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> I get he's ranting about imprecise terminology, but really, what does this knowledge gain the end user? Reminds me of an experience I had in college. I was

> I get he's ranting about imprecise terminology, but really, what does this knowledge gain the end user? Reminds me of an experience I had in college. I was working phones over the summer at a call center and had this software developer call in. This was during the runup to Y2K, and I mentioned the "Y2K bug" and he starts ranting about how it's not a bug. And I'm like, yes I understand it's not technically a bug, but most non-technical people don't know the difference. I've never understood why people are like this with non-technical folks. If you're having a technical discussion with another technical person, then yes, the distinction absolutely matters. But to non-technical people? Who exactly benefits from that?

ben_w 6y ago
I agree, to an extent. Yes, the average person isn’t going to care that, for example, (original) Doom and Marathon are 2.5D engines rather than 3D engines, nor the technical differences between CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray. On the other hand, the general water-level of knowledge is frustratingly low at times: I’ve received customer support which insisted that they couldn’t register proof of identity to activate a SIM card for an iPhone, only for Android; a salesperson saying iPhones couldn’t be used in those cheap strap-a-phone-to-your-face 3D headsets; and a previous boss had to tell off one of their own customer support team for saying their product didn’t support Firefox when the only browser installed on the customer support team’s computers was Firefox.