The Verbization of Protocols, or "PuTTY" is Not a Verb

Warning, this entry is filed under "rant."

PuTTY is a wonderful terminal emulator. I use the Windows version all the time for launching ssh sessions. I also use it for serial console connectivity, telnet (if I have to), and testing raw remote tcp sockets.

Sometimes I hear people, particularly Windows admins, refer to "puttying in" to a system running ssh services. Sorry, no, "putty" is not a verb. Let's look at the wonderfully flexible English language a bit...

We convert nouns to verbs all the time. We even convert companies or products into verbs sometimes. For example, when I lived in India, people never referred to "making copies," they always referred to "Xeroxing." But in IT, we convert protocols, not company or product names, into verbs. Here are some examples:

• Telnet: "I telnet'ed into that router but couldn't find anything wrong with the configuration."
• rdp: "Just rdp [or remote] to that server and restart the Splunk agent."
• ftp: "You just have to ftp into that server to see that the file is over 500 megs."
• ssh: "I ssh'd [pronounced ess-ess-ayched] into that server to see what was spiking the CPU."
  Not this: "I puttyed (puttied?) into that server to demonstrate that I don't know the difference between a program that uses a protocol and a protocol itself."

Sometimes just a "verbicized" noun isn't good enough... it doesn't stand alone well as a verb. Some examples:

• smtp:
• Bad: "SMTP into the server to see if it's an open relay."
• Good: "Open an SMTP session to that mail server and see if it's an open relay."
• snmp:
• Bad: "SNMP to that host to see its uptime." (we could get into a debate over connection-oriented [tcp] versus connectionless [udp] on this one)
• Good: "Run an SNMP query against that host to see its uptime."
• cifs:
• Bad: "cifs into that Windows server from Linux using smbclient."
• Good: "Initiate a cifs transfer to a Windows share from Linux via smbclient."
• Citrix:
• Bad: "Citrix into that server."
• Good: "Establish a Citrix/ICA/XenApp session to see if the firewall rules are correct."
• etc., etc.

So let's just remember: never turn a piece of software into a verb. Protocols, fine, but unless a particular program is the only thing that can use a protocol (which is never true for very long), let's make the protocol the verb. That means there is no "puttying into"--only "ssh'ing into."

/End rant.

Time zones, abbreviations, and becoming grumpy with age

I'm 40 years old now, and I can feel my list of annoyances growing as I age. If I'm not careful, by the time I'm 80, I'll be one of those people Meg Ryan's character described in French Kiss.

The way people abbreviate time zones is often wrong. I live in the Central Time zone in the United States. Depending on the time of year, you abbreviate it in one of two ways.

• CST: Central Standard Time
• CDT: Central Daylight Time

In the United States, we have Daylight savings time between early/mid March and early November (see chart), and Standard time the rest of the year. Can you tell what's wrong with this sentence?

The meeting will be held at 14:00 CST on July 8.

Answer: There is no CST on July 8, there is only CDT. Perhaps I have an unfair advantage over the general public, because as a computer network engineer, I have to manage devices where you specify CDT verses CST as far as how you name the time zones.

Anyway, the dirty secret is that the very things that drive me nuts about other people, I sometimes do myself! Once in a while, I fall victim to not catching my own grammer or spellling mistakes [intentionally ironic]. I guess when Jesus said...

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1-2).

... he wasn't just teaching a good truth, he was (and is) trying to protect us from opening up judgement on ourselves (i.e., looking stupid)!