What's with 2.0?

I take it Tiger is re-inventing himself.

I'm not a reader of Sports Illustrated, but if I was, I would never read it again. I bet the editor who came up with that splashy title for the cover thought he was pretty clever.

What does it mean for something to be 2.0? In particular, what does it mean when some software is at 12.0? Does that mean that the software is light years ahead of everything else (social trends, economic policy, sports strategy) which is only currently ramping up to 2.0?

The people who invented this are annoying. They're a group of self-proclaimed experts on social trends. Five years ago they didn't even know how to turn on a computer. To them, the internet was just for geeks. Ah, those geeks, what losers to play with their computers. Let them have the internet, we have ideas.

Then, some time in the middle of last week, the internet suddenly got interactive. They still don't know how to turn on their computers, but they've got blogs and important things to say: The web is now at 2.0. They need not concern themselves with the technical details anyway, just leave it to the web 2.0 labourers, the geeks.

Thanks guys, but I'm not going to upgrade my internet to 2.0. I'm keeping it at 1.7. There aren't as many morons using 1.7.

Performant

This is a word that you hear quite often in the software world. This one actually has a real definition in the dictionary. So why am I complaining about this word, you ask?

When people around me use the word performant they use it as an adjective that in their warped minds means high performing:

Genius A: The code has passed all test cases.
Genius B: Super. But is it performant?
Genius A: Hmmm. Good point. Going forward, my key Action Item is to tabulate some metrics to establish whether the integrated system is sufficiently performant.
Genius B: Huzzah!
Genius A: Indeed.

Hey Geniuses (A and B), I invite you to read the definition that I linked to in the first paragraph. Performant is a noun, basically a synonym of performer. performant:performer :: informant:informer.

Right now the descriptivists are shaking their heads at me in pity. Language evolves they say. Well I say that they are just crypto-apologists for the lazy and stupid. It's true that languages change over time but that doesn't mean we should all stand by idly while the foundations are hacked at by a sleepy mob armed with dull axes.

Is informant being used as a synonym of informative yet? Has performant been made into an adverb yet? That is, are people out there saying: This code runs very performantly. Honestly, I'm afraid to google it to find out.

External Resources: Jeff Boulter's Blog: Performant is not a word.

Spare Cycles?

Can someone explain to me what spare cycles are? This morning I overheard a conversation asking whether someone had spare cycles. So I did a quick search. All that was returned were links about spare bicycles and spare CPU cycles. Last time I checked, I was neither. But I should stop whining, especially since, as a strategic member of the corporate unit, my resources should be utilized to leverage spare cycles towards target deliverables for the near term, going forward.

In the Wild

Dear AI Team Members,

You'll be glad to know I've returned safely from my fact finding mission. Expense report to be submitted shortly (it's a doozy!)

Find specimen below - more to follow.

In 1991, the team at the OTF Group pioneered competitiveness as part of the Monitor Group. Today, the OTF Group continues to be the thought leader on competitiveness in developing economies and emerging markets, and is a software development company leveraging technology to support its Country Competitiveness™ and Strategy Coaching™ practices.

Updation

If you check the dictionary you will see an entry for the word updation. But look closely at the definition. I quote: Usage: informal. That's a polite way of saying this is not really a word.

But google it and you'll find that it is everywhere. One of the top search results has it right: Updation is not a word. But this is clearly a losing battle, since it is undeniable that the sane among us are vastly outnumbered by those who are totally oblivious to the way they are degrading language.

The consensus out there is that this abomination comes from the world of databases. I can just see the brain-storming session in my head. The room full of geniuses is making a list of the operations that the new Database Solution must support. There's INSERTION. Yes! Very important, that one. Anyone else? Anyone? DELETION. Excellent. OK, I think this is as good a time as any to break for lunch. Abrubtly, from the back of the room: UPDATION! Great, I really feel that we have closed the loop on this, people. Symmetry trumps any faintly lingering desire for sanity or correctness.

This kind of symmetry or overgeneralization is a stage of language acquisition. Children who are learning their native tongue eventually pass through this stage as they pick up the complexities and exceptions in the language: they will learn to say went instead of goed.

People learning a second language pass through some of the same stages, including overgeneralization, as do children learning their native language. However, people rarely become as fluent in a second language as in their native tongue. Some linguists see the earliest years of childhood as a critical period, after which the brain loses much of its facility for assimilating new languages.

Question: can we conclude that the people who spew Business Speak have only a vague, toddler-like grasp of language? That they somehow speak their native tongue as if it is a second language?