Sunday, February 19, 2012

Gripe: interoperability

Today I got the latest propaganda email from MSFT talking about XML and
interoperability. It's been bothering me all day and while the notion
of interoperability is good -- the ability to interact with disparate
heterogeneous platforms and protocols -- what really bugs me is the
choice of words.

Interoperability has 8 syllables, only 6 syllables shy of
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". Plus Inter implies movement
between objects. When you fly between countries, it's going
international. When we're sending something within the company
firewall, we're working inside the intranet. However, we're not moving
between "operabilities".

What is operability? To operate; to use. The operator; the user.
Operable; usable or state of usefulness. Operability; WTF? If one
moment I was driving in my car and the next, I wreck my car -- then my
car has changed its state of usefulness. So my car experienced
interoperability?

Anyways...I found this old IEEE article about Interoperability. I still think
interoperability is a mouthful.

ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pu...ll/98SEP-CD.pdf

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