What different terms mean the same thing (or don't, but people think they do)? [closed]

Answer 1

One that really turned my head around was someone in my QA department referring to a null value and a blank value as being one and the same. I smiled and asked if they were serious and they said, "of course they're the same." I tried to explain as simply as I could that they were not the same and it just didn't register with them.

/matt

Answer 2

Whenever dealing with Departments of Education you must learn that "system" means software and "technology" means hardware.

Answer 3

Host == Server

.. Which is untrue :)

Answer 4

AJAX and Javascript.
A lot of times I hear semi-technical people interchanging the two terms. Like: "Can't you animate that image using AJAX". Which is of course just plain javascript.

Answer 5

There are 180 pages of preferred terms in the "Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications," which is a great book for technical writers, but I think programmers should have it too.

Many of the entries mention unacceptable (or outdated) equivalents.

Example: "system tray Do not use. Use notification area instead."

Answer 6

hard disk drive = computer