AI should have been called 'dynamic algorithms' or 'learned algorithms' from the start, so as to get rid of this ridiculous notion of 'intelligence' that confuses everyone.
OO, DevOps are fine.
Phrases in computing that might need retiring
191–200 of 291 posts
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#192I was expecting "master" and "slave" to show up since I've seen that argument being made ( https://www.eetimes.com/its-time-for-ieee-to-retire-master-s... ), but I have a hard time taking it seriously. I agree about AI though. The rush to exploit the phrase as a marketing term has killed it's original meaning. Once we actually have AI we're going to need something else to call it. I've always kind of liked the distin…
Same (re: master / slave)...
At a previous job, a coworker presented a compelling argument for removing "whitelist" and "blacklist" terminology from our codebases / jargon. Even though the etymologies of the words don't describe them as being based on race / racial judgments, their first recorded usages were in the 16th-17th centuries, when mass enslavement was in full swing. Setting aside the historical context, they also help reenforce the idea of "white is good, black is bad" [0].
At that job we moved to terms like excludeList, allowList, denyList, etc.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
On websites where it's anonymous I infer that from what I have seen since 25 years on websites where it's not, and from attitudes people have IRL.
What are the sort of rules you use to derive sex from text? Can you state some?
I can't do that in general.
Certain attitudes OTOH are heavily gendered, like the psychology behind internet trolls who at the simplest level is that they want everyone's attention to orbit around them.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are the sort of rules you use to derive sex from text? Can you state some?
I can't do that in general. Certain attitudes OTOH are heavily gendered, like the psychology behind internet trolls who at the simplest level is that they want everyone's attention to orbit around them.
Do you think women and girls don't want everyone's attention to orbit around them ?
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are polar opposites. A button for 'disagree strongly' should upvote a comment. When Einstein and Niels Bohr 'strongly disagree' on quantum physics in 1927, they start a debate that makes both of them more enlightened. When a bullshit artist, who couldn't care less about the truth, hijack a discussion to make it all about Him (it's almost always a dude), everyone become dumber. "Moving along" is not enough becau…
I wonder whether a voting system with more than one dimension could work here? (I am sure people have tried it before..)
Like Slashdot, perhaps?
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#196Strong 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…
> also "devops". It's really job title for "sysadmin but paid and owned by the software department to keep ITs fingers out of everyone's shit" but with a flashy name that sounds important so mgmt will agree to it If that's what "devops" is now, sure, kill the term. Devop is not a job title, and I will die on that hill. The concept of DevOps is close collaboration between development and infrastructure teams throughou…
Related: a team claims to follow TDD but also has a test engineer whose job it is to write automated tests.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#197I’d claim artificial intelligence has been broadened to the point of encompassing any statistical algorithm, regardless of whether it’s used correctly. I’ve seen rolling averages described as AI.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> also "devops". It's really job title for "sysadmin but paid and owned by the software department to keep ITs fingers out of everyone's shit" but with a flashy name that sounds important so mgmt will agree to it If that's what "devops" is now, sure, kill the term. Devop is not a job title, and I will die on that hill. The concept of DevOps is close collaboration between development and infrastructure teams throughou…
If that's what "devops" was before, we needed to kill the term earlier than you might think. Devops was originally a set of software release practises and culture that result in higher quality software, including high release cadence, blame-free postmortems, small patches, time for experimentation, automated testing, continuous integration, etc. These practises normally require close collaboration between dev and inf…
I get where the author is coming from. The meaning of "DevOps" is in the name - it stems from a culture of encouraging _devs_ to do _ops_, and rejecting the antiquated separation between developers who write the code and the sys-admins who deploy the code.
The term "DevOps" doesn't need retiring, but "DevOps Engineer" does. DevOps is a culture and a practice that allows developers to iterate quickly by taking ownership of the operations of the software they build. Every engineer is a DevOps engineer. But such a widespread diffusion of responsibilities doesn't mean the specialists suddenly disappear. It's not like every dev knows how to configure a new multi-region cluster with automated failover. Instead, they know how to use whatever platform they've been empowered with to help them manage such operations.
For this reason, I think "Platform Engineer" is a better word than "DevOps Engineer" for describing the differentiated specialization of this role. Every developer in an organization engages in "DevOps" on a regular basis, whenever they debug a CI pipeline or deploy a new service. But someone needs to build, setup and maintain all the tooling to enable those _devs_ to do _ops_. In my mind, that's the specialized role of a Platform Engineer.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#199Oh 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…
> When I first heard the term, it was used to tell us that us developers need to do our own operations. And we did. Cool.
That is not at all what it ever meant, and is very much the opposite of the original meaning. For what it's worth, I personally think this is probably the best approach now though.
> Then it turned into 'developers need to work with the operations people.' Wait what is this just a mantra or something?
This is sort of it. Calling it a "mantra" is fine, but it was meant to be a cultural shift. It was actually pretty successful, which I think is why most people are a little mystified as to what it was originally about. It has become just the way things are done, so it is difficult to recognize as a change. Back before this change started to happen, developers and operations teams used to be much much more divided. They rarely spoke to each other until applications were preparing for release, and then it was the dreaded "throw it over the wall".
Operators didn't want devs touching their environments and breaking things. Developers didn't want anything to do with production, because once the code was released their job was done. The whole idea was to align these incentives, and to modernize Operations (which was frankly very stuck in old mindsets).
> Now it's just a fancy word for 'sysadmin', apparently?
This is what people mean when they say "if you are hiring 'DevOps engineers' you're doing it wrong".
Anyways, it's basically a dead phrase. If you've been in the industry less than 15 years or so, it's basically meaningless to you. The movement it came from achieved its goals so well that it no longer has any useful meaning. It now just serves as a way to nerdsnipe people who were there into explaining what it actually meant.
Re: Phrases in computing that might need retiring
#200Strong 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…
> also "devops". It's really job title for "sysadmin but paid and owned by the software department to keep ITs fingers out of everyone's shit" but with a flashy name that sounds important so mgmt will agree to it If that's what "devops" is now, sure, kill the term. Devop is not a job title, and I will die on that hill. The concept of DevOps is close collaboration between development and infrastructure teams throughou…
DevOps was what you meant, and still is in some places. But in reality it is either a fancy term of system admin, confined to cloud providers, or I don't know what I need but probably can do everything. You might be delighted by the terms DevSecOps as well, which is DevOps, with the confusing factor on steroids.