“We’re taking the system off line tonight so we can prop new code.”
“What time does the prop start?”
“We’ll be propping at midnight.”
As shown, it can be used as either a verb (usually transitive, occasionally intransitive) or a noun.
Where does this come from, and what does it mean?
One of our new IT program managers asked me this today, and I realized I absorbed the term a few years ago and never really wondered about its provenance. I did some googling, but come up with a lot of nothing.
(Well, not nothing nothing. One of the unexpected results for “computer prop” is the company that makes the hollow plastic PC/monitor mockups you see sitting on desk displays at Ikea and such. That was sort of amusing. Just not, y’know, relevant.)
Is it a shortened form of “prop up,” in its sense of build or construct? A cross-pollination of that phrase with the term “propagate,” derived from implementations where new code is fed into a staging system, after which the migration to the live production environment is automated and hands-off? Or something else?
For what it’s worth, if it matters, I’m in a West Coast technology company, heavily influenced by the Microsoft Way. Not having done IT outside this area, I don’t know if this is local jargon, and I’d be curious to hear how widespread this usage is.
I’ve used this term quite a bit, but in my current job we use the term “deploy”. Could be “deploy” is used in multiserver applications and “prop” more for single server applications.
I’ve been in software development my entire life (midwest and west coast), and I’ve never heard this term, although I’ve also heard “propagate” used in the same sense. Sounds like just a local abbreviation.
Me too. We always use “deploy” or sometimes “push.” As in, “let’s push the new code to production tonight.” Or, “We’re going to deploy the upgrade over the weekend.”
I’ve been in software since 1979 and never heard it, but this explanation sounds plausible. It would be appropriate if you are going to do a distributed deployment, as is often done with tools like Tivoli, where you have to install the same software over the network to dozens or hundreds of machines.
For a single-point installation, I’ve heard install, deploy, cut over, push out, drop. My wife’s company says “implement” but just about everywhere else that means “write the code.”
Interesting. “Propagate” was my top WAG but given that we deploy everything by hand, without automation, I wasn’t really sure how the term would even begin to catch on here.
At my company, “implement” can mean anything from “deploy” to “sat in meetings and nodded sagely when somebody else came up with a good idea.”
For ERP software implement has a pretty standard meaning which encompasses everything you do between signing the contracts and going live on the software (business process analysis and redesign, install software, configure software, modifications, data conversion, training, testing, etc.)
We push or deploy. In 20+ years in big corporate &/or ISV development & dev management I’ve never heard anyone prop code. Using “prop” as a short form of “propagate” makes some sense; I’ve just never heard it used.
I’ve worked in large scale software systems for 12 years, and give another vote for “wha?” on this use of “prop” (or even “propagate”) for what I would call “push”, “deploy” or “rollout”, often depending on the level of the change.
I would “push out” a configuration change, “release” a new version of an application, and “roll out” or “deploy” a system architectural change that involves multiple functional areas.
“Propagation” of changes is sort of a given, except in circumstances where one site or user base is getting a release ahead of others as a sort of “beta” period, following which it would get propagated (more likely, “synced”) to other areas/users.