5 ms·

"with my running droplets" Personally, I hate new names like this for old things.. [1] Stop making up names for things. My brain doesn't want to learn a new

by larrys 13y ago

"with my running droplets" Personally, I hate new names like this for old things.. [1] Stop making up names for things. My brain doesn't want to learn a new language for something that can easily be called by the legacy name. It's wasted time and slows things down. (I'm exaggerating a bit of course but why do I have to learn something new of no value to me? And I'm reading this and someone is commenting calling things droplets and now I have to do a search to find out what a droplet is...) Reminds me of some of Spike Lee's first films where he was more concerned with coming up with some creative oddity that could be linked to him. (If you've ever taken a film class you probably remember the prof talking about something that Hitchcock was doing in the film that had never been done before.) [1] From DO website: "DigitalOcean calls its virtual servers, droplets; each droplet that you spin up is a new virtual server for your personal use. "

chc 13y ago
I agree with this in many cases, but "Droplets" is really not difficult. Some providers invent whole new languages for perfectly mundane things. Digital Ocean just brands their virtual servers in a very straightforward way.
- larrys 13y ago
  If they were simply differentiating between different levels of servers then I would agree. (Just like people call things "gold" "bronze" "silver" etc.) But while it is an easy word (and it's "cute") it is different and strictly for branding over something that already is well understood and known. Why do it?
  - aioprisan 13y ago
    This is no different that amazon EC2 naming servers "instances"
    - tbrownaw 13y ago
      You are in a maze of twisty little rooms, all alike. "Instance" has a very well defined meaning, which leads to some standard implications. It means one particulate <thing> out of several, which are all alike. It implies that your <thing>, and in fact all <thing>s, has (have) no physical reality. It implies that <thing>s can be created and destroyed at will. It is also completely generic. You can have EC2 instances, ${APPLICATION} instances, object instances (in absolutely any object-oriented language, and several that aren't), database instances, etc. A virtual private server is a cheap knock-off of a real physical server. A server instance is something you get from an API instead of having to hire a guy to plug things in.
      - aioprisan 13y ago
        In the context of servers, I have never seen other web hosting platforms use the term "instance," in the context of on-demand server instance vs. just give me a server. While it seems commonplace now, I don't recall reading about other hosting platforms referring to their services as instances. Can you point to literature that does? For instance, from http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/ : "You can think of instances as virtual servers that can run applications." That's the AWS context of instances.
  - nwh 13y ago
    Branding. If someone says to load up a droplet, I know they mean DO. If they say VPS, I ask, where?
  - chc 13y ago
    Well, I think it would be more apropos to ask "Why not do it?" The objection to the general practice is that it's confusing. This instance is not confusing, so I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't if they feel like it.
    - bluesnowmonkey 13y ago
      > apropos Many people seem to think that's a smarter-sounding alternative to "appropriate", but it's really a completely different word. Just use "appropriate".
      - chc 13y ago
        Apropos is defined by Oxford as "very appropriate to a particular situation." That is the sense in which I meant it — in this situation, it makes a lot more sense to ask about reasons against rather than reasons for, since "I felt like it" is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the decision in the absence of reasons not to. It is true that "appropriate" could have been used instead, but I chose a different word and I believe I used it correctly, thank you very much.
        phaemon 13y ago
        No, you used it incorrectly. It's like you're saying "appropriate to the asking situation to ask.." or something. It doesn't make sense. Check: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/21101/does-apropos-take-a-preposition-how-do-you-use-this-word-anyway http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/21101/does-apropo... for examples. Using "appropriate" would have been better. There's no need to thank me ;)
        chc 13y ago
        Please, people, stop trying to score points. That link isn't even relevant. That Stack Exchange question is about the prepositional usage of apropos — I was using it as an adjective. Even if I had been wrong, this kind of smart aleck, nit-picky comment would not be welcome. But based on the fact that you apparently just linked the first result for "apropos" on english.stackexchange.com even though it's about a completely different part of speech, I don't think you actually know enough about this topic to comment on it. So you are both needlessly hounding people about irrelevant trivia and spreading bad information. Come on, dude.
  - edvinbesic 13y ago
    But the flip side is that if you call it according to a convention, then you have to live up to that convention otherwise people will be saying: "Just call it something else because X means Y and you are Z, stop confusing people". Plus, it's just one word, not a whole new language, so not really that much of an issue, especially compared to some of the heavier offenders out there.
- fredsted 13y ago
  Yeah personally I like saying "droplets" more compared to "vee-pee-ess-es"
kossmoboleat 13y ago
I agree wholeheartedly. Especially in the domain of cloud providers the terms are very unclear. I suppose that's "cloud" is already such an extremely vague term. I've written a short blog post about the over-use of buzzword in software here: http://timbenke.de/?p=881 http://timbenke.de/?p=881
corobo 13y ago
Yes but they're droplets in a Digital Ocean. In this specific case I think it works very well with their branding. If they'd have called it a Virtual Private Dedicated Serverlet or invented yet another useless acronym (YAUA, of course) I'd be agreeing, but droplet is simple and easy and as a bonus helps avoid the immediate "This is too techy for me!" attitude you can get when trying to convince a shared server user that the reason their site keeps going offline is because they need to upgrade to something better

by larrys 13y ago

chc 13y ago

I agree with this in many cases, but "Droplets" is really not difficult. Some providers invent whole new languages for perfectly mundane things. Digital Ocean just brands their virtual servers in a very straightforward way.

larrys 13y ago
If they were simply differentiating between different levels of servers then I would agree. (Just like people call things "gold" "bronze" "silver" etc.) But while it is an easy word (and it's "cute") it is different and strictly for branding over something that already is well understood and known. Why do it?
- aioprisan 13y ago
  This is no different that amazon EC2 naming servers "instances"
  - tbrownaw 13y ago
    You are in a maze of twisty little rooms, all alike. "Instance" has a very well defined meaning, which leads to some standard implications. It means one particulate <thing> out of several, which are all alike. It implies that your <thing>, and in fact all <thing>s, has (have) no physical reality. It implies that <thing>s can be created and destroyed at will. It is also completely generic. You can have EC2 instances, ${APPLICATION} instances, object instances (in absolutely any object-oriented language, and several that aren't), database instances, etc. A virtual private server is a cheap knock-off of a real physical server. A server instance is something you get from an API instead of having to hire a guy to plug things in.
    - aioprisan 13y ago
      In the context of servers, I have never seen other web hosting platforms use the term "instance," in the context of on-demand server instance vs. just give me a server. While it seems commonplace now, I don't recall reading about other hosting platforms referring to their services as instances. Can you point to literature that does? For instance, from http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/ : "You can think of instances as virtual servers that can run applications." That's the AWS context of instances.
- nwh 13y ago
  Branding. If someone says to load up a droplet, I know they mean DO. If they say VPS, I ask, where?
- chc 13y ago
  Well, I think it would be more apropos to ask "Why not do it?" The objection to the general practice is that it's confusing. This instance is not confusing, so I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't if they feel like it.
  - bluesnowmonkey 13y ago
    > apropos Many people seem to think that's a smarter-sounding alternative to "appropriate", but it's really a completely different word. Just use "appropriate".
    - chc 13y ago
      Apropos is defined by Oxford as "very appropriate to a particular situation." That is the sense in which I meant it — in this situation, it makes a lot more sense to ask about reasons against rather than reasons for, since "I felt like it" is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the decision in the absence of reasons not to. It is true that "appropriate" could have been used instead, but I chose a different word and I believe I used it correctly, thank you very much.
      - phaemon 13y ago
        No, you used it incorrectly. It's like you're saying "appropriate to the asking situation to ask.." or something. It doesn't make sense. Check: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/21101/does-apropos-take-a-preposition-how-do-you-use-this-word-anyway http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/21101/does-apropo... for examples. Using "appropriate" would have been better. There's no need to thank me ;)
        chc 13y ago
        Please, people, stop trying to score points. That link isn't even relevant. That Stack Exchange question is about the prepositional usage of apropos — I was using it as an adjective. Even if I had been wrong, this kind of smart aleck, nit-picky comment would not be welcome. But based on the fact that you apparently just linked the first result for "apropos" on english.stackexchange.com even though it's about a completely different part of speech, I don't think you actually know enough about this topic to comment on it. So you are both needlessly hounding people about irrelevant trivia and spreading bad information. Come on, dude.
- edvinbesic 13y ago
  But the flip side is that if you call it according to a convention, then you have to live up to that convention otherwise people will be saying: "Just call it something else because X means Y and you are Z, stop confusing people". Plus, it's just one word, not a whole new language, so not really that much of an issue, especially compared to some of the heavier offenders out there.
fredsted 13y ago
Yeah personally I like saying "droplets" more compared to "vee-pee-ess-es"

kossmoboleat 13y ago

I agree wholeheartedly. Especially in the domain of cloud providers the terms are very unclear. I suppose that's "cloud" is already such an extremely vague term. I've written a short blog post about the over-use of buzzword in software here: http://timbenke.de/?p=881 http://timbenke.de/?p=881

corobo 13y ago

Yes but they're droplets in a Digital Ocean. In this specific case I think it works very well with their branding. If they'd have called it a Virtual Private Dedicated Serverlet or invented yet another useless acronym (YAUA, of course) I'd be agreeing, but droplet is simple and easy and as a bonus helps avoid the immediate "This is too techy for me!" attitude you can get when trying to convince a shared server user that the reason their site keeps going offline is because they need to upgrade to something better