Who does what in Computing.

Looking through the funny papers I see a whole load of new job titles in the ads - so it looks like time to revise this old list. Most of what follows dates from the Last Days of the Mainframe in the mid-1980s but there are odd words added every now and again since. I've also been tagging it up to HTML slowly, when I get a few minutes. And, like the Holy Roman Empire, the mainframe still hasn't gone away. Neither have stupid job titles - some years after starting this file I was appointed as a Principal Technical Analyst.

Who does what in Computing - a plain person's guide to job titles.

Anyone with their eyes open will have noticed the rapid proliferation of job titles in computing. Once upon a time there were just programmers (a word you never hear these days). Then there were Operators, then Systems Analysts started crawling out of the woodwork, IBM invented System Programmers, someone else invented Operations Controllers and so things went on. By the early '80s you could find yourself having to ask a Consultant Senior Network Analyst to change the plug on your printer.

The whole thing was vaguely reminiscent of the Spanish Practices of Fleet Street or the Docks Labour Agreement at its worst. How often do we hear "More than my job's worth to change that line of code, Guv! You need a form from the Assistant Junior Change Control Engineer!"

But help is at hand. We can't fix your computer for you, but we can offer you this dictionary which will contain an explanation of every word you are likely to see in any computer-related job title, or in any advertisment for computer staff.

Just one warning - about half of all the words in this dictionary are nothing more than different ways of saying "computer" or "computer programmer" or "computer programmer". If reading it gives you the the idea that most of these job-titles are just ways of squeezing more money out of customers, employers, and taxpayers just consider that a Senior System Analyst earns three times as much as a nurse.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

The Guide

A

Account Executive

Salesman. If you are really lucky they will work in Account Engagement Teams and report to an Account Strategist.

Active

Any software promoted by Microsoft between summer 1996 and spring 1998, by which time they realised that people weren't using "Active Server Pages" because they confused them with "ActiveX" and "Active Desktop". See Java and virtual.

Administrator

What programmers call people who obviously aren't managers, never were programmers, yet seem to be doing some work. Quite different from a System Administrator

Administrative Assistant.

Anyone at all who seems to be doing some work. (see "Administrator")

ADP

Computers. It stands for "Automatic Data Processing". Rather more accurate equivalent of DP, and is used by civil servants to make their reports seem bigger.

Advanced.

An "Advanced" anything is someone who thinks they are overdue for promotion. It's meant to stop you leaving for another job, not so much because of the kudos of the title (even Business Analysts aren't that thick) but because it gives the impression that you are a Professional with a Career Structure. This is totally false. See Professional.

Analyst.

A meaningless term added to any job description to make it seem more interesting (e.g. "Network Analyst", "Operations Analyst", "Waste Disposal Analyst", "Telecommunications Analyst".) The equivalent term outside IT is "Consultant".

Analyst/Programmer.

An ex-programmer who claims to be able to reinvent the wheel without external assistance. See "Programmer/Analyst".

Application.

Any computer program of use to anyone. Also most computer programs that are of no use to anyone. An application that is of use to more than one person becomes a "utility", except on PCs, where it stays an application. See "Operating system".

Application programmer.

A monkey paid to reinvent the wheel, on time, within budget. See "Analyst Programmer".

Applications Support.

Programmers condemned to reinvent the same wheel again and again, perhaps as a punishment for sins committed in an earlier life.

Architect

In IT jobs an "architect" is a programmer who gets paid for mentally free-associating on past wheels prior to asking other people to reinvent them. They are the collective memory of the software community, sort of virtual grandmothers.

Associate anything.

1. Polite term for trainee or junior used in the USA
2. All employees of some companies run by ex-hippies who want to pretend they aren't capitalists, well we have this really great share option scheme.
3. The job title "associate analyst" has recently turned up in the US, used for some quite senior (qv.) people. It either means "some one who analyses associates" (i.e. a financial controller) or an analyst (qv.) who is so highly thought of by management (qv.) that they have to pretend they know nothing about computers even if they do.

Auditor.

Someone who doesn't know about computers and is employed to ensure that those who do know don't tell.

B

BCS

Boring Codgers Society. A club formed by ex-programmers to reminisce about the old days. One of their more endearing traits is forcing each other to take exams in obsolete 1970s systems analysis techniques, as a sort of rite of passage to becoming managers. Many managers and business analysts are members, and a few consultants and computer scientists but no working programmers. (There were rumoured to be some at the DHSS - look what happened to their projects.)

Bug.

Unplanned feature (q.v.)

Business.

Jargon term used by programmers in much the same way as "The Force" was used in the film Star Wars. They have an endearing little ceremony at the start and end of each meeting, when they tell each other that The Business must approve each project if it is to succeed. Programmers who get good pay rises or whose projects seem to work are said to be "In tune with The Business". Nobody really believes that "The Business" exists, but programmers are a superstitious lot and better safe than sorry.

Business Analyst.

1. Anyone who thinks they don't have to ask the users how to reinvent the wheel because they are users themselves. (see "User" and "Prototyping").
2. Someone who, when told to reinvent the wheel, starts by calling a meeting and then forming Spoke and Rim subcommittees.
3. A systems analyst without enough intelligence to learn how to program

Business System.

Application

C

Capacity Planner.

Ex-programmer who tells you how much it will cost you to reinvent next years wheels. Everyone knows they just stick their fingers in the air and double their estimates, which is why managers always halve them again before buying a new computer. That is why computers are never powerful enough.

Change.

The SI unit of wheel reinventions.

Change Analyst.

Someone who counts how often other people answer phones.

Change Control.

The process of limiting wheel reinventions to Thursday nights after softball matches.

Chief

Anyone who (a) used to be some sort of programmer and enjoyed it and (b) has read "The Mythical Man-Month".

Client

1. Euphemism for "User" (q.v.) briefly popular in late 1970s until people realised that's what the Social Services call poor people. As no-one in business likes to be associated with poor people (terribly bad for the credibility) the word was hastily changed to "Customer".
2. A little computer plugged into a big computer (see server").
3. Except if you use Xwindows, when it is a big computer program with lots of little computer programs plugged into it (don't ask).

Client manager.

A manger with nobody working for them. So clients are the only people they have left to manage.

Communications Analyst.

Anyone who knows how to use a soldering iron. (See "Telecommunications Analyst")

Community.

1. A way of padding sentences. "The software community" means "programmers". "The Oil Industry Community" means "people who work for oil companies".
2. When the word appears in a job advertisment it usually means they really want a black person but are too embarrassed to say so. This doesn't happen very often in ads for computer jobs, not in England at any rate. Most large IT employers round here seem determined never to employ any black people. Except as cleaners of course.
3. It can also mean that the job doesn't pay very well. If the word "service" appears in the same ad it means that the job doesn't pay at all.

Computer

The dreaded C-word, which no-one uses any more. About a third of the jargon in IT job titles comes from people bending over backwards not to say it. See Data Processing or Systems

Computer science.

GCSE programming

Computer scientist.

Used in colleges to mean "programmer".

Consultant.

A contractor who is paid more than their manager.

Consulting.

Phrases like "Consulting System Engineer" or "Consulting Senior Programmer" describes someone who is paid more than their manager. Or, very occasionally, it just shows that the person who thought up the job title is a Sherlock Holmes fan.

Contingency Planning.

Backup tapes. See "Disaster Recovery".

Contractor.

Anyone who has reinvented the wheel so often that they are trusted to fill in their own tax forms. N.B. they are usually remarkably unqualified for this (most ex-programmers can neither add nor spell, why do you think they need computers?) so they invariably get done for all they possess by the VATman and the Inland Revenue. They then try to attract sympathy from the permies (qv.) with tales of the villa in the Algarve they had to sell to pay the bills. This rarely works.

Co-ordinator.

Someone promoted out of the job they were best at (the Peter principle). See "supervisor".

Corporate.

1. Someone who has forgotten how to reinvent wheels but has managed to fool the company that they still know how, so has been put in charge of all Reinventions. As in "Corporate Storage Management Analyst" or "Corporate Security Co-ordinator".
2. US jargon for "Any large organisation I would like to give me money". It crops up in phrases such as "This product is mainly of interest to major corporates", which, in British English comes out as "I want a very large company to buy a lot of my stuff in one go so I can retire early".

Customer

Internal IBM term for anyone in the whole world who doesn't work for IBM. It's recently come into general use to mean a user you don't know personally. More generally users are people who use things, customers are people who pay for them. (clients are people who take what they are given, and they bloody well have to enjoy it).

Customer engineer

IBM term for someone who is supposed to engineer the customers into buying more IBM equipment. See Salesman

Customer Services.

People employeed to prevent users talking to programmers. (See "development services")

D

Data.

This (or should that be "these"?) used to mean something, but like "System", "Virtual" or "Analysis" is now just a buzz-word that tells you that the sentence it occurs in is something to do with computers.

Data Analysis.

A cult or sect of Systems Analysis that thinks that salvation lies in drawing tantric diagrams of the Business. Data Analysts often pretend that they don't know anything about computers or programming. This means that they usually forget what little they did know. (See "Business")
NB scientists - or at any rate Biologists - use the word to mean something quite different, involving five-bar gates and sheep.

Data Control.

When there were such things as Punch Girls, these people used to walk around with a whip making sure they didn't fall below 12500 keystrokes an hour. Now they are obsolete, so they sit in the corner of the DP department wearing quaint costumes, smoking pipes and reminiscing about the old days. Sort of like the Yeomen of the Guard or the Chelsea Pensioners.

Data-Entry.

Typing. See "Key-to-Disk".

Database.

Newly fashionable word for "file". See "Database Analyst"

Database Administrator.

One who keeps lists of the lists set up by Database Analysts. See "Administrator"

Database Analyst.

Ex-programmer who likes to make lists of all the wheels that have been reinvented. A little like a train-spotter or birdwatcher. A bit naff. See "Database Administrator".

Data-processing

Euphemism for computers popular in late '60s and early '70s, universally shortened to the much more beauraucratic-sounding DP (see also System )

Data Systems.

Computers.

Designer

In IT job ads this means they are looking for a programmer who thinks it is cool to pretend to be illiterate

Development

The process of reinventing the wheel

Development Services.

People employed to prevent programmers talking to users. (See "customer services")

Disaster Recovery.

What operators do when some idiot of a systems programmer has crashed production CICS at 10:30 on Saturday. It is rumoured to involve magnetic tapes, small hamsters and quantities of lager top.

Document Control Administrator.

Filing Clerk

DP

One of many rival abbreviations for Data-processing or even Each had a different feel to it. ADP was competent, official, slightly old-fashioned and happened in spine-blocks and Nissen-huts, EDP was much flashier and made money, plain old DP was punched cards, flashing lights and bills for 0 pounds and 0 pence. You used to get DP deparments, ADP sections, but EDP divisions. In the mid-1980s a wave of I-words swept through jargon-space and all of a sudden everyone had an IT department

E

EDP

"Electronic Data Processing". Right-wing equivalent of ADP.

Engineer

Meaningless term added to various job titles to make the punters think you know what you are doing (such as Software Engineer, Hardware Engineer, Customer Engineer ) NB it is mildly insulting to call a Real Programmer an engineer. They are professionals and colleagues. Honest. There are a few real engineers in computing, they are mostly wizened and aged Japanese persons who rarely leave the Sony or Fujitsu or Hitachi company compounds except for a compulsory bi-annual trip to photograph Harrods. By the time the stuff they design gets out of the factory it's all in little black boxes with pins sticking out and it doesn't need engineering any more, just wiring. US-made chips aren't designed by engineers but by Computer Scientists. (qv.) That's why they cost so much and take three years to debug.

Enterprise

Big. See professional.

Executive

Illiterates who need pretty pictures on the screens because they can't read the little letters on the keyboard. See manager.

F

Feature.

Problem that is described in the manual. See "Quality Assurance".

Financial.

Anything to do with money. Sometimes used by programmers to prove that they aren't pinko hippies. "Significant financial experience" on a c.v. (that's a "resume" if you are Americans) means "I used to work in a bank." If it appears in a job ad it means "no anarchists need apply".

G

General Manager.

First up against the wall if the company ever gets taken over.

Graduate.

Anyone who was at school long enough to relearn some of the things they were taught to forget during the first twelve years.

Graduate Calibre.

Anyone who wears a tie to an interview.

H

Hacker.

This word has changed it's meaning a number of times. It's basically another euphemism for the P-word.

1. Once upon a time it meant programmers who tried to log on to other peoples computers. As the information on most computers is terribly boring (do you really want to look at the Kwik-Fit spare parts database?) this hobby rapidly died out.
2. For a few months back in '87 it was used for teenagers who cheat at computer games.
3. Programmers who like to sneak glimpses of other peoples Wheels rather then reinventing their own like decent fellows.
4. These days it means, more-or-less "Any programmer dumb enough to get their name into the papers for doing something bad".
5. "Hacker" originated at MIT in the '60s when it meant students who thought that programming was better than sex. There weren't a lot of little programmers being born in New England in those days.

Hardware.

Anything that you can kick, such as operators. N.B. network controllers and system programmers aren't hardware because they are never around when you want to kick them. See Software.

Hardware Engineer

Repairman.

Help Desk.

People employed to answer the phone instead of the person you want. See "Service Desk"

I

Industry Standard

IBM

Infomatics, Informatics

Naff term for computers used by illiterate lager-lout barrow-boy stockmarket analysts in the days before "dot com". Has overtones of americanism and 1950s can-do attitudes. See Informatique

Information Centre.

A technique to prevent users ever learning about computers. Whenever they have a question you refer them to the Information Centre, who are of course too busy to handle it. When you do get hold of one of them, they insist on coming to your office and reinventing the wheel at your desk. It's a bit like flambe cooking, where the chef burns the dish on your table. Except that Information Centres rarely smell as nice as Omelettes, and are almost always less runny. Information centres work best when they are staffed by a judicious mixture of people who know nothing at all about computers and hackers who know a lot but haven't got the time, the inclination or the vocabulary to pass it on. Any programmer dumb enough to flambe an omlette deserves to be in an Information Centre.

Information Processing.

Euphemism for computers that has never been popular at all. (see

Information Resource.

Database.

Information Systems

Yet another word for computers. Big companies liked it.

Information Technology

Probably the most politically neutral of the many, many euphemisms for computers, it looked for a while as if it would be replaced by Informatique but the handy double-byte-sized IT seems to be holding its own as of the begining of the 21st centiry.

Informatique

Euphemism for computers that implies we are all become True Europeans and much too cool to bother with old twentieth-century concepts like computers or data or even technology or processing. Americans trying to jump on the bandwagon will call the subject Informatics

Integration.

Hard sums. But see "Systems Integration".

Internal

This is a hard one. An "Internal Consultant" is obviously a programmer who gets paid too much, an "Internal Customer Service Manager" is presumably a manager, and an "Internal Customer Support Analyst is perhaps someone who answers telephones.

IT

Once it was an abbreviation for information technology but now it is the almost universal term for computers, or the stuff that goes in them. Probably successful in the Darwinian struggle for mind-space reproductive territory because it is value-netural between computers and telecommunications and because it started with the letter "I" which was big in the 1980s.

Java

Any net software tools not being promoted by Microsoft between about 1995 and 1998. What else, if anything, did "Java", "JavaScript" and "HotJava" have in common? See active and virtual.

IT

See "Information Technology"

J

Job.

1. Heaps of cardboard that computers used to eat in the dark ages.
2. Heaps of virtual cardboard that IBM computers still eat.
3. Occult term used by applications support programmers to excuse high overtime claims. These esoteric "jobs" need to "run" each night after all the real workers have gone home. Sometimes they "fail". The programmers call each other on the 'phone a lot, them bill their time to the users. Sorry, "customers". Of course the customers can't tell whether they are being ripped off or not because they are at home.
4. What workers used to do for money before the last temporary recession but three.

Jobsworth.

Magical term used by plumbers, programmers, security guards, database consultants and all bank employees when refusing to do their, well, jobs.

Junior anything.

Anyone with less work experience then you. See Trainee

K

Key-to-Disk.

Typing. See Key-punch.

Key-punch.

Typing. See "Punch Girl".

Knowledge Engineer

Knowledge Engineers are programmers who think that the best way to reinvent the wheel is to find someone who's done it before, ask them exactly how they did it, write a program to repeat the process, and then let the computer reinvent the wheel for you automatically. The whole procedure is reminiscent of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel, which gains you good Karma by repeating your prayers while you are in the pub.

L

LAN

Lots of Added Nonsense. The whole idea of PCs is that you have one on your desk, it's yours, no-one else need bother you. This is not a very Industry Standard way of behaving. So someone came up with the idea of LANs. These are modifications to your PC that give you almost all the problems of using a real mainframe computer without the benefits. For example, everyone else will be able to use the printer on your desk while you're trying to work, your files will all be kept on a secure file server (forcing you to change your password once every month) and you will receive regular visits from the nice LAN Administrator who will have to replace cards just about the time you need to get that vital spreadsheet out.

LAN Administrator

See LAN

Lead.

A "Lead Programmer" or "Lead Systems Engineer" is what used to be called a "Chief" whatever until people started feeling guilty about Native Americans.

M

Mainframe.

A computer that doesn't know who you are until a system programmer tells it three times. The only real difference between mainframes and mini-computers is due to an old IBM marketing policy that is just too boring to remember.

Manager

A man in a suit who thinks keyboards are women's work.See executive

Media.

In IT "Magnetic Media" always means tapes (also known as Storage). Tapes are regarded as rather naff in computing circles, so if you work with them you avoid mentioning the fact in polite company. You can call a disk a disk, but tapes have to be "media". This is nothing at all to do with new media which is quite different (if only because "media" in this contect is an uncountable noun and "new media" is singular)

Media Analyst.

Someone who works at a company that buys or sells advertising space.

Media Manager.

Tape cleaner.qv. "Media" and "Storage manager".

Micro(computer).

Any computer small enough for a thief to carry out but big enough to give him a hernia. Bigger than that and it becomes a mini-copmuter Nowadays they are all called PCs as well

Mini(computer)

Any computer too big to carry that costs less than $500,000. Unless it's a VAX in which case it's STILL a mini even when it's bigger than someone else's mainframe.

MIS(computer)

before the wheel, before the Ark, before the flood - there was MIS. Back in the 1980s the managers thought they were losing control of the way technology was changing work (there were right). Some of them thought that they could get back in the saddle by putting together applications that drilled down through data and distilled the true essence of the information flows through a company (by which they meant prices). (The difference between the MIS concept and the Information Centre concept was that MIS was for Them. You would have to have a special password to see all those wonderful reports that the MIS painted onto the screens. Ordinary plebs never got near it. Neither, of course, did all that wonderful data, and you still had to ask Mrs. Jones from Accounts Recievable if you wanted to know what the actual position of the company was, the only trouble was all the new-fangled managers didn't know who Mrs Jones was any more. Since about 1993, if a job ad refers to MIS it simply means that they are looking for someone to keep the payroll program running.

N

Network Controller

No-one knows what Network Controllers are supposed to do because they have never been seen doing it. They are reputed to be hard to find.

New

The early 21st century is post-new, just as the late 20th was post-modern. In 2001 "new" now means May 1997 (how blessed was it that dawn to be alive). New is the new old.

New Technology

Fashionable early '80s euphemism for computers. Particularly popular with trade union leaders and Social Democrats who knew nothing about computers. Really stupid term when you come to think about it - computers have been about since 1939, that was nearly fifty years in those days. Anyone who refused to work with motor cars (New Transport) in, say, 1935, would have been out on the streets within a week. See DP.

New Media

Fashionable mid-1990s euphemism for computers. Particularly popular with programmers who wanted to be cool and trendy. (Antother two words that mysteriously came back in the 1990s) Fat chance.

O

Officer

What wheel-reinventers are called in the more stick-in-the-mud parts of government. For example, South Ribble Borough Council once employed a number of "Technical Officers (Information Technology)". These worthies, who are presumably called "TOITs" in informal conversation, are what would be known as programmers if they worked most anywhere else.

Operating System

Programs which, when modified by systems programmers, prevent your computer from working. You then have to call in a systems programmer to fix it. It pays the rent.

Operations Analyst

These tell the ex-programmers whether or not the reinvented wheels are working.

Operational

If it breaks your boss will get cross

Operations Research

The now obsolete science of estimating how many headaches you get because the reinvented wheels on your car aren't round. It was invented by RAF officers in the 2nd world war and died when the last of them retired.

Operations Controller

Someone who fits reinvented wheels on cars that are going nowhere.

Operator

People who change the tyres on the wheels the progammers re-invented. See hardware.

P

PC

In the 1980s & early 90s it was an obsolete computer used by people who couldn't afford a UNIX machine and weren't allowed to buy Macintoshes by short-sighted corporate policy to buy industry standard systems wherever possible. Now it is just another word used instead of you-know what

Performance Analyst.

Someone who counts the number of times the reinvented wheels turn in a minute.

Permie.

Contractors term of abuse for everyone else (except agents, who are referred to as "pimps" when one is in a job and "sir" at other times).

Personal

IBM term for obsolete and unfriendly computers or programs.

Personal Computer.

See "PC", no-one EVER says "Personal Computer".

Platform

Yet another euphemism for computer. Byte magazine and the UNIX operating system have both been described as "platform-independent", i.e. whatever computer you own, you can still read Byte. Unless you are a manager of course.

Plumber.

Someone who walks into your house and exclaims "Who did this then Guv? Bet it wasn't our firm! That'll all have to come out!" Most programmers are, in fact, plumbers. Ask one to help fix your computer and you'll see what I mean. However clients expect more from progammers than from plumbers. They seem to expect the programmers to tell them how to do their jobs. No-one asks the plumber when they should take a shit.

Principal

When a job is advertised as a principal anything it is a sure sign that the organisation concerned is resisting a business reorganisation. If you already have trainee wheel-reinventers, junior wheel-reinventers, assistant wheel-reinventers, wheel-reinventers, advanced wheel-reinventers, and senior wheel-reinventers the only reason for having principal wheel-reinventers, is to fill out the organisation chart. Except in the Civil Service where the principal is either the lowest of the high or the highest of the low, depending on how you look at it. If you join the Civil Service, are very good at your job, work hard, and are lucky enough not to be in a department that's getting cut, you might retire as a Principal. Unless you join as an Administrative Trainee in which case after two years ritual disembowelment in Bootle you get posted to Westminster and start as a Principal. Not that that is at all relevant to IT jobs - the only way anyone ever got as far as Principal in IT in the Civil Service was by sacking their way to the top. Oh no, we aren't bitter about that, no, not at all, that has been put behind us now. Right behind,

Principal Technical Analyst

I have no idea what this means - and I was one

Problem

1. To IBM, any program not written by IBM.
2. To anyone else, any program at all.

Problem Management.

The art of ensuring that as many punctures as possible are fixed by reinventing the wheel completely. Often lumped together with Change Control as "Problem and Change Control".

Processing

Only here because it is part of data-processing and information processing. The word now has a legal definition in England:

"processing", in relation to information or data, means obtaining, recording or holding the information or data or carrying out any operation or set of operations on the information or data, including -

1. organisation, adaptation or alteration of the information or data,
2. retrieval, consultation or use of the information or data,
3. disclosure of the information or data by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, or
4. alignment, combination, blocking, erasure or destruction of the nformation or data;

(From the Data Protection Act 1998)

Professional.

Someone who wants to earn more without becoming a manager. Some people claim that all computer workers are "professionals", like Accountants or Lawyers. Most of these people are programmers who want to get their bosses to pay them more money. This word will go out of fashion as it gets devalued - the "Conveyancing Profession" has been with us for a while, and we're starting to hear of the "Insurance Sales Profession". When we get to the "Security Guard Profession" no self-respecting greedy bastard will want to be associated with the word and it will go the way of "yuppie" and "hippie". (See "Plumber" and "Technician")
When attached to the name of a computer program it means "expensive".

Program

You need to look this one up in a glossary? Where have you been since 1939? See "programme".

Program Product.

IBM jargon for wheel reinvention kit. See "Application".

Programme.

What you see on telly

programmer.

The unmentionable P-word, never used in polite company, to describe that shameful race doomed for ever to the Sisyphean task of Reiniventing the Wheel. Since the 1970s a large number of other words have been used to cover up the presence of programmers in even the most up-to-date organisations, for example (in approximate chronological order):

• Analyst
• Consultant
• Hacker
• Wally
• Knowledge Engineer
• Software Engineer
• Technician
• Designer

• "We are all analysts now" (Antony Eden after a visit to the Soviet Union)
• "I have seen the future and it loops" (W. Churchill, ditto).

Programmer/Analyst.

An ex-programmer who can't kick the reinventing the wheel habit. Actually, no habit can be ever be kicked because habits are software, not hardware.

Project.

An excuse for dropping the users in dung the moment the wheel has been reinvented. For example, if you find that your printer won't print a report because some programmer has made a simple spelling mistake, the programmer can say - "Sorry guv., more than my job's worth to change that, the project's over. You have to send an Enhancement Request Form to Support. If they come in before you go home today they may schedule it for the next quarter."

Project Leader

A Systems Analyst detailed to stop programmers reinventing wheels just before they are finished.

Project Manager

A project leader who has threatened to resign.

Project Planning

A promise to reinvent the wheel, on time, in budget.

Prototyping

Asking users to see if the newly reinvented wheels are round enough. If they aren't you get a programmer to beat them into shape. (This is a radical departure from traditional computing practice, which is to go back to the plans and see if the wheels conform to them. If they happen to be egg-shaped, hard cheese.)

Punch Girl

Old programmers term for a typist. So-called because when Noah was designing the Ark they really did use a sort of electric punch to make hole in paper. They were re-named "Data Entry Clerks" after the Sex Discrimination Act. They were still all women though.

Q

Quality Assurance

Making sure that the faults in the system are the same as the ones in the manual. See "System Assurance".

Quality Improvement.

Every day, in every way, we will reinvent the wheel better and better. See "Quality Assurance".

R

Recursion.

See "Recursion". (I bet you were expecting that)

Remote Systems Analyst.

Far out sort of job this, man. Actually, I haven't the faintest idea what this person does (there is at least one somewhere in Texas - I saw the job ad), but I imagine it has something to do with phone lines.

Resource

Worker (but see "Information Resource").

Representative.

Someone who has to pretend to be a worker whilst really being a manager, as in "Senior Employee Relations Representative". The flip side of "associate".

S

Sales

Do you really need a glossary for this one?

Salesman

1. IBM term for an IBM employee. See Customer Real IBMers could be salesmen even if they were women, and often were.
2. Anywhere else, what it sounds like. Now going out of fashion, but not as dead a term as the C-word or the P-word

Scheduler

They polished the mainframe wheels that the programmers reinvented and the operations controllers fitted to the cars.

Security.

The art of preventing any work getting done.

Senior.

A Senior anything is one who has been in the job for longer than their boss. See "Advanced".

Server

1. In a computer room, a big computer plugged into lots of little computers (see "client").
2. In Xwindows, a little computer program plugged into a big computer program.
3. On a farm, a big animal plugged into a little animal.
4. In church, anyone with a glass of wine.

Service.

1. Anything you do on a computer (See "customer services", "development services")
2. Trains (as in "the 15:34 Blackfriars service now at platform 3.")
3. A warning that you aren;t going to get paid for the job

Service Desk.

Anyone who picks up the telephone when it rings. See Technician.

Service Levels

A promise to make sure that all reinvented wheels are in fact round. Most IT organisations are not yet ready to take this step.

Service Level Agreement

A mythical beast not unlike a unicorn, except it is rarer, slower, and not nearly as beautiful. It can only be found by virgins.

Shift Leader.

Prefect

Storage.

Magnetic disks. See "Media".

Storage Manager.

Disk and tape polisher (qv. Media Manager)

Software.

Serious definition coming up because so many people get it wrong. Software is information, however represented. All computer programs are software, as is all data. Television programs are software as well, but video tape is hardware. Books are hardware, stories are software, along with music, the Bible, arguments, ideas, lies, truths, paradoxes, company accounts and tax returns. (Although the tax forms are hardware). If you hear anyone referring to paper or ink as software you know that they are a photocopier salesman of reduced mental capacity. Most photocopier salesman are of reduced mental capacity, it's the combination of breathing in all that ink (which they call "toner") and driving P reg Cortinas. Their ambition is to become Laser Printer salesmen, when they get to drive an Escort. It doesn't help their braincells any.

Software Engineer

An alternative term for programmers used in scientific, engineering and military work: partly to give the underpaid programmers the feeling that they are involved in some esoteric and arcane high-tech mysteries; mostly to reassure the clients that their software is not being written by a load of bearded hippy pinko dope smokers. (It is, of course. That's why most military software isn't worth a heap of general's jobbies).

Strategic

Something they want to sell you.

Strategist

Someone who works out what they want to sell you. Salesmen like military-sounding job titles because it allows them to pretend that what they do isn't either mildly unethical or else really, really, boring

Supervisor.

Someone promoted way out of the job they were best at (see Co-ordinator) who is too literate to become an Executive.

Specialist.

Someone who has reinvented the wheel so often that they aren't good for anything else any more. They are allowed to sit in the corner and reinvent away to their hearts content. This is what happens to programmers who don't become managers consultants. See technologist.

Support.

If you see this word in a job title it means that the person comes into the office late in the morning.

System

Euphemism for computers popular in late '70s (see Information Technology ). This word is still sometimes used by people who are ashamed of working with computers, who call themselves "Systems People".

Systems administrator

Someone who never was a System Programmer but seems to be doing a system programmer's job. A term of abuse.

System assurance.

Making sure that the mistakes in the manuals are the same as the ones in the system. See "Quality Assurance".

Systems analyst

Ex-programmers who now tell others how to reinvent the wheel.See "Applications programmer"

Systems engineer

US equivalent of system programmer (see System Programmer ). IBM jargon for a trainee salesman (see Salesman ).

Systems developer.

Developer

Systems Integration.

Telling someone whose wheels are all different sizes to run on roads with cleverly placed bumps.

System programmer

Ex-programmers or operators who have seen the wheel reinvented so many times they can do it in hex. In America they used to be called "systems programmers" (with an extra "S") but are now known as Systems engineers.

T

Technical Analyst

1. An operator who got a better job (see Technical Support )
2. A system programmer who has had their mainframe surgically removed.

Technical Support

An operator who wants a better job. (This used to mean "system programmer", and still can in the USA).

Technical Consultant

A programmer who is too clever to become a manager, but bored with reinventing the wheel. They still have to reinvent wheels, but the new job title keeps them happy for a while. see "Specialist"

Technical Trainer

A programmer who likes to tell other people what to do.

Technician

Yet another term for "programmer". This one is usually used by people who think programmers get paid too much - i.e. more than they do themselves. Most often occurs in sentences like "Customers should call the online help desk who will assign a technician to their problem". It is also used as a gentle put-down for programmers who want to get paid more. If your boss says you are "a great technician" when you ask for promotion that is exactly equivalent to someone you are sexually attracted to making the speech that starts "I really respect you..."

Technologist

Polite term for an ex-programmer so addicted to reinventing the wheel that they have to be promoted out of their job before they fix all the problems and put everyone else out of theirs. See "Technical Consultant"

Technology

Meaningless word used by salesmen to make their sentences longer, as in "Our new disk technology enables us to store more information on each unit", which in English would be "these disks are bigger than those ones".

Telecommunications.

The bleepy noises you hear if you accidentally 'phone a fax machine. Computer people are fond of saying that telecommunications are "in the dark ages". When asked why 'phones and fax usually work first time but computers almost never do they tend to shut up.

Telecommunications Analyst.

Anyone who knows what a soldering iron looks like. (See "Communications Analyst")

Telex.

The system Noah used to order the materials for the ark. (There was going to be enough space to save all the people from the Flood, but a lot of the gopher wood didn't arrive on time, due to the suppliers being drowned prematurely in folds of slimy paper with dinky pastel coloured margins). Rumoured to be the fabled Wheel the programmers are all busy trying to reinvent.

Trainee

Anyone who has 6 months less job experience than you do

Toner.

Ink. (see Software )

U

UNIX

An operating system once widely favoured by journalists, stock market analysts and programmers with nothing better to do. Now eaten by Linux.

User

A species of cockroach occasionally employed in system testing. See User Friendly.

User Friendly

A breed of domestic cat trained to press the keys on the terminal for users who haven't got a long enough reach to hit "CTRL" and "C" at the same time. See User Representative.

User Representative

Someone who knows what work needs to be done and is helping the systems analysts work out how to do it. This is apparently a revolutionary idea. See Systems Analyst.

V

Virtual

IBM marketing term for a program written between 1968 and 1978. See system.

W

Worker

The third of the Words that Shall Not Be Named, (the other two are the dreaded C word and the unmentionable P word ) this lexical abomination has entirely been replaced by, depending on where you are, "employees", or "staff", or "associates", or "personnel", or most horribly "human resources".

X

Y

Z

This entire file by Ken Brown. I originally wrote it some time ago (there was still a Social Democrat party around!), but this HTML version is from 1995, slightly updated in 1998. Feel free to distribute all or part of it, on condition you mention me and don't pass it off as someone else's. It's all my own work - even the parts that are true.