Re: What is the best term to use?

[Janice Gelb <Janice -dot- Gelb -at- Sun -dot- COM>]

Lauren wrote:
>> From: Janice Gelb
> 
>> I would definitely advise against calling the discrete
>> entities "applications" as I think users pretty much
>> think of an "application" as the whole shebang. And
>> "applet" has a pretty specific technical meaning too,
>> I think.
> 
> Applet refers to an application within an application.  Beyond that, there
> really isn't a great deal of specifity in the term.
> 
[snip]
> 
> We need to remain flexible as web technology grows and accept that we will
> need new terms or new definitions to old terms, but, as technical
> communicators, we also need to remain ardent in maintaining cogent terms for
> elements within web applications, or any application.  How do we communicate
> a thing, any *thing*, if every application developer has a different name
> for the thing?  I think that in this case, the technical communicator has a
> bit of duty to determine the term that is used.  
> 

I have to agree. Most of the definitions I've found
for "applet," however, don't seem to be congruent with
using the term to mean any application within another
application. See http://www.answers.com/topic/applet

It certainly means an application running within the
framework of another application but in the context
in which Zen asked the question, I don't think that
the term "applet" is appropriate. You might be using
it in your interface but I still think that technically
it's not what Zen described. Even the most general
definition says "An applet usually performs a very narrow
function that has no independent use." That doesn't seem
to me to fit a term to be used for several different
collections of grouped options.

-- Janice

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-- Janice


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