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While saying ditto to this - cereris paribus, if it's a session, call it
a session - I'd like to draw a tangent here concerning the pros and cons
of repetitive text, and the instinct to find different ways to say the
same thing.
It took me years to dispatch that instinct, but now it's finally dead,
and (professionally at least) I don't miss it. It looks terrible to most
humans if you use the same phraseology over and over, but what you gain
is technical clarity. Yes, you're running a session here. And a session
here. And a session here. And a session here...
I haven't seen the text in question of course. If it's genuinely hard or
confusing to read (or too awful to write), how about creating a
bulletized list or a table that describes all the darn sessions that
might run?
HTH,
David
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+dhandy=informatica -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+dhandy=informatica -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Bill Swallow
Sent: 12 June 2009 15:56
To: McLauchlan, Kevin
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Session session session...
If it's called a session and is understood as a session, then use
session. Adding additional non-standard terminology can confuse people.
If you need to explain what a session is, then non-standard terms are
great. But when talking about sessions, best to call them what they are:
sessions.
On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 10:33 AM, McLauchlan,
Kevin<Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Those of you writing about products that involve communication
> between/among electronic devices, do you know of a good synonym for
> "session"?
>
> In a situation where several levels of communication are going on
> simultaneously, several "sessions" might be set up and torn down among
> devices and processes. It gets a little sticky, if not repetitive to
> use "session" in too many places, especially two or three times (about
> two or three links) in a single sentence.
>
> So yes, I use "link" in some places (which is lightweight considering
> that "session" implies more structure to the connection. (Yes, I'm
> aware I just said "connection", so I'm asking if that too would carry
> the same weight with you as "session" in the sense of a protocolled,
> stratified, time-or-condition-bounded exchange of information among
> devices, stacks,
> etc.)
>
> "Interaction" is too lame and unbounded for the purpose. So is
> interface, given how I've used it elsewhere.
>
> The paper thesaurus and the online ones all lean heavily toward
> confabs of humans, not of devices and systems.
>
> Thoughts?
Available for contract and full time opportunities. No, I don't do
birthday parties.
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