Contradiction..
'Transparent'- there's so many times I come across this word in text and I get annoyed.
In technical terms it means "Invisible. In software, an action is transparent if it takes place without any visible effect." In normal language it means "clear, see-through, translucent, visible!!"
'Transparency (again in software) is considered to be a good characteristic of a system because it shields the user from the system's complexity'. Ok fine...then how the hell can it be called 'transparent'? Who coined this word for the given behavior? He/she should have rightly called it "opaque". For creatures like me, it just adds to confusion!!
In technical terms it means "Invisible. In software, an action is transparent if it takes place without any visible effect." In normal language it means "clear, see-through, translucent, visible!!"
'Transparency (again in software) is considered to be a good characteristic of a system because it shields the user from the system's complexity'. Ok fine...then how the hell can it be called 'transparent'? Who coined this word for the given behavior? He/she should have rightly called it "opaque". For creatures like me, it just adds to confusion!!
posted by zero-state at 1:04 PM
3 Comments:
Actually its not a misnomer... it actually means transparent.
Let me take the example of an encrypted file system. When the encryption layer is not present, the user calls simple WRITE to write from the disk and READ to read from the disk.
To implement an EFS, you can provide EncryptedWRITE/READ calls to the user, which he will call for encrypted read and writes. But in this case he will know the existence of a layer (like in SSL)
Now think of an alternative approach.. you modify the original WRITE and READ to encrypt before reading/writing to the disk. The user still calls WRITE/READ and does not know the existence of the Encryption algorithm..I.e. The encrytion layer is not visible and the user thinks he is seeing the underlying layer directly.. Hence the term Transparent...(like IPSec)
Hope I was clear...
no in that scenario, 'transparent' is not the rite word to use...what he sees is not real...u cant call it transparent...its an impression... the user is being illusioned here..u urself used phrases like "does not know", "is not visible" here... u get my point?
I get the sense in which this term is being used...but my point is "transparent" is not the right word for this behavior.
its transparent in the sense that the user can see right through it...
Post a Comment
<< Home