Kind of how you'd say you have a dashboard for your business to see metrics in real time (as opposed to some kind of daily report).
I think that usage of real time is very common outside of a pure engineering sense, so you're being a bit of a stickler by being annoyed at this specific instance ;)
My Phoenix channels, your rails action cable, your web sockets: soft real-time.
Real-time was reserved for true real time guaranteed delivery times.
I think calling it a "streaming" or "live streaming" interface is a better descriptor than "real-time".
> I think that usage of real time is very common outside of a pure engineering sense
Maybe, but we're talking about the software engineering world here aren't we? I think we should seek to be precise with our terminology and try to avoid unnecessary ambiguity.
I think both uses of the term are acceptable in their different contexts. (But yes I also agree "streaming" is a very good term.)
The non strict usage is far more common then the term of art. One would be well advised not to assume "real time" is being used as a term of art unless specifically called out, or clear from the context.
I'd say common usage of the phrase "real time," means with respect to human perception, and that is how its being used here.
So do you consider YouTube a real-time system? After all, images are moving on your screen "in real-time" from the user's perspective.
It seems to me that these are all streaming systems, and when the data is "live", then it's "live streaming".
Even colloquially, I hazard that "real-time" has some implication that there's some correspondance between your temporal reference frame and the original temporal reference frame. I think the engineering definition just made that correspondance precise.
Yes people do say "real time playback" with respect to video. Generally, however, that is only noteworthy to call out when its unusual. Such as "real time 16k playback."
It's been 5 years since I've worked in that industry, but I still view the use of "real-time" the same way and can understand some people's issue with the term in this case.