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> Journalists and non-practitioners fight back and forth about words like this because they have no skin in the game Actually I think that the real problem is

> Journalists and non-practitioners fight back and forth about words like this because they have no skin in the game Actually I think that the real problem is with unscrupulous marketing from practitioners than with journalists and non-practitioners. When a word becomes a trend, everybody wants in, so the word is stretched so much that it loses its original usefulness. Take cloud for example - what does it really mean today? Even the usual old VPS today is marketed as a "cloud" solution...

venomsnake 14y ago
Cloud has never had meaning. I always thought that fog was the much more appropriate weather event for the vague concept that all the different people tried to push.
bcoates 14y ago
Cloud is a VPS plus a decently real-time API for provisioning and configuration, so I can treat servers as an abstract software component. Pre-cloud era VPSes often required humans in the loop for simple administrative tasks.
vacri 14y ago
My pet hate is 'impact'. There was a perfectly usable word before: affect. No-one uses it anymore, because everything has to have IMPACT! Not enough toilet paper in the loo today? How will that impact employee morale? Different brand batteries in your wireless keyboard? What IMPACT will that have on performance? But sadly the horse has bolted on that one, its jig is up, and gone the way of the dodo... literally.
- ezequiel-garzon 14y ago
  I believe you mean "effect", right?
  - mcav 14y ago
    I don't think so: "how will that impact X" vs "how will that affect X"
  - bjterry 14y ago
    It depends on the specific case, since impact is used as both a noun and verb, while affect and effect in this sense are typically used as a verb and a noun respectively. In his two examples, one would be replaced with affect and one would be replaced with effect.
  - vacri 14y ago
    Both of them :)
derefr 14y ago
Cloud mostly means "you don't pay your sysadmin; the colo does."
dlitz 14y ago
"Cloud" just means "outsourcing your infrastructure". Or, in some contexts, "I don't care how it works, as long as it does X, Y, and Z" (like the cloud in a network diagram).
wisty 14y ago
> Take cloud for example - what does it really mean today? I think it's a fancy word for "on the net".
- danmaz74 14y ago
  It's what it has become - but originally it meant what now has become SaaS (eg gmail)
aaronblohowiak 14y ago
If the VPS is automatically provisioned and billed by the hour, it is "cloudy"

venomsnake 14y ago

Cloud has never had meaning. I always thought that fog was the much more appropriate weather event for the vague concept that all the different people tried to push.

bcoates 14y ago

Cloud is a VPS plus a decently real-time API for provisioning and configuration, so I can treat servers as an abstract software component. Pre-cloud era VPSes often required humans in the loop for simple administrative tasks.

vacri 14y ago

My pet hate is 'impact'. There was a perfectly usable word before: affect. No-one uses it anymore, because everything has to have IMPACT! Not enough toilet paper in the loo today? How will that impact employee morale? Different brand batteries in your wireless keyboard? What IMPACT will that have on performance? But sadly the horse has bolted on that one, its jig is up, and gone the way of the dodo... literally.

ezequiel-garzon 14y ago
I believe you mean "effect", right?
- mcav 14y ago
  I don't think so: "how will that impact X" vs "how will that affect X"
- bjterry 14y ago
  It depends on the specific case, since impact is used as both a noun and verb, while affect and effect in this sense are typically used as a verb and a noun respectively. In his two examples, one would be replaced with affect and one would be replaced with effect.
- vacri 14y ago
  Both of them :)

derefr 14y ago

Cloud mostly means "you don't pay your sysadmin; the colo does."

dlitz 14y ago

"Cloud" just means "outsourcing your infrastructure". Or, in some contexts, "I don't care how it works, as long as it does X, Y, and Z" (like the cloud in a network diagram).

wisty 14y ago

> Take cloud for example - what does it really mean today? I think it's a fancy word for "on the net".

danmaz74 14y ago
It's what it has become - but originally it meant what now has become SaaS (eg gmail)

aaronblohowiak 14y ago

If the VPS is automatically provisioned and billed by the hour, it is "cloudy"