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Comment by sublinear | Hacker News Reader

> They _insure_ the outcomes that positive engineering tools are used to achieve.

Ugh such a tacky abuse of words. Context around that sentence implies it should be "ensure". No, this is just yet another ad promoting gimmicky work for consultants to sell.

I understand HN is definitely the place to post this stuff, but I was expecting something more interesting.

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The context around that sentence does quite explicitly intends to insure the outcomes because you can't really ensure it. I mean, the paragraph literally starts with "Insurance as code”.

You insure _against_ something. You ensure something. GP is right.

If you're talking about the grammar, then the phrase "My car is insured" is fine. You aren't required to specify what it's insured against; that can be left implicit.

If you're talking about the language, insurance is wrong: retries do ensure positive outcomes. However, assurance is wrong as well: unlike retries, observability tools don't ensure positive outcomes, they just mitigate the negative ones.

It's just bad writing, using a tortured metaphor to explain a definition that doesn't make any sense.

You also drink ensure, if you're old enough.

I think it's emphasised exactly to avoid it being misread as 'ensure', I don't read it as an intended pun. Doesn't really make sense to 'ensure the outcomes', you 'ensure a good outcome' or something.

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