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James Saull's Blog

The ethical slacker

Quantum leaps and more performant systems

I am sure I am not supposed to whinge when blogging but this itch needs scratching.

Far too often I hear, typically pedantic, technical folk explain the latest and greatest technology in the following way: "... and the wonder-widget can lead to a quantum leap in performance and scalability...". Do they really mean to say that the "wonder-widget" gives rise to the smallest measurable improvement in performance and scalability? Given the context of the pitch and fervour of the orator, I doubt it. How, when used as an adjective, did this come to mean a "significant" amount? Quantum mechanics is all about the small stuff.

The other one that really grates is "performant". Tweaking the threading and fiddling the concurrency will deliver the most performant system. It may deliver a high-performance system, or a highly-efficient system, or maybe even a well-performing system - just not a performant system. Performant means "a performer" as in "an actor".

Somehow these uses have forced themselves into mainstream use and the language will adapt and adopt them. Grrrr.

Published 31 October 2007 20:53 by James.Saull

Comments

 

talleyrand said:

Your post begs the penultimate question:  do people really understand the words and phrases they use?

And now that I've thoroughly scrubbed my tongue and fingers with soap, I was about to use "performant" the other day when I paused and asked myself whether I was really using that word properly.  A glance at my dictionary cleared up my near misuse.  I think most people don't actually take the step of looking up an unfamiliar word to understand what it means, especially when it sounds impressive.  That at least is my theory on it.  At any rate, you have at least one reader that says blog on with incorrect word usages.

November 1, 2007 17:50
 

john.rayner said:

It's amusing that you are calling the other people pedants ...

You may consider the quantum leap of an electron to be very small.  However, if you are the electron then a quantum leap will be a pretty big deal.  So one would have to conclude that it's a relative term and rooted in your sense of scale.

November 7, 2007 01:22
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