OAuth: "It’s like hiring a gardener for your second home in Spain."
May 3, 2017 1:39 PM   Subscribe

Sideways Dictionary: Using analogies to explain concepts in technology. A project of Jigsaw and the Washington Post.
posted by Cash4Lead (49 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Never in my life have I felt so close to exploding in pedantic rage.
posted by advicepig at 1:43 PM on May 3, 2017 [14 favorites]


It reads like a deliberate provocation.
posted by The Gaffer at 1:49 PM on May 3, 2017 [14 favorites]


Some of these are good, but this Nick Asbury who contributed most of the content seems to be unclear on the meanings of both net neutrality and analogy.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:52 PM on May 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


Nearly all of these give the illusion of knowledge, I think. I understood what an API was when I implemented one and not a damn minute before. Same with a neural net, same with a programming language and compiler, same with a server, firewall, Merckle tree, quicksort routine...
posted by hleehowon at 1:56 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


Grabbed Agile, trying to figure it out. It's like finishing your boat after launch, just having a hull and sail? So working Agile means bailing water constantly and praying for the coast guard to find you? Because that's what will happen if you launch without a deck. There is a reason that boats are complete things. There may be amenities, but most of what's there is actually necessary to keep the damn thing floating. Or am I taking the analogy too far?

The other analogies sound like "here's how to make shit software that will break the moment the team isn't working on it." Am I missing something?
posted by Hactar at 1:59 PM on May 3, 2017


Hactar: nope.

For some people, the bare minimum is the hull and sail.

For others, it's a completely seaworthy craft, just missing the drink umbrellas and some of the brightwork still needs polishing.

These groups can often be distinguished by age & experience.
posted by parki at 2:05 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


unclear on the meanings of ... analogy.

Yeaaaah. I pride myself on always having a good analogy ready to explain things*, and these are more like.... similes. They're explaining something similar, but not actually telling you the point or bringing the explanation full circle. An analogy has to reference the original topic at some point!

twitch.


*My super power only failed me once when I was trying to explain behavior guidelines to an angry parent who was twice removed from a situation. I compared the guidelines to at-will employment, in that, yes, anyone is free to do as they choose, but your boss doesn't have to keep you around, and similarly neither does this organization have to accept volunteers who behave in ways we don't want to be representing us. I failed to remember that he worked for the city, in a union, and the argument turned into whether or not an employer could legally fire someone just because. That was a stupid night.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:05 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's like Urban Dictionary for senior VPs: you still have no idea wtf you're talking about, but you think that's no longer obvious.
posted by PMdixon at 2:06 PM on May 3, 2017 [31 favorites]


Like, it implies that you can save time and energy by learning Agile by analogies. But the actual manifesto is like two paragraphs, so is it saving that much energy? And then you go onto the twelve principles of Agile, which are like... there's 12 of them.

And it imputes an equivalence in complexity between the subjects. Compare the entire philosophy of agile which can fit in 2 pages (or 500, if you're writing a book on it for some idiot reason), to autocompletes, which are in practice trivial for 5-year-olds to use and nontrivial for PHD grads to write. No understanding modern AC's without knowing about tries, for example, and more idiosyncratic low-memory high-speed data structures and lots of machine learning, only the machine learning that's not too fashionable right exactly now but was fashionable 1995-2005ish...
posted by hleehowon at 2:07 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Domain Name Servers — It’s like the GPS of the internet. Humans prefer place names, computers prefer numerical coordinates. Domain Name Servers convert one to the other.

And that's just wrong! DNS is a phone book! It's literally a text file of phone book entries! Using GPS is setting you up for an analogy impedance mismatch failure!!!


And the slow fade animations on this site are completely obnoxious too!


hulk_smash.gif
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:09 PM on May 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


And they break the back button.
posted by parki at 2:17 PM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


Oh, so these are technical terms explained in rich people terms?

Compiler: your assistant who translates your high level orders into the type of painfully explicit instructions your employees need.

Error handler: like that fake patch of grass you bought from skymall to try to stop your fashionable small dog from having accidents indoors.

SAT solver: you hire one to get your child into Yale. In principle your child would have to actually know the subject matter, but in practice most real world SAT instances have enough structure that with the right heuristics your child can score well without knowing barely anything.
posted by Pyry at 2:29 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


The 2-factor auth ones are alright, but then you start feeling like you're being trolled by the API ones. They somehow manage to contradict one another and all be wrong.
posted by tocts at 2:31 PM on May 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


APP: It’s like a corkscrew. A corkscrew does one job (an important job, in this case) really well. Meanwhile, a browser is like a Swiss Army Knife – an all-purpose tool that lets you do a lot of different things to a basic level.
fear fake analogy is the mind killer 💀

like every single one of these analogies needs a sport analogy
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:32 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Sideways Dictionary: It's like a sparrow trying to bowl 10-pin. Also, the sparrow is dead and the bowling ball is a cube.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:50 PM on May 3, 2017 [13 favorites]


Hey!

I like this!

(But then it's designed for people like me, who like metaphors and analogies and similes and have very little idea how accurate they are when applied to something arcane (to me) like technology.)

Bitcoin: It’s like a locker room made of glass.

See now I knew it was something nobody really wants.
posted by chavenet at 2:54 PM on May 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


I immediately want to make a version of this filled with lies.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:54 PM on May 3, 2017


MetaFilter: It's like a clown car where the clowns are actually adjunct professors, but they're adjunct professors of 301-level classes about beans.

On plates.

and the plates are really more like tubes
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:01 PM on May 3, 2017 [12 favorites]


> I immediately want to make a version of this filled with lies.

My impression of the thing is that they already did that.
posted by parm at 3:03 PM on May 3, 2017 [11 favorites]


I immediately want to make a version of this filled with lies.

I eagerly await the parody version of this. Maybe we can do rich people words explained with tech analogies?

"S-Corps: They're like anonymizing proxies but for taxes"
posted by dis_integration at 3:04 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


"Sailing Yachts: They're like Cray Supercomputers. Outdated, slow, but sort of beautiful and cost a lot to maintain and run."
posted by jenkinsEar at 3:14 PM on May 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


Somebody do one for sports.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:18 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


What I want out of this is a place to put crazy analogies and for folks to figure out what the he'll I'm talking about.

It's like arguing over a plate of beans...
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:27 PM on May 3, 2017


Sports: they're like user interfaces: you don't really have any interest but you're expected to so you half ass it.
posted by PMdixon at 3:27 PM on May 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Grabbed Agile, trying to figure it out. It's like finishing your boat after launch, just having a hull and sail? So working Agile means bailing water constantly and praying for the coast guard to find you? Because that's what will happen if you launch without a deck. There is a reason that boats are complete things. There may be amenities, but most of what's there is actually necessary to keep the damn thing floating. Or am I taking the analogy too far?

Wait, where does this boat analogy come from? If you wanna do boats I think a better analogy for the philosophy behind Agile - in theory anyway - would be a sailing journey in which your course is repeatedly corrected by celestial navigation.
posted by atoxyl at 4:08 PM on May 3, 2017


I thought everyone knew this.

Agile programming: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Shaka, when the walls fell.
posted by jenkinsEar at 4:26 PM on May 3, 2017 [8 favorites]


I liked the App vs. Browser analogy because it was nonsensical about what an application is but said so much about how that person interacts with their computers.

"It lets me do something I would normally do in a browser, but without being tempted by the rest of the internet!"
posted by postcommunism at 6:13 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Agile programming: it's like writing things on index cards and moving them around on a board.
posted by PMdixon at 6:14 PM on May 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


Agile programming: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Shaka, when the walls fell.

Matt, selling imaginary features. Support, drinking more than usual.
posted by The Gaffer at 6:26 PM on May 3, 2017


A friend liked the metaphor of computer programs as cooking, because a recipe is a set of specific instructions that, if you follow them, will give you the desired output. That’s pretty true.

On the other hand, a textbook that I rather like used cooking recipes as an example of how programming is absolutely unlike baking. One person’s “cup” isn’t another person’s “cup” (the author didn’t bother with weights here). There’s a liminal area where one person’s stiff peaks are another person’s soft peaks. Everything is approximations and shades, and a machine demands that your language be definite and precise. That’s also true. But to consider both comparisons at once is to utterly destroy the learning experience.

This tool feels like it’s designed to present you all of these alternative definitions at the same time, plus a bunch of definitions that are otherwise unrelated.

Also, I cannot believe that anyone hasn’t described “Big Data” as “Data, but more”.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:29 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Some coverage from two months ago at Engadget: “‘Sideways Dictionary’ simplifies tech jargon for the masses”.

The thing that pops out in the article is the mention of “Nick Asbury” as the site’s first power user. But… are there any other users? Has anyone seen a non-Asbury definition on the site? And has anyone else successfully made an account? I’m kind of wondering if this got shoved out the door and then quietly left to rot. Which is actually kind of sad, since better, human definitions of computing terms would be good, and some maintenance of the site would be a help.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:55 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


I found a different user - Zachary Hoffman! But trying to make an account still gets me nowhere.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:14 PM on May 3, 2017


Oh - the 404 page is a li’l bit fun.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:16 PM on May 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


But the list is boooring, how about a simple metaphor/analogy for:

Lambda expressions
Continuations
Fifth normal form
Support Vector Machines
Cache Coherency
De Morgans law
posted by sammyo at 8:44 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


All-JavaScript website is like the Reformation except that you get burned as a heretic for violating Sola Iavascriptura.
posted by runcifex at 9:08 PM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sure, I'll help you take your piano over the Andes, are they growing wire in that jungle down there?
posted by Oyéah at 9:18 PM on May 3, 2017


C: like assembly language, but with sensible shoes and a sun hat.

C++: like C, but with swim fins, a kilt, and a rubber horse head.
posted by Chitownfats at 12:48 AM on May 4, 2017 [8 favorites]


SAT solver: you hire one to get your child into Yale. In principle your child would have to actually know the subject matter, but in practice most real world SAT instances have enough structure that with the right heuristics your child can score well without knowing barely anything.

Actually, the fiddly logic problems in the LSAT are CSP instances, usually reducible to satisfiability dealios trivially. Jeff Shrager used to introduce satisfiability that way, i recall
posted by hleehowon at 1:44 AM on May 4, 2017


cool, is this the thread where we act like "subject matter" and "heuristics" are what the SAT measures instead of "family income"?
posted by 7segment at 3:44 AM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's an OK idea, but I don't understand why they waste it on concrete, objective, easy to define technical terms.
I'd have gone for hard to understand and define terms like Existence, Mind, Identity, Irony, etc.
posted by signal at 5:06 AM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


difference between the test known as the SAT, formerly the Scholastic Aptitute Test, and SAT, the mathematical problem of finding satisfiable assignments to variables related by conjunct clauses which are composed of disjunctions
posted by hleehowon at 5:55 AM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Has anyone seen a non-Asbury definition on the site?

There's one by "Justin Kosslyn" for Virtual Private Network. No idea if that's the only one, but it's the one that caught my eye.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:47 AM on May 4, 2017


It's an OK idea, but I don't understand why they waste it on concrete, objective, easy to define technical terms.

Technical terms are precisely defined, yes, but they are not easily understood by a general audience. I don't invite for certain that our was an inspiration for the site, but I'd recommend looking up Sarah Jeong'coverage of the Google vs. Oracle trial. Oodles of smart tech folks fail to provide clear definitions of what an API is to a judge and a jury.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:10 AM on May 4, 2017


There's one by "Justin Kosslyn" for Virtual Private Network. No idea if that's the only one, but it's the one that caught my eye.

Yeah, there are a few other definers on there. Indeed, since voting seems locked to accounts with logins, there must be at least a hundred accounts floating around.

I have to say that one of the bad things about the site is that it's really impossible to tell how much it's growing. Search is hard, which is odd since it comes from Google (or Alphabet) the entire thing feels static, when you should really feel like these metaphors are battling each other out so that we can think that the ultimate winner is indeed the best.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:18 AM on May 4, 2017


Net Neutrality: It's like an immortal declaration of equal rights for all bytes.
posted by bz at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2017


Here’s the relevant Sarah Jeong article, from Vice on May 12, 2016: “In Oracle v. Google, a Nerd Subculture Is on Trial”:
The problem with Oracle v. Google is that everyone actually affected by the case knows what an API is, but the whole affair is being decided by people who don't, from the normals in the jury box to the normals at the Supreme Court—which declined to hear the case in 2015, on the advice of the normals at the Solicitor General's office, who perhaps did not grasp exactly how software works.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:42 PM on May 4, 2017


Lamba expressions: functions, but with the function removed.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:03 PM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


C#: Like GNU, but the G is CSharp, and the U is Java.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:04 PM on May 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


On-prem: The cloud, but not.

I could do this all day!
posted by blue_beetle at 9:05 PM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


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