El Reg to bite hand that feeds ICT? It's come to our attention that some of you are none too keen on the term "ICT" - the bastard offspring of IT and an apparently pointless exercise in augmenting a perfectly functional acronym to endow the term with more gravitas and import. Well, that's according to readers who've been bemoaning the increasingly common use of …
ICT is one of those newfangled subjects they teach at school along with food technology (which used to be Home Ec and before that Cookery).
ICT is IT or as one of the bearded ones may say, Computing. It's the "belief studies" to our "scripture" or "RE".
Rubbish I say. Are we going to be taken over by a readership that was born in the '90s?
The term ICT is becoming increasingly more accurate, particularly in small businesses. I work for a small company, and I'm a one-man IT department. My remit covers Servers (Linux and Windows, including Terminal Servers), Desktop PC's, Thin Client systems, Telephones including the PBX, ADSL, Internet access, Firewalls and Security - and that's just the start of it! (Oh, and don't forget Janitor and General Dogsbody!).
My current batch of business cards lists my title as IT Engineer, but the next batch (if I ever get through the 1000 or so sitting in my desk drawer) is likely to say ICT Engineer instead.
For gods sake people, the LAST thing a technology distribution needs is more stupid pseudo-celebrity crud dirtying it's hallowed pages.
Where, good Reg Editor, was the option "4: Yes, and give me LESS stories about Paris Hilton"?
For the record, because I'm not sure my rant made it quite clear enough, I would have chosen option 4!
I don't like ICT as it's a pointless new name for IT, and there's really no need to change.
On the other hand, I often find that an IT related article can be tiresome if IT is mentioned too often, as it's similar to using caps to emphasise the word it. It can really break up the flow when reading. Like having internal Tourette Syndrome, I suppose.
When speaking though, IT has done the job for years, and I don't see any need to change that.
So my minority vote of no wasn't due to liking the term, but I wouldn't be offended by seeing ICT as the written form of IT.
So if the C stands for communication (as I am led to believe it does), what is this for?
If it means communication as in comms / telecoms ie networking of the local or wider types, surely this involves the passing of information using devices based on technology - IT devices, you might say.
So should this be I(IT)T or IT^2 ?
This horrible TLA seems to have bled down from the public sector - where it is fairly normal to find IT costs 50% more, maybe this is paying for that unnecessary "C" in the middle.
"ICT is IT or as one of the bearded ones may say, Computing"
I aspire to be a greybeard but I'm not there yet. However, I still think "computing" is a new-fangled term invented by <spit> marketing.
I studied Data Processing when I was at college - but that was 'cos it was a business-oritentated course. Whereas we only had to learn how to drive card readers and select which sorting algorithm to use according to the hashed indexing system in use and the number of tape drives available, the real academics doing 'Computer Studies' were learning how to write the next generation of compilers.
What riles me is that ICT includes those networking numpties. Quite what anyone thinks they have to do with computers has defied my understanding for over two decades. When I wanted to network some RAIR black boxes I did it by soldering up some RS242 connectors to a few yards of ribbon cable and wasting a good drinking hour reminding myself what XON/XOFF protocol (that's ^S / ^Q to you newbies) was in aid of. It's all been downhill since that RTS/CTS rubbish came along, as far as I can see.
ICT? Bah! You'll be telling us next that Windows is an operating system.
When I were a lad, if you couldn't code an purchase order system in 8K of RAM after supping 8 pints of Wethereds you could be expected to be sent to the Senior Operator to go empty the bit bucket. And if you had to edit the source more than twice before passing acceptance you'd be carpeted by the Senior Programmer (as indeed I was). But you try telling that to the script-kiddies today, and they just don't believe ya.
I hope that was a troll, spoof, or otherwise exaggerated rant. It's uncohesive, in factual error, and you're blaming the wrong people for the wrong things. You don't even seem to have a clue about what computers are, the possibilities, the current limitations; you don't even know that very few people engaged in ``Computer Science'' (as the branch is called) archive the glory you seem to associate with them. Even those that do get it unjustly in most cases. You will very probably reel back from the content when just casually reading the NetBSD project's documentation and mailing archives.
Overall, you seem to have the typical mind of an aged beancounter.
I just heard where the Blackstone Group bought Hilton. Apparently they're paying $26 B for her. I wonder which sheik they'll be selling her to.
Oh, wait, different Paris Hilton. Never mind. (I'd pay $26 for her, if only to get her off the street).
Oh yeah, lose ICT. And boffin. I notice you haven't used mobo in a few years.
What is ICT? I've never seen that acronym before!
Sounds something as stupid as the "kibibyte", "mebibyte" and "gibibyte" that has been infesting the Wikipedia articles in the last 3 months. Damn HD manufacturers corrupting the meaning of a "kilobyte" (always been 1024 bytes).
For what I've read, it seems ICT is something on that grounds ... the original IT meaning pushed into ICT, then IT meaning other weird stuff. Ow.
I was going to say the same thing - the C is completely redundant, and appears to be there only to turn it into a TLA, as if we need another one.
Perhaps the dickheads who thought that one up can show us a form of communication that doesn't involve information - then there might be some point in talking about Information AND Communication Technology. Until then IT does just fine.
On the other hand, we could start a new trend for turning all existing two letter acronyms into PTTs (Pointless Tautological TLAs), e.g.
PE -> PPE (Physical and Physiological Education)
RE -> RME (Religious and Mystical Education)
MP -> MPD (Member of Parliament and Dickhead)
etc
Personally, I would prefer that we place a ban on banning.
I have no problem with mobes, lappys or boffins because I understand that this is not an American (specifically USA) site and the people who maintain and animate the site do not have the same background I do. Plus, I like the typically English humor and the insight into UK that such terms give.
The web being (for the moment) a free things in which anyone can participate, I say let the whiners make their own site - if they want to ban things they can do so on their own pages.
Reading Colin's reply made me realise my error:
"show us a form of communication that doesn't involve information"
That is exactly what the sort of mindless eejit who comes up with these things does every day.
Every rebranding exercise whereby a company gets renamed from a descriptive thing such as "the Royal Mail" or "Post Office" because they deal with mai land post, to "Consignia". Or "Hedgehog Tuesday" or whatever other tosh they can think of.
Same goes for those clever telly ads where three seconds after they end you think "that was flashy but I already can't remember if it was selling cars, phones or breakfast cereal"
This involves communication of a series of letters or images into my brain but carry no information with them.
So I change my original thought - Communication can be separate from Information. But this still leads to the same conclusion - it should not be associated with the abbreviation for IT.
More PTTs:
OCS - operating and communications system (it has a network stack! it must be communicating!)
LAPCD - Los Angeles Police and Communications Department (they talk to perps and say things like "freeze suckers!" - this is communication, surely?)
NASCA - All NASA do these days is put up satellites, so really they are a telecoms company.
PFUY - Pimply-faced Uncommunicative Youth (the only thing about him which is communicable is his collection of skin diseases)
It's almost as if they think people have to be warned there might be communications element -
PHB - "Well done, Bob, we would like to offer you the job as our new ICT engineer"
*** Warning - this job offer may contain comms ***
Bob - "There's Communications involved? I can't do that then, I thought it was just IT, sorry to have wasted your time"
All official government acronyms must now use a TLA under the new Euro directive. The federal Euro-ambition is that all 25 member nation governments will move onto consuming the FLAs by Q1 2010.
Non-governmental acronyms may (for the time being) remain 2 letters
Why listen to the motley crew? For a while now I've been reading the comments on storys and its amazing just how many stuck up geeks actually exsist. You people really have no social skills if words like ICT, lappy and mobo offend your intellect. More so if you don't like reading about the Paris Hilton trials, dont fucking open the link to the story. It's not bloody rocket science is it, which most of you seem pretty clued up on which again points right back to the lack of social skills.
Sad day.
It's more a matter of association (ICT <-> beancounters, lappy <-> naivety, mobo <-> egocentric ``tweakers'') than the exact meaning of the words.
``stuck up geeks lack of social skills blaat blaat''
While I can't speak for the rest of the readers, I can certainly assure you that my social skills are a lot more developed than those of the mainstram population, whether I qualifiy as ``geek'' or not. Stereotypes are a useful tool (since they're often true among the soulless, faceless masses), but, like with any tool, be careful not to overuse it.
Certainly at A level now - Computing involves creating a custom solution using some form of programming tools (pascal/delphi or VB usually), whereas ICT is creating solutions using (shudder) Microsoft Office (maybe some places let you use OpenOffice or the likes, I'd hope so anyway).
ICT tends to be more essay-style questions, Computing more short and to-the-point (such as calculations with binary or "write something to do such and such in assembler")
So I say down with ICT!! Computing is the way forward.
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