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Comment by trixie_ | Hacker News Reader

I didn't know the word 'propagation' implied a specific method by which data is propagated (push/pull).

It doesn’t.

Sadly, the author hasn’t even realised their own flawed assumption, despite contributing plenty of words sledging those of others. The hint, from the text, is how you can practically hear the agitated airquotes around propagate.

What's more, the DNS does conventionally distribute zone updates via notification from master to replica. Despite its relevancy this mechanism is not discussed; in fact the word zone does not appear at all in this article, which is hoist with its own petard in presenting a half-baked model of the DNS.

It probably doesn't, but I think "to propagate" is easily deemed an active engagement as opposed to a passive one. eg. while one can propagate an idea by doing nothing but waiting for people to come to them, I'd expect most people to assume "let's propagate this new idea" to mean a more active role in disseminating it — even if not quite directly reaching out to people.

Would you assume some particular method of transfer was in play if someone said “the idea propagated out from the capital city”? To me it could be any number of ways, but in the end it spread out. It sounds like some people take this usage to mean the only possibility is that people from the capital city must have been going out and evangelizing it actively, not that people were visiting the capital and hearing it or something.

> It sounds like some people...

I'd be that person. "Propagate" strongly implies a push model to me; parent-to-child reproduction like an organism.

I've always read it as a purposeful lack of describing effect. A word used when you don't want to address the "how" question, just that the spread happened.

Exactly, I think that’s a better way to describe it. “Propagation occurred from inside out, rather than outside in” is talking about a state changing over time, but saying nothing about how that happened.

That isn't how organisms reproduce, either.

I was actually careful not to equate "active" with "directly reaching out to people," but taking any active means of furthering the spread of the idea.

And, yes, I'd personally consider word-of-mouth to be largely push-based. But I concede it could just as well be people asking (perhaps too many) questions.

Yes, my conception of "propagate" is "the data gets there one way or another", and by using "propagate" the specifics of whether or not it's a push or pull model is unimportant. Good to know not everyone sees it that way though; that'll help when writing for others

"3. (with reference to motion, light, sound, etc.) transmit or be transmitted in a particular direction or through a medium"

This is the third definition the search engine I use returns for the term, and by it you are indeed correct. The direction, and method are unspecified.

In other words, the term "propagation" is quite likely not the source of people's confusion that the original blog post thinks it is. It's great that they investigated for themselves and figured out what's going on, and wrote up an explanation of it. That's useful, but note the section of the post 'okay, DNS records actually do “propagate”.'. By taking issue with the term "propagate" they've just muddied the waters yet again.

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