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Comment by josephschmoe | Hacker News Reader

"built a new system—known as a software “framework,” in engineering speak"

Hearing the words "engineering speak" bothers me. Wired knows a significant portion of its readers are engineers, right?

Saying just software framework would have probably been fine. Humans are pretty good at inferring the meaning of words from context...

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> Wired knows a significant portion of its readers are engineers, right?

I seem to recall that Wired was widely regarded poorly in the technical community as early as the turn of the millenium and that it has long been viewed as something read by non-technical folks who want to feel "plugged in" to technology.

So, I'd kind of be surprised if it was really the case that a "significant portion" of Wired's readers were engineers.

That's my impression of Wired as well, but this still seems a bit egregious even for a layman's tech news site.

I feel like Wired goes back and forth a lot - some of their articles (on a number of topics, not just computer-related) are pleasingly technical and I've really enjoyed them, and some feel really watered down. Probably, it depends on the individual writer.

I remember reading a feature in Wired 10+ years ago about how processors were made that went into some quantum details and basically never stopped to take a breath. It was refreshing to see a publication simply assume you were smart enough to read, and thus smart enough to follow along (or look up the hard words yourself). I guess times have changed a bit.

I had the same thought when I saw that and the line "Much of this is thanks to a sweeping effort to rebuild the site using a software programming technology called Scala". I had to double check that I was reading something on wired.com. It seems even more excessively watered down than usual.

Just be glad it wasn't "boffin speak" as the contemptuous British press are so fond of.

Saying engineers sound like scientists is like saying Brits sound like Scots.

Sure, they understand each other, but it's a whole different dialect.

I like the word "boffin". It seems like it is used to denigrate others less frequently than similar words (including "engineer" itself, which in some circles and situations is implicitly understood to be an insult).

or just "system."

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