Comments on: Phrase of the day

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:11:36 +0000

I agree that “technology agnostic” may be a silly phrase.

In its defence, one could say it alludes to a religious agnostic stating “I do not believe in a God because I believe we don’t know enough to prove his/her existence.”

A technology agnostic company would say “We do not prescribe a technical solution to a client because until we’ve thoroughly examined their situation we don’t know enough (a-gnosis) to make that call”

A bit tenuous, I know.

By: Joshua Allen [msft]

Joshua Allen [msft] — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:22:12 +0000

Wow, quite an insight! I was *just* reading a book on textual criticism last night where the author was talking about some eastern apologist who was first using the phrases “agnos” and “alogos” in a somewhat derrogatory sense (around 200 CE during the explosion of gnosticism). But I didn’t connect that with the common use of “technically agnostic”. It is true that people use “agnostic” when they mean “impartial” these days. Kind of like how people use “evolve” when they mean “adapt”.

By: John

John — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:10:19 +0000

The term and its usage looks funny. On the other-hand, I the word “transparency” had lots of weight till recently. It means clarity on policies/projects/records etc. etc.

But these days it is being used by everybody and everywhere. As a result it has almost become a loose word now.

By: Chip

Chip — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:22:43 +0000

I whole heartedly agree with you Jez, my company tends to use ‘transparent’ a whole lot to explain the our actions are completely and utterly above board and easy to observe from the client’s point of view. It annoys the hell out of me!

On that matter, actually any enterprise term or phrase annoys the hell out of me, but at the end of the day, they sell the product to “technically agnostic” companies who become overwhelmed with this elite speak!

By: Jez

Jez — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:02:25 +0000

I just hate the use of the word ‘transparency’.
It actually means ‘see through’, but they use it to mean ‘visible’ or ‘easy to understand’!

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:21:51 +0000

I think a more accurate phase would be “technically impartial” – meaning that the company is not tied to one solution. This is how the phrase is often used.

By: patrick h. lauke

patrick h. lauke — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:11:03 +0000

“technically agnostic” is certainly wrong. “technology agnostic”, as in “without knowledge about the technology”, or even better “platform agnostic”, when referring to a particular solution, is probably more what they’re after…