Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!dftsrv!dev!dgis!jkrueger
From: jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: Le Roi est Mort (was Re: Terminology one more time: Are mainframes and minis "dead?")
Message-ID: <927@dgis.dtic.dla.mil>
Date: 11 Jul 90 02:24:14 GMT
References: <6946@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> <543@garth.UUCP> <1990Jul9.234902.27344@hayes.fai.alaska.edu>
Organization: Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Alexandria VA
Lines: 28

fnddr@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (RICE DON D) writes:

>Capping the -frame prefix looks like terminally cute marketingese.

You bet.  What's the derivation of "mainframe" anyway?  Where does the frame
come from?  It isn't very likely that history or usage will make that
meaningful in such coined travesties as "serverframe".

>I don't think that
>we, the users, have much control over terminology.
>...(you too can use the latest technobabble in lieu of original thought!)

Orwell warned us about this.  Looks like "Politics and the English
Language" should be issued in a new edition on "Technology Marketing
Hype and the English Language".

>...Maybe this is what really happened at the Tower of Babel.  The different
>project teams got so deeply into their own jargons that they no longer
>knew what the others were talking about...

Cute analogy.  Last I heard the computer Tower of Babel was all
the different programming languages.  I think the problem you 
point to, though, has become a bigger waste of time, money, talent.

-- Jon
-- 
Jonathan Krueger    jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil   uunet!dgis!jkrueger
Drop in next time you're in the tri-planet area!