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It's weird to me that there seems to be a trend of using "flight" as a metaphor for the runtime of our code. We have "preflight checks" in CORS and now a "fligh

It's weird to me that there seems to be a trend of using "flight" as a metaphor for the runtime of our code. We have "preflight checks" in CORS and now a "flight recorder" on the JVM. In their canonical usage, these are mundane, self-describing terms. If we like the wording from the aviation industry and want to appropriate it, we don't have to bring the word "flight" along for the ride. We could just as easily have "prerequest checks" and a "JVM Recorder"... and yet here we are.

bartread 9y ago
It goes beyond the runtime: the way we describe work in progress as "in flight" is somewhat irritating. I've caught myself using this quite a lot recently: I first heard it used around 4 years ago. Since then it's somehow wheedled it's way into my daily lexicon. It's a habit I'm trying to break.
- freehunter 9y ago
  I find it strange that in the IT world we find ourselves constantly annoyed by the language we’ve collectively chosen to use and seek to find other ways to describe something that already has an agreed upon term. I wonder if other industries do this to themselves too. Complaining about “in flight” or “cloud” or “serverless” even though everyone understands what those terms mean seems like bikeshedding at its worst.
  - Moru 9y ago
    I have always tried to talk in normal words all the time. It makes it much easier when I need to explain to a co-worker or the boss how something works or why it has to be done before we can take care of the visible problem. I try not to make others feel stupid just because they don't know the keywords. Sure it would be easier and faster to talk but if I'm not understood it's meaningless.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      On the other hand, if you use the term "JVM Recorder" while everyone else is using the correct name "Flight Recorder", you're now forcing everyone to use non-standard language just for your benefit. Far too often I hear people argue "it's not in the cloud, it's on a server" which makes people think it's hosted on-prem on a server that we own and control and maintain, but it's not. It's on someone else's network, on someone else's server, a server that they own and control and perform the maintenance for. But that's a really long winded response, so luckily we agreed on a single word to represent that concept: cloud. Like it or not, words have meanings and those meanings have definitions. If someone isn't likely to understand the word, explain it using its definition. Don't just unilaterally switch to a completely different word. My CEO might not know what "serverless" means, but once I explain it using its commonly accepted definition she can now read the commonly accepted word in a trade magazine and understand what they're talking about. Otherwise she'd never know to link the word to its definition. That's the basic concept of language.
wpietri 9y ago
Every thing we programmers make is ethereal, impalpable, formless. Metaphor is a huge aid in managing that. Why deny yourself tools that help you organize and communicate about our code?
- szemet 9y ago
  Yes. Flying is just a faster way of transportation than (the traditional) running and in between we had Ruby on Rails...
  - DannyB2 9y ago
    Flight Recorder sounds better than either Snail Recorder or Fright Recorder.
Someone 9y ago
”as a metaphor for the runtime of our code” Running already is a metaphor for what a CPU does. Do you object to that, too?
- clhodapp 9y ago
  I don't object to "run" but that might be a bad example because machines have been "running" for centuries and because "run" has a tremendous number of separate definitions already. I don't actually object to the "Flight Recorder" either, I just find it to be a weird name that I probably wouldn't have picked, hence my comment on it.
Piskvorrr 9y ago
Not really. "Flight recorder" does something quite different than a "jogging tracker"; what a "JVM Recorder" does is a mystery (yes, yes, it records something) - the metaphor of a FDR helps.
coldtea 9y ago
>* It's weird to me that there seems to be a trend of using "flight" as a metaphor for the runtime of our code. We have "preflight checks" in CORS and now a "flight recorder" on the JVM.* We're not "using 'flight' as a metaphor for the runtime of our code". We just adopted wholesale the terms "preflight check" and "flight recorder". And at least the former has been adopted in several other industries/contexts.

bartread 9y ago

It goes beyond the runtime: the way we describe work in progress as "in flight" is somewhat irritating. I've caught myself using this quite a lot recently: I first heard it used around 4 years ago. Since then it's somehow wheedled it's way into my daily lexicon. It's a habit I'm trying to break.

freehunter 9y ago
I find it strange that in the IT world we find ourselves constantly annoyed by the language we’ve collectively chosen to use and seek to find other ways to describe something that already has an agreed upon term. I wonder if other industries do this to themselves too. Complaining about “in flight” or “cloud” or “serverless” even though everyone understands what those terms mean seems like bikeshedding at its worst.
- Moru 9y ago
  I have always tried to talk in normal words all the time. It makes it much easier when I need to explain to a co-worker or the boss how something works or why it has to be done before we can take care of the visible problem. I try not to make others feel stupid just because they don't know the keywords. Sure it would be easier and faster to talk but if I'm not understood it's meaningless.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    On the other hand, if you use the term "JVM Recorder" while everyone else is using the correct name "Flight Recorder", you're now forcing everyone to use non-standard language just for your benefit. Far too often I hear people argue "it's not in the cloud, it's on a server" which makes people think it's hosted on-prem on a server that we own and control and maintain, but it's not. It's on someone else's network, on someone else's server, a server that they own and control and perform the maintenance for. But that's a really long winded response, so luckily we agreed on a single word to represent that concept: cloud. Like it or not, words have meanings and those meanings have definitions. If someone isn't likely to understand the word, explain it using its definition. Don't just unilaterally switch to a completely different word. My CEO might not know what "serverless" means, but once I explain it using its commonly accepted definition she can now read the commonly accepted word in a trade magazine and understand what they're talking about. Otherwise she'd never know to link the word to its definition. That's the basic concept of language.

wpietri 9y ago

Every thing we programmers make is ethereal, impalpable, formless. Metaphor is a huge aid in managing that. Why deny yourself tools that help you organize and communicate about our code?

szemet 9y ago
Yes. Flying is just a faster way of transportation than (the traditional) running and in between we had Ruby on Rails...
- DannyB2 9y ago
  Flight Recorder sounds better than either Snail Recorder or Fright Recorder.

Someone 9y ago

”as a metaphor for the runtime of our code” Running already is a metaphor for what a CPU does. Do you object to that, too?

clhodapp 9y ago
I don't object to "run" but that might be a bad example because machines have been "running" for centuries and because "run" has a tremendous number of separate definitions already. I don't actually object to the "Flight Recorder" either, I just find it to be a weird name that I probably wouldn't have picked, hence my comment on it.

Piskvorrr 9y ago

Not really. "Flight recorder" does something quite different than a "jogging tracker"; what a "JVM Recorder" does is a mystery (yes, yes, it records something) - the metaphor of a FDR helps.

coldtea 9y ago

>* It's weird to me that there seems to be a trend of using "flight" as a metaphor for the runtime of our code. We have "preflight checks" in CORS and now a "flight recorder" on the JVM.* We're not "using 'flight' as a metaphor for the runtime of our code". We just adopted wholesale the terms "preflight check" and "flight recorder". And at least the former has been adopted in several other industries/contexts.