not involve the word…' Which is rather hilarious, because the only people I ever hear use the word agile are the beaurocrats. RE: DevOps, I still don't know what it actually means. When I first heard the term, it wa…

DevOps is a sysadmin who doesn't own his infrastructure, mixed with a developer who doesn't own his code.

"So, what would you say you do here?"

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#66

Post by varjag »

systemvoltage wrote: post #23
doctor_eval wrote: post #2

> "Agile: Nope, this one’s in the bin, I’m afraid. It used to mean “not waterfall” and now means “waterfall with a status meeting every day and an internal demo every two weeks”. We have to find a new way to discuss the idea that maybe we focus on the working software and not on the organisational bureaucracy…" Yup. :-(

May be we should try 1990's style waterfall dev shop. Play Radiohead and Pearl Jam in the office. Everyone wears shorts + tennis shoes with super long white socks. Monthly powerpoint updates on how things are going, PM gets to have some fun with sharpie markers to tick off checkboxes next to each feature that was planned. Dedicated QA department, and they have the coolest arcade machine, it is the Street Fighter mach…

Frontend devs? It's 1990s!

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#67

Post by nonrandomstring »

Changing words reflect worldly dynamics. Just as people use money to achieve aims there is a meta-game in etymology, beyond the communicative use of words. They don't just randomly change or 'evolve' as if by Dawinism. Coining a good phrase can make a business or career. Power comes through words. An interesting analog connects words to money.

  They are 'minted', by small groups or individuals, to serve a local
  need.

  They can be 'issued' by PR/news/sales people, spin-doctors and
  propagandists, or enter popular use through education or popular
  science.

  They lose their 'currency' like "coins that wear down and lose their
  faces".

  They are 'appropriated', taken and reused by other groups.

  They can come back into circulation as old ideas cycle round.
Much of it is simply down to changing (and mostly improving) technologies. It doesn't make sense to talk about mainframes or peripherals in an age of "clouds" and tightly integrated handheld clients. But in computing I've also seen plenty of churn with meanings that reveal a battleground of ideas, frequently with near religious fervour. For example, wasn't "Object Orientation" more than a mere programming approach? A couple of decades ago it was heretical to talk of other paradigms. And yet, in some progressive circles to talk of 'objectification' is anathema.

The rise and rise of "management", its constant, chameleon self-reinvention has muddied many waters. Many new meanings seem to grow from the bureaucratisation of society through code, a restless tendency toward make-work, anthropomorphism and even deification. The "cloud" is more than a mere model for computing infrastructure. At the very least I think its a political idea.

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#68

Post by xxs »

abainbridge wrote: post #10

Sinister used to mean left handed. "A shambles" used to mean a slaughterhouse. Sanction used to mean allow, now it means not allow. It is fine for words to change meaning, even to their own opposite. Natural language has done that forever. Edit: you're all right, sanction has both meanings.

"Sinister", still left in Italian ("sinistra").

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#69

Post by LAC-Tech »

yoz-y wrote: post #57
peterkelly wrote: post #30

"Full stack" (except when referring to someone who can do everything from CPU design and assembly programming right up to UI work)

They need to be able to grind silicon and make wafers in a pressure pot too. Full stack means you can build a web based app alone, that involves databases, backend, server management (this one is arguable), frontend development and design. No need to go lower really.

>Full stack means you can build a web based app alone, that involves databases, backend, server management (this one is arguable), frontend development and design. No need to go lower really.

I mean I can do that but some parts of that stack will be more sophisticated than others.

Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring

#70

Post by mihaic »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #42
ghayes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and "debt" is a beautiful word here. It accurately describes receiving the value today, but then owing that time back, with interest, in the future.

Except it doesn't. It's a one-sided and misleading concept. The problem is usually finding a balance between "Let's hack some suicidally awful crap together quickly to see if we even have a market and then fix it when we have real income, except everyone knows we won't so it will be a permanent drag on the business" and "Let's build a beautiful extendable maintainable paragon of elegance and purity and ignore the fac…

Ah, thank you, this is actually the argument, not what the article said.

Unfortunately I've become a bit disillusioned that we can reclaim the conversation to be about the optimal level of quality, and what tradeoffs are acceptable.

Office bullshit language seems to have strangled nuance so hard that I'm now sure that most of these conversations are useless and we'd better spend our focus on finding and working with mature adults that don't need that much convincing

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