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Comment by 2four2 | Hacker News Reader

Okay I gotta be honest, and maybe I'm a little ignorant, but when did we start saying compute instead of computation? I feel like I went away on vacation and missed out on an in-joke. Should I be saying compute instead?

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I think of "compute" as referring to the resources for computations, rather than the computations themselves. For instance "compute-intensive" for an algorithm means that it is expensive in terms of computation resources, i.e. CPU cycles, as opposed to say I/O or network usage or something. Sometimes it refers to the actual physical hardware, sometimes to the theoretical resource of CPU time.

It's been commonly used as a noun in the HPC / scientific computing space for a long time (relevant to this thread) typically talking about "compute bound" and "memory bound" algorithms. It's spilled over everywhere now that number crunching is hip for machine learning.

This exact topic came up in another thread a.few months ago, and I did some digging:

I believe the term "compute node" was first used in the context of the Intel ASCI Red supercomputer that was installed at Sandia in 1997. This later led to the Cray XT3, XT4, XT5 families of machines that used the same terminology.

But I believe the term was not in generic usage outside of those specific supercomputers until around 2005-2010.

And it is more recently that the term has been extended beyond referring to hardware.

Compute as a noun may be a newer usage, but a noun sharing the same form as the verb is common in English, so it at least conforms to the patterns of the language.

For example dispute/disputation or repute/reputation ("a person of ill repute").

It looks like the general trend of truncating nouns down to the verb they're based on instead of requiring the noun-ified form. You may have seen these:

1) an invitation to the party -> an invite to the party

2) I like that quotation. -> I like that quote.

3) I gave him a consultation. -> I gave him a consult.

You could even count:

4) What's the request? -> What's the ask?

Also, broken English seen on receptacle in China:

5) "The environment needs your conserve." (instead of "conservation")

'Compute' connotes hardware, 'computation' does not.

Thank you! I always just assumed the difference was verb/noun.

Rather, 'compute' is a verb, 'computation' is a noun, and 'computationally' is an adverb (which is the most appropriate choice in the context of GGP's statement). All of these words refer to the same concept and may involve hardware computers (a more modern use of these words) or people-as-computers (the older, but still valid, use of the words).

Digging more into other internet discussions, a lot of people disagree about the usage. Many believe it's fine to use compute as a noun since it's a truncation of compute resources or compute nodes. Seems like an industry shibboleth like how data/stats people say "data" as a countable plural.

"Compute" as used upthread is in fact a noun. That's the point, it's a new word. And sort of a dumb one, but new nonetheless.

I think Compute is a gerund (a noun derived from a verb, like “swimming” as in the activity.)

People favor shorter words for common concepts. We've started needing something equivalent to the 4-syllable "computation" frequently lately, so we nouned the verb "compute."

In the short-term, I think both words are fine. If it matters, use whichever one will best help you achieve your goals (e.g., if you're talking to a person who frequently uses n>>1 devices to perform computationally intensive workloads, you'll probably sound very mildly out-of-place nowadays if you don't choose "compute," which may or may not be the image you want to portray of yourself).

Slightly longer term, I expect this will be one of those cases where dictionaries and pedants try to settle the matter, nobody complies, and we have a "gray" vs "grey" scenario indefinitely. Beyond the next year or two I'm hesitant to place bets on the multitude of possible outcomes.

Way off-topic, patterns of speech like that might be a fun way to fingerprint the training data used for an LLM.

"compute" is used by the same people who call a collection of things a "stack".

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