Re: word of the day

Subject: Re: word of the day
From: Ed <glassnet -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 09:00:38 -0500

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 2:57 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin
<Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> I thought there was another term that nicely indicated a style of command-driven utility that started, accepted multiple commands, or just sat there, until actively dismissed - versus one that you call with all the parameters it's going to need, and it goes entirely away as soon as it completes the one task.

I'm documenting Windows and Solaris, used for intelligence analysis
applications. There are plenty of scripts that have grown up over the
years to install, configure, and maintain the applications. I'm
talking scripts here. These can be dissected with a text editor.

We call them scripts, and say that the script executes (or runs), and
at some point may present a prompt for user input.

Your post suggests, though, that these may be executable, compiled
programs. If so, I would call them programs. They also present a
prompt for user input. If nothing is entered, they may wait forever,
or hopefully time out gracefully.

At the beginning of your post you said the OS doesn't matter. But it
does. There are category names that UNIX people use, and these may or
may not agree with what a Windows admin or user might use. Solaris and
Linux each have dialects, as they address different users and needs.

The pejorative Windoze term is pretty old hat, too. I would define the
question without going there.


--
Ed
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References:
word of the day: From: McLauchlan, Kevin

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