[Sderby] Re: What fun Linux is!!

[Paul Grosse]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Gibbon" <james.gibbon at virgin.net>
To: "South Derby LUG General Mailing List" <sderby at mailman.lug.org.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 4:09 PM
Subject: [Sderby] Re: What fun Linux is!!


> On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:44:54 +0100
> "Barry Woodward" <barrywoodward at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > My thanks to Derek Huskisson for taking the time to reply. I should have
> > been more specific.  I strongly object to the use of Jargon where it is
not
> > only unnecessary but downright frightening.  A newbie installing any OS
> > should not have to guess an obscure meaning,  (BIOS is one of the worst
> > offenders for this but, a newbie may not even realise the BIOS exists.).
> >
> > The newbie faced with an option to "install without ACPI "  can guess
it's
> > meaning, or cancel the installation and investigate the meaning, or
ignore
> > the menu option and pray.  Is it not time for the software developers to
> > think about (and write for) their audiences?
> >
>
> It's inevitable that in an industry where typed communication is so
prevalent,
> acronyms will be used.  In any case they can be valuable, serving as a
unique
> name to prevent ambiguity.  And they are in everyday use in every part of
life
> would we really want to type or write "National Health Service" every
time,
> instead of "NHS"?  Or Electronic Mail, or Personal Computer, or
Alternating
> Current?
>
One problem is where people change the acronym or mis-use it. Two examples:

1: RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives (or Discs) meaning that you
can use an array of cheap hard discs to store data reliably because if one
fails, the data is already stored on the other discs, yet because of the way
that the system is built, it is faster than access from a single hard drive.

Inexpensive isn't macho enough for the companies trying to sell RAID so they
want to get rid of the Inexpensive and change it to: Integrated, Independent
(or anything else for that matter. Why they think that the discs are
independant whey they are integrated, I don't know -- it turns the acronym
into an oxymoron)

2: SMB (Server Message Block -- the way that Windows machines share files
over a network which also manifests itself in Linux as SAMBA which,
interestingly is around 4 times faster than the Windows version). Anybody in
the industry will know that small- to medium-sized enterprises are called
SMEs and this applies right across the board so it is not specific to any
type of market.

Now, corporates in the US (mainly the computer side, so they should know
better) are calling SMEs SMBs (Small- to Medium-sized Businesses). We
already have SMB thank you. Why the computer industry thinks it needs
another meaning for SMB, I don't know and where you get both of them
together, such as in the information security business, it can get
confusing. If you are talking to a rep about the forewall market and he
starts talking about SMB, you instantly think of closed of port numbers, not
a business segment.

Paul Grosse