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Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

"real-time" - You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The term “real-time” generally has a different meaning in the context of web development than in the context of systems programming. A lot of people in these comments seem to be making fun of the author for using the term in a different context than they’re used to.

I know. I was being a little snarky, but I'm also trying to make a point.

The problem is that one of the (most commonly accepted, if not official) meanings of "real-time" is a system that guarantees response within a specific time period. Usually this is a pretty small time period. So also using the term to refer to systems where there is actually no limit on the response time creates a problem.

If we allow "real-time" to be used to represent anything interactive, then how can we make clear when we're actually talking about a real-time system? Really real-time? Legit real-time?

Real time as you define it isn't even a single concept since we have hard vs soft real time. Maybe this can be called super-soft real time? I jest but the definition is already muddied.

I think it's worth pointing it out to the author so in the future they can use different terminology that doesn't conflict with existing usage in software development. Some collision in terminology is inevitable, but it's nice to avoid if possible.

I mean, even though I've never done real-time programming and probably never will, I don't treat the term as up for grabs. I like that I know what "real-time" means when I hear it, so I (e.g.) gently steer coworkers towards different terminology every time they try to label something we do "real time."

So what is the recommended alternative terminology? For example, how would you characterize the type of collaboration that happens in Google Docs, or the type of communication that happens in a chat?

I think it would be fine to contextualize it as "collaboration". E.g., "real-time collaboration app". You might also say immediate, instant, simultaneous, or live collaboration. Or you could be more specific about the context. Etherpad, for example describes itself as "Etherpad allows you to edit documents collaboratively in real-time, much like a live multi-player editor that runs in your browser."

I'm not a web developer, so I wouldn't be the best person to ask, but the key aspect is that the server pushes data to the browser as soon as it gets it rather than waiting for it to be requested, right? You could call it "low-latency push" or "low-latency remote interaction" or something like that.

Or you could cut to the chase and call it "websockets." socket.io supports other technologies for ancient browsers, but that's a detail that could be addressed in the post.

I'm on the fence, having done embedded work, I understand the importance of hard-/soft-realtime distinctions.

Our technical terms to some extent do need to be gate-kept against having their meanings watered down, but I've seen so many "realtime" browser projects, that I'm afraid we have to accept it has entered into the common vernacular like "serverless" has, in spite of the inaccuracies.

I think the context is supposed to be "web application for interacting in real-time [as opposed to more-significantly-delayed time]" versus "real-time computing" in spite of the term "real-time application"

Yep, he means an interactive websockets app. Title should be corrected to reflect that.

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