Man, I hate the word content.
wise_pancake 83 points a year ago
I’m content with it
chunes 10 points a year ago
Me too. Ever since I read Richard Stallman's words to avoid article. I kinda wish I hadn't read it now lmao.
StellarSt0rm 4 points a year ago
I'll definitely read it start to end when I have the time later, for now this is my favourite part of the article (Of the parts I skimmed through):
“Bullshit generators” is a suitable term for large language models (“LLMs”) such as ChatGPT, that generate smooth-sounding verbiage that appears to assert things about the world, without understanding that verbiage semantically.
UnityDevice 2 points a year ago
path: 0 17203357 17204843 17220530, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
DrSteveBrule 2 points a year ago
Contained in the app you use, video you watch, article you read, page of a book, sentence in a paragraph, etc.
Grandwolf319 7 points a year ago
It’s not the word, it’s the reductionism.
We used to call all those media except people naturally didn’t want to lump them all together.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 2 points a year ago
Then: Fire, Rocks
kamen 67 points a year ago
People are onto something though - there's been a noticeable shift from social media just showing you your feed in a chronological manner to it showing you personally tailored content that shuffles on each refresh and aims to hook you into endless doomscrolling. I understand perfectly well what's an algorithm, but good luck explaining to people that it's not that specific thing.
andioop 21 points a year ago
Some people actively desire this kind of algorithm because they find it easier to find content they like this way. I'm not sure if they are immune to doomscrolling and actually have gotten it to work in a way that serves them and doesn't involve doomscrolling, or if they are doomscrolling and okay with it. But for me, I really wish I could go back to the chronological feed era.
GamingChairModel 28 points a year ago
Some people actively desire this kind of algorithm because they find it easier to find content they like this way.
Raw chronological order tends to overweight the frequent posters. If you follow someone who posts 10 times a day, and 99 people who post once a week, your feed will be dominated by 1% of the users representing 40% of the posts you see.
One simple algorithm that is almost always better for user experiences is to retrieve the most recent X posts from each of the followed accounts and then sort that by chronological order. Once you're doing that, though, you're probably thinking about ways to optimize the experience in other ways. What should the value of X be? Do you want to hide posts the user has already seen, unless there's been a lot of comment/followup activity? Do you want to prioritize posts in which the user was specifically tagged in a comment? Or the post itself? If so, how much?
It's a non-trivial problem that would require thoughtful design, even for a zero advertising, zero profit motive service.
pelespirit 12 points a year ago
Letting the user decide? If the user decided that they liked fly fishing 8 stars and mother-in-law 0 stars, then the algorithm would show mother-in-law once a week at best and fly fishing 8x out of 10 posts.
ulterno 3 points a year ago
It tends to be hit or miss.
When I started using Odysee instead of YouTube, my page was full of "women vs men", woke culture and onlyfans-esque videos.
I realised, subscribing to a creator actually made a big difference in this case, to get them on you page, because it's not a feed (controlled by an algo), but a simple, categorised list, with the "Following" on top.
In contrast to that, the YouTube's algorithm tended to create relations between videos (using who knows how many criteria) and showed them along with videos from the subscribed and more-often-viewed channels. It used to show some pretty useful results and it would be a crime for me to downplay its usefulness.
Sadly, by the time I left YouTube, it had started putting the doomscroll content on my page, which is probably another reason for why I stopped using it.
I would call it: Another great mechanism, ruined by capitalism.
piccolo 8 points a year ago
Other day me and my mom was talking about how TV has all shifted to be nothing but reality TV... and then she said even youtube is becoming the same way... im like uh... thats because thats because you are watching it thus it is giving you more...
ChickenLadyLovesLife 16 points a year ago
If you walk with algorithm, you won't attract the worm.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 3 points a year ago
I was actually referencing Fatboy Slim referencing Dune.
BradleyUffner 8 points a year ago
Manipulation
calcopiritus 7 points a year ago
Engagement based personalized recommendations.
GamingChairModel 6 points a year ago
It's because Al Gore invented the internet, so they are known as Al Gore Rhythms.
snowsuit2654 6 points a year ago
path: 0 17205864 17208271 17209480, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
ThatGuy46475 1 point a year ago
An algorhythm
kameecoding 8 points a year ago
Let's not tell them that by definition both a shopping list and a recipe are algorithms.
namingthingsiseasy 1 point a year ago
Can you put some milk on the algorithm please?
Grandwolf319 1 point a year ago
Depends how broad your definition of algorithm is. Is sort by upvotes an algorithm? I say no but sort by hot is.
So it is possible by this definition to have a feed without any algorithm.
dragonfucker -1 points a year ago
What if it uses a neural network to recommend posts?
_stranger_ 87 points a year ago
I call everything a script. Makes the Java devs real mad. Makes the PM's super confused.
NeatNit 41 points a year ago
sqlite is technically just one C source file, so that's definitely a script.
_stranger_ 5 points a year ago
They hate to hear it.
SculptusPoe 61 points a year ago
I fought hard against that for years. I still only use 'app' for phone programs, but I stopped correcting people every time they used the term for anything else. It isn't technically wrong, but it grates on my nerves for some reason.
GamingChairModel 5 points a year ago
Windows is the first thing I can think of that used the word "application" in that way, I think even back before Windows could be considered an OS (and had a dependency on MS-DOS). Back then, the Windows API referred to the Application Programming Interface.
Here's a Windows 3.1 programming guide from 1992 that freely refers to programs as applications:
Common dialog boxes make it easier for you to develop applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system. A common dialog box is a dialog box that an application displays by calling a single function rather than by creating a dialog box procedure and a resource file containing a dialog box template.
SculptusPoe 2 points a year ago
I don't have a single problem with the word "application"
Feathercrown 5 points a year ago
It isn’t technically wrong
SculptusPoe 1 point a year ago
Yeah, I thought I made that clear. I just don't like it.
SculptusPoe 5 points a year ago
Oh, it is. It is... Sigh.
TrickDacy 4 points a year ago
A lot of times, the literal definition varies from what people think of when they hear a thing. We call a lot of similar things words that don't fully make sense but since other people will know what it means, it's useful. When everything is an app, piles of specifics are glossed over. That probably doesn't matter when talking to a non-developer, but sometimes it might. Those of us in software like the specificity because it tells us many things we might otherwise have to ask several questions to learn about. So yeah, sometimes it matters, other times it won't.
Goretantath 2 points a year ago
Everyone that goes " thats fire yo!" I spritz with a spraybottle.
SculptusPoe 0 points a year ago
As is your right and duty.
SleepingInTraffic 58 points a year ago
Everything is a file
whatwhatwhatwhat 33 points a year ago
I’d call that a file loaded to memory
whatwhatwhatwhat 4 points a year ago
That’s true! I supposed it would be more precise to say that all processes are files loaded to memory, but not all files loaded to memory are processes. Sort of like the whole arachnids / spiders situation.
PoopingCough 9 points a year ago
I mean, with virtualization that's pretty much true
NigelFrobisher 1 point a year ago
Files are just streams. Everything is just a stream, in real life too.
Initiateofthevoid 36 points a year ago path: 0 17206661, hotness: undefined, score: 36, children: 6
GamingChairModel 15 points a year ago
Um excuse me the preferred term is "AI agent" if you want outside investment
ChickenLadyLovesLife 6 points a year ago
I had a (non-technical) manager come to me one day and say he wanted us to start using this hot new technology he had just read about called an API. This was in 2010. He showed me the article, which somehow never even attempted to explain what an API actually was. I just laughed and said I would make it an action item.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 2 points a year ago
The term dates to 1974 (1968 if you accept "Application Program Interface"). The concept is decades older than that. My boss was just a fucking moron.
dufkm 6 points a year ago
In similar cases I've passive-aggressively intentionally misunderstood and/or acted confused. E.g. "Yes, we can set ut up an API between X and Y, but what exactly do you want the bot to do?" Then let them elaborate until it's clear they're not asking for a bot.
ByteOnBikes 4 points a year ago
You folks still say bot? I my company, we say AI.
NocturnalMorning 36 points a year ago
And now the kids don't know what a file path is anymore. Legit my wife is a professor, and she gets adeer in the headlight look when she is helping students debug code and she mentions a file path not being right in there code.
Serious response, no joke... what's a file path?
These are sophomores and Juniors in college.
Piatro 32 points a year ago
These are sophomores and Juniors in college.
... Who grew up in a world where computer internals were abstracted away so you never needed to know what a file was or even that they exist. I wouldn't know what a file was either if I didn't grow up in exactly the right time frame and have a dad who hoarded DOS PCs.
NocturnalMorning 15 points a year ago
Oh no, I get why they don't know what one is. It just makes teaching coding to them very difficult.
sheogorath 3 points a year ago
I lucked out having a dad who's into computers so I had the chance to tinker with his old stuff since I was a little bwoah.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 3 points a year ago
I think they meant "a file path not being right in that there code".
nullPointer 2 points a year ago
the blank stares you get when mentioning the word "directory"
fibojoly 36 points a year ago
What I hate even more, is that the morons who can't read more than two syllables decided to shorten "application" to "app", but now I only ever hear people reading that as "ay pee pee"! What was the fucking point?
piranhaconda 42 points a year ago
I've literally never heard anyone call it A.P.P. (and I mean that literally literally, not figuratively literally)
Is this a specific cultural thing? A generational thing? Geography based slang? Why would anyone do this.
Capsicones 12 points a year ago
Chinese phonology doesn't allow for the pronunciation of "app", for example. I see a lot of Chinese people spelling it as "APP", and pronouncing it accordingly. It's kinda funny to me, since the Mandarin word "yingyong" is only two syllables. "APP" just seems more cumbersome by all account, yet it has become inexplicably popular.
RagingRobot 9 points a year ago
Yingyong sounds cool. It's got yoyo vibes
DragonTypeWyvern 4 points a year ago
Ping pong
A7thStone 1 point a year ago
path: 0 17211571 17211839 17213997 17216079 17220299, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
irelephant 1 point a year ago
Eh, that kinda works out.
adminofoz 6 points a year ago
I mean, I'm pretty sure this is extremely widespread in China, so I'd say it's more cultural than anything else. In fact, since there are so many Chinese, that probably means more people call it A.P.P. than app. But I honestly have no clue, and it doesn't matter to me either way. Words change. It's nothing to get bent out of shape about.
houseofleft 5 points a year ago
This, 100% It's like how people started saying "PC" because personal computer was too long for them, but now I exclusively hear people taking up to a minute on each letter! (peeeeeeee-seeeeeeee)
Grandwolf319 34 points a year ago
Yes but imo patch is now update
bier 33 points a year ago
In the Netherlands basically everyone uses whatsapp. In the beginning people would say send me a whatsapp or something like that. But pretty quickly people started to shorten it to just app. So people will say stuff like I just got an app (instead of message), it drives me nuts. Like my family chat group is called "app group".
QuazarOmega 2 points a year ago
Lmaoo, Italian here too, I never had the pleasure to see that slip up, where have you seen it on usually?
QuazarOmega 1 point a year ago
Guess not, not yet at least
EvilCartyen 1 point a year ago
That's funny, especially since no one wants a new app on their phone. Right?
Phen 31 points a year ago
A long time ago I joined a new remote-first company and in my first month they made an event where they brought in all employees from all over the world for a week at a farm hotel for a mix or meetings and leisure activities.
In one specific meeting the CEO was talking app this app that and I was very confused. The product was a server side program that had a web client, an electron app and two native mobile apps. But the CEO was talking about things that didn't make sense for those apps.
At some point I interrupted the meeting and asked for clarification: what are you talking about when you say app? It's not the mobile apps?
The CEO made a funny face and mentioned an engineer. I looked at him and he had a smug face and said something along the lines of "well, go on, explain it". CEO then explained he was talking about the new big project, which was basically an extension system for the server product - and the extensions would be called apps.
That night I found that engineer at the hotel bar and asked more details about it. Turns out he was the team lead on this project and he hated the term "apps" for it and had been very vocal about it before, saying among other things that it would cause confusion with the client apps we have. Most of the company agreed with him at the time but the CEO demanded it be named apps anyway.
These days everyone there thinks that naming it apps was the right call, but I always hated having to refer to them as "server extension app" to avoid any confusion, specially because I often worked on integrations with third party tools and those tools also had their own stuff called apps so instead of just saying something like "the Kabum extension" I had to say "the ChaChin server Kabum app" (as in this example's context there would also be multiple Kabum clients and ChaChin clients that would all be known as apps too)
Phen 3 points a year ago
I simply translated literally a term that exists in my language and didn't realize it wasn't really a thing in English.
A farm hotel is a hotel that is focused on leisure activities, usually connected to nature and often established in what would otherwise have been a farm. They tend to have ponds and lots of trees, flowers and sometimes animals too. They tend to also have areas for private events so that companies can bring their folks to stay there for a few days for meetings and presentations.
The one we were at had access to some pristine rivers where we could practice snorkeling, had some beautiful grottos we could enter, some trails for walking through the woods and also access to other rivers for several water sports. Some of those were provided by the hotel itself and others were general touristic attractions from that region.
bandwidthcrisis 9 points a year ago
I think I heard "applet" being mentioned for embedded java or something in the early 2000s. I don't know if that's connected.
angstylittlecatboy 4 points a year ago
Apple didn't invent the word "app," but I do think they pushed it because it was adjacent to the company's name.
oo1 3 points a year ago
I thought applet came first. Then "web apps" - but i think that's a windows perspective.
This claims they came from NEXT which apple bought in the 90s. https://www.trekbbs.com/...
The thread also refers to bitmap image files as bumps which I'd still do if I ever saw a bump again. So the thread is legitimate.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 4 points a year ago
I've been coding since the '80s. I've never once heard anyone refer to a bitmap as a "bump".
bandwidthcrisis 13 points a year ago
Web browser? "app". Web page? "app". Dialog box? "app". Phone app that's just a thin shell for the web site? "appapp".
ChickenLadyLovesLife 3 points a year ago
Appetizer at Applebee's? "app"
This one probably drives me the most crazy.
ProfessorProteus 11 points a year ago
I felt like I was alone in being frustrated at this trend. However I found a bit of relief to discover, through messing around in a Win98 virtual machine, that they were occasionally using the term "app" back then as well. Of course it wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now, but whatever.
Also I thought I'd never see the Xbox kid meme again. What an unexpected throwback!
perishthethought 10 points a year ago
This is really, "what techs call it" and "what non-techs call it".
As a tech, I usually know what someone means when they "app".
It's "glitch" that drives me mad though. Glitch sounds like a ghost caused the error one tine only, versus some lazy coder.
Lv_InSaNe_vL 7 points a year ago
To be fair i would consider a glitch to be closer to a ghost causing it than a lazy developer.
I consider a "bug" to be something caused by the code (bad error handling, bad logic, etc) and a "glitch" to be something more random or environmental
perishthethought 2 points a year ago
Yes! Agreed. But for some reason, the only word everyone uses these days is "glitch". And I don't know why, but that really fries my grits.
thatonecoder 5 points a year ago
You should check the Cloud to Butt extension. It is immature, but it can make you laugh
MTK 8 points a year ago
I powered on my computer, my app started, which started my main app, which started my essential apps, which started my app that I use to open my other app, which I use to go to my other app that I use to watch other apps being used by otgher people.
You will get an invisible candy if you can correctly decode this.
marzhall 7 points a year ago
I'll bite: I powered on my computer. My bios started which started my init process, which started my daemons, which started my login manager (maybe slim), which started my DE (maybe gnome), which I use to go to my browser in order to watch other people stream video games.
I'm dicey on what the browser is being used for - maybe security software? - but I feel like it's plausible.
RedFrank24 5 points a year ago
What's the difference between an application and a program?
blockheadjt 6 points a year ago
Historically, an app is something with very limited uses, and a program is more powerful.
Adobe PhotoShop is a program. Apple Photos is an app.
qjkxbmwvz 4 points a year ago
I'd say it gets a little different with command line utilities --- maybe "utility" is the appropriate term here, but I'd call something like grep a program, not an application (again --- "utility" also works).
To be sure, grep is extremely powerful, but its scope is limited.
some_guy 4 points a year ago
The original Macintosh had an Applications folder. App is what I use to cut through tech speak for people at work because the shortcut is less daunting. They have apps on their phone. They must not be scary like Programs and Applications.
calcopiritus 2 points a year ago
I don't think there's a clear definition of either. I'd say if it has no UI, it's a program. And if it has a UI, I don't know if it's a program or an app.
SendMePhotos 4 points a year ago
Make it stop!
angstylittlecatboy 4 points a year ago
Who has ever called a batch file an app
OmegaLemmy 21 points a year ago
My end users
Retrograde 3 points a year ago
Powershell is a fortnite expansion right?
Andromxda 4 points a year ago
library = app
object code = app
machine code = app
binary = app
linker = app
bits = app
data = app
state = app
stack = app
heap = app
variables = app
memory allocator = app
memory = app
transistors = app
silicon = app
wires = app
pcb = app
electrons = app
leptons = app
GamingChairModel 3 points a year ago
But also, you're right. Here's an article from 1994 describing Visicalc as a "Killer App" from the late 1970's, that prompted people to buy personal computers.
GamingChairModel 1 point a year ago
"Killer rap" was pretty popular in the 90's too.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 1 point a year ago
You're thinking of "gangster app".
dejected_warp_core 3 points a year ago
It's worse if you have ever worked in food service. "App" is short for "appetizer".
::cries in very specific form of confusion::
CodiUnicorn 2 points a year ago
Vitally....
JimVanDeventer 1 point a year ago
The word app has been around forever, first appearing in the 1970s (according to some dictionaries I just googled). Pendulum swung towards “programs” and we have since swung back to the correct term.
irelephant 0 points a year ago
The meme is good and all, but seeing it makes me feel irrationally annoyed because the first place I saw it was a rascist pleroma (fediverse software; mastodon but rasict) instance that had it embedded in the frontend. This just reminds me of it.
paraphrand -2 points a year ago
This is nonsense.
programmer_humor
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programmer_humor
@programming.dev
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Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
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- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
- If the mod doesn't find it funny, you're banned. Ha-ha!... For real: do not use the community for "statements". There are other places for such content. Keep it chill and funny.
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