Questions tagged [computing]
Questions about language and terminology related to computers, programming, and IT.
265 questions
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What do we call electronic devices that are used for information and as entertainment devices?
I'm searching for a hyponym (a more specific word; subcategory) of electronic devices to specifically refer to computers, phones and tablets used for information and as entertainment devices, either ...
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How and when did 'performant' enter common usage in the United States?
Performant is a French word without an exact equivalent in English as is sportive.
performant
adjective computing specialized
(of technology, etc.) working in an effective way:
We found it ...
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Origin of usage of “grovel” to mean rummage or exhaustively search
In computing circles, it is common to use the verb grovel to essentially mean to rummage or to exhaustively search. This usage is listed in The Jargon File, though no explanation as to its origin is ...
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Printing to a computer screen?
I'm working on a programming language. I'm considering the best word to use to tell the computer to output to the screen — or a file, another program, or elsewhere. It seems the most common amongst ...
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When there are N instances of the same object, are there N or N-1 repeats, and is it possible to avoid any misunderstanding?
I am looking for an appropriate name for a certain number N in a software user interface. N is the number of identical instances of object A in object B. Could we call it nCopies or nRepeats or ...
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Is symptotic the antonym of asymptotic in the context of computer science? [closed]
In computer science, asymptotic analysis1 is the study of the performance of an algorithm with respect to the size of the input as the input grows to infinity.
That is to say, it only analyses how ...
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What is the meaning of "operating system data itself" in this context? [duplicate]
In "operating system data itself" in the following text, does 'operating' act as a verb (i.e, 'to operate system data') or as part of noun phrase "operating system"?
In ...
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"change directory" or "change directories"?
I'm updating some software documentation and referring to the cd command in a shell/commandline. I'm starting with the assumption that all of the following are correct (but please do validate this ...
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3
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Etymology of the verb 'lint' in the context of programming where it means to apply static code analysis to detect code smells
In the context of programming, a 'linter' is a tool that analyzes code to detect potential code errors or coding anti-patterns or organisational style preferences etc.
To 'lint' is a verb meaning to ...
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Use of the verb ‘output’ [closed]
I need some advice on the use of output as a verb.
To put it in context, I am working on a desktop app that uses some of the functionality of MS Word. In the app, there is an element called a binding ...
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Measures: calculations vs measurements or calculations vs detections [closed]
QUESTION: In sampling, are measurements (see context) only ever down to just being detections?
I understand that measures overall include things like calculations and measurements (detections as posed ...
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Repeated or recurring [closed]
Can the word "recurring" and "repeated" be used interchangeably in the context of tasks such as habits, periodic reviews, etc..? for things that are repeated every day, or just ...
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'Pair' versus 'set' when referring to two things that aren't the same but still go together
Can the word "pair" be used for two things that are not exactly the same but are part of the same package?
Let's say that we have two color schemes (or themes) for a computer program. One ...
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Key binding or key bindings (tech term)
Does anyone know if the term key binding can be used for a combination of keys pressed, for example CTRL (Control) + SHIFT + m? Or should I use key bindings (plural) because there are three keys ...
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What do you call a "backup" of computer files, when you move the files to another location, instead of making a copy of the files?
Example:
You have a computer with a drive of 500 GB, and an external drive of 1,000 GB.
You create files on the computer, for things like software, art, music, photos, etc.
You "copy" your ...
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Verb for "swapping" non-commuting operations and modifying them appropriately (commute?)
In mathematics, computer science, physics or any other field that has the concept of commutative operations (or operators), is there a verb to describe the action of taking a sequence AB of two non-...
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What do you call a person who cannot learn to use computers?
What do you call a person who cannot learn to use computers?
I have been trying to learn them for over 15 years and just cannot. I have been doing an online course to try and teach myself but I just ...
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Can a warehouse be virtual?
I am trying to help a non-native colleague
We are talking about a stock inventory system, wherein there are 'warehouses' and 'warehouse groupings'
The goal is to name these 2 discrete entities as ...
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Blogosphere: what is it?
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus :
all the blogs (= records of personal thoughts and opinions) on the
internet, and the people who write or read them
Cambridge Business ...
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Quotation mark use (one word) in software engineering paper
I'm currently researching the origins of a well known software engineering model - the waterfall model. The paper most cited for the model didn't invent the model, but rather said that it doesnt work ...
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A proper computer term for a third level folder
In this example path
c:\abc\def\ghi
the def is a subfolder of c:\abc
But is ghi also a subfolder of abc? Or would it be more correct to say that ghi is a recursive subfolder of abc?
I know that the ...
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Alternative word or phrase to "result" in computer jargon
I'm looking for a title to add in an Instructions file to explain what is obtained after running a script. The exact word in Spanish is "resultado" but in English "result" sounds ...
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What is the word/phrase for what the end user of a computer sees and interacts with?
If you were to divide everything that makes up a computer and its software into what the average user interacts with, and everything else that works "behind the scenes", what would the "...
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Should a symbol with a plural name be considered plural?
Sometimes symbols like variables take a plural name (fx when referring to a container), for example:
languages = ['English', 'French', 'German']
When then referring to the variable in for example ...
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585
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What is the difference between Vert/Verts and Vertex/Vertices? [closed]
What is the difference between Vert/Verts and Vertex/Vertices?
Both forms seem to be used interchangeably in mathematics and computer graphics.
Blender (3D software) uses Vert/Verts in it's User ...
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Using the term "operating system" to describe a gun mechanism -- influenced by computers or other way around?
Saw two separate videos on Youtube where they go into the details of how a given model of firearm works -- I think they use the term "operating system" to describe things like how ammunition ...
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Is "looks up" a correct phrase when referring to a computer searching for information?
Is the following sentence grammatically correct?
The computer looks up the email address provided.
Guess it's just my brain, but "looks up" didn't have a familiar ring to it when I read ...
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Gerund or infinitive in application's progress messages [closed]
Our application prints progress messages. Which verb form passes better for them: gerund or infinitive? Please compare:
$ ./my-documentation-app
Copy documents...Done
Index documentation...Done
Open ...
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What is the antonym for OK?
I am trying to translate a web application, where if a specific condition is met it is necessary to write
x < y : OK
whereas, if not, one writes:
x < y : KO
This is a short message meaning that ...
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English word for adding "monitoring points" to a process
There is an English word that I can't remember about adding "monitoring points" to computer code so that when the code is run "trace" information, such as the module being executed ...
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Where does the term "bucket" in cloud storage come from?
In Amazon S3, Google Cloud storage, etc., they refer to containers that hold data as buckets.
I was curious where this originated from. The closest I could find was maybe bit bucket maybe referring to ...
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Why 'Principal' is an 'authenticated user'
Many computer systems, related to authorization and permissions uses word 'principal' as term to describe 'user' or 'member'.
I can't get connotation here. Principal is a 'school boss', or 'body of ...
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Computational complexity: how to express what the function depends on?
In computer science, algorithms are often characterized by their computational complexity — for example, a primitive sorting algorithm’s complexity may be O(n2) where n is the size of the input list. ...
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What is it called when people, e.g. computer programmers, pronounce, say, 65,536 as 'sixty-five, five, thirty-six' i.e. omitting 'thousands' etc?
I heard on ELU that computer programmers often pronounce long numbers like that. What is that method of saying the numbers called? How common is it? What is the point of it? What are the pros and cons ...
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What is the process of finding the remainder in division called?
Is there any one word for the process of calculating the remainder (division)?
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Is there a standard way of referring to electronic files?
If I'm writing about a specific computer file - let's say a file which looks, in some view, to be named ExampleFile.pdf (which is already problematic, since what you see might depend on the details of ...
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What would I call a program that was developed specifically for a company?
I am looking for a word that can describe a program I developed for a company, as opposed to a program I would create for a school assignment or for fun. I've written "paid programming task" ...
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“She´s happy” vs “She's happy” vs “She’s happy” vs ...?
I’ve always wondered what the correct apostrophe is when using contractions. Should I use She´s happy or She's happy?
English´s a universal language.
English's a universal language.
Why do a lot of ...
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single word or phrase when one of the department manager tries "blur the lines of responsibility"
While in an organization when a department works only for their objective rather than organization as whole, it can be generally called as silo mentality (with Negative connotation).
However what ...
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Computers as a class [duplicate]
I was just going through some book and found a word "computers" used as a class (like computer class).
But in my generation, we called it a computer class, never "computers."
Can ...
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Is “evictable” an acceptable adjectival form of ‘evict’? [closed]
Is it correct to use "evictable" as an adjective for something that can be evicted?
I plan to use the term in computer science context as an adjective on a cache whose entries can be evicted ...
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Choosing the right title for my academic publication [closed]
I'm writing a computer science paper where the concept is "many small pieces would work better that a single big one". Basically the collaboration of multiple small entities would be better ...
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"replaced with an empty string" vs "replaced with the empty string" - which is correct?
I would think that the latter is correct because there can be only one empty string, that is "", or equivalent ''. Yet the former reads somewhat more natural to me.
I came to think about ...
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Are "parent"/"child" in hierarchies technical terms? What's a non-technical version?
I want to display some hierarchical data. In math and computer science we'd use "parent" and "children", but I'm unsure if they're considered technical terms. Are there similar ...
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English as a computer language : research links needed [closed]
I conducted a small experiment some time back.
The idea originated during e-mail composition when I wanted to examine the possibility of conveying something more than what is typically expressed in ...
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Is there a term for computer users who prefer keyboard shortcuts over a mouse?
Loosely, this person could be called a "superuser" or "power user" but those are broad terms that don't specifically refer to a user who avoids a computer's mouse or trackpad.
Over at the superuser ...
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What is the opposite of a server which is "down"?
When you say that "The server is down", you refer to a remote computer/program which is not responding.
How do you call the opposite state in which everything is working?
What is the correct verb to ...
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to bail out vs to back out
In computer science, I have often come across the expression to back out meaning to say that a function is returned from before performing its actual task, as in this imaginary code comment:
double ...
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100
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Word or phrase for clicking and ignoring
I am looking for a word or phrase that is used to describe when people using mobile applications (or desktop applications or websites) do not fully read some prompt/warning/error message and simply ...
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756
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Serial comma in academic papers in mathematics and computer science [duplicate]
Is there a predominant style in academic papers in computer science concerning the usage or the omission of the serial comma? What do ACM and IEEE do in general? I failed to find it out on my own.
Is ...
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