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| Friday's Phrase: "granularity" |
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| Monday, 23 August 2004 | |
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20
August, 2004: Some buzzwords are dropped into conversation because of
the feelgood factor which they convey, even if few people really
understand what they mean. One example: "granularity".
Some of the most irritating examples of jargon are those words that are tossed about in technical conversation with little or no regard to their actual meaning or likely comprehension. These are words that find their way into such conversations only because they are expected to be there. A fine example of this trend is "granularity". It has a variety of definitions depending upon the particular field to which it is being loosely applied. So wide is its range of meanings, in fact, that a good tactic is to ask anyone using the term in your presence a simple question: "what do you understand by the term 'granularity'?" Well, it breaks the ice at parties and Powerpoint presentations. An inexpert generic definition of granularity, at least as applied in the worlds of software engineering and data transmission, would be: "the degree to which big things can be broken down into their smallest constituent parts". When used in a positive sense, granularity is synonymous with "flexibility of design or construction". Despite the value of jargon as a form of insider shorthand, when it's use is merely pretentious it should be avoided. Funny ha ha Two things make granularity unusually insidious. First, it's rarely used without its accompanying low calorie wordmates, 'scalability and 'latency'. These form a trio as inseparable as Larry, Curly and Moe or Huey, Dewey, and Louie only not quite as funny. The second issue in the specific case of 'granularity' is due to its seeping out into broader, but equally strangulated, use and abuse. In a 2002 interview, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could proffer, "apparently the intelligence community, our intelligence community, the country's, did not have sufficient granularity to issue any specific warning." You can see what he meant, sort of Even if, as one expects, 'granularity' owes its etymology to something to do with grades of sugar, it is surely being misapplied. Maybe adjectives linked to the properties of 'icing' or 'caster' would not work so well but they do show more granularity than the granular alternative. Sometimes buzzwords should be retired, at least for a brief period, while their usefulness is reassessed. In the case of granularity this approach might be the most honest one containing a 'grain' of truth, as it were. Jim Chalmers |
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