Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Terminology is critical in IT - similar terms may mean very different things. And I've seen people using or quoting wrong with more ease and more confidence. At times I've seen discussions to go many pages when the 'Thread starter' meant something else compared to how the rest-of-the-world has perceived the term. It sounds funny at one side but other side of the coin it looks very odd; this makes it tough to bring the people on same ground.

Actually, the English language terminology used in the computer field can be particularly confusing for people who are relatively new to computers for many reasons, for example:

1. some words can have multiple meanings
2. in some cases multiple terms exist for the same meaning
3. usage for some terms is inconsistent,
4. some archaic terminology has survived whose meanings might not be as obvious as they once were and
5. some terms have been deliberately coined by dominant companies to be misleading as a means of helping maintain or boost their market shares and profits.

This confusion can add to the difficulty of studying what is already a complex subject. In order to help solve this problem this part of the Forum is related to such terms in IT which are misused so often that they have become the regular practice now. This section is an effort to put all such terms at single place and put them in order. You can also add in the terms in the thread, you feel, are misused: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=484

One more thing - the Title of this Forum is dedicated to one of the Moderators of this Forum - Robert Sample! He has used this term so many that one point I thought that these things should be discussed.

Hopefully we do justice to the subject and you enjoy it,