# Strange usage of 'compute' in IT context **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 1, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272 "2017-07-01T14:14:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/21 "2017-07-03T02:43:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But “Installation, storage, and compute” is two processes and one resource. “Storage” is likely to be used in the resource sense here. They’re listed together because they’re each important capability groups in Windows Server. If you want to manage a server, then you need to understand each of those capabilities, even if some are processes and others are resources. They all need management. Compute is pronounced com-PUTE (a certain coworker notwithstanding). ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/22 "2017-07-04T18:10:51Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > From this [free ebook](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_press/2016/09/01/free-ebook-microsoft-azure-essentials-fundamentals-of-azure-second-edition/): > > So as you can see, it’s incredibly prevalent—these were just the first five hits I got with a search, you can easily find many more throughout the ebook. > > Something similar seems to be happening with ‘app’—I’ve read a couple of times now something like ‘to distribute app’ or ‘to host app’, as if there was this sort of undifferentiated sludge called ‘app’ that can be provided as a resource. > Any insights regarding the origin of this usage? It seems especially strange to me as the cases where it’s use don’t seem to require any new coinage—you could perfectly well talk about ‘computing services’ and the like. It probably came from virtualization tech. When you start virtualizing servers, you need access to storage, networking and cpu resources. Instead of cpu resources, compute is what I always hear. I never heard it really used before virtualizing​ came out strong. These days I hear it all the time. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/23 "2017-07-04T18:20:36Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’ve been in IT since 1977 and this is the first time I’ve had this usage brought to my attention. It sounds like doubleplusgood newspeak crap to me. It’s a cloud/virtualization thing. Doesn’t help that Amazon pioneered the mass-scale industry with their Elastic Compute Cloud. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/24 "2017-07-04T18:44:06Z")
Obviously writed by a engineer. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/25 "2017-07-05T01:01:08Z")
Well this answer does compute. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/26 "2017-07-05T07:26:35Z")
As noted above it is an older term in the noun form, but as there was a tight coupling of storage and compute for most of the PC’s history it was a fairly obscure for the general public. [http://www.websters1913.com/words/Compute](http://www.websters1913.com/words/Compute) ---
**Author:** ![Xerxes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/d2c977/32.png) [@Xerxes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xerxes)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/27 "2017-07-05T12:23:40Z")
Way back when I was a BSc Comput[e | ing] undergrad (disclosure: in the UK), although the term ‘compute’ wasn’t prevalent, it did crop up in lectures concerning things like algorithms used by various OSs to determine which process should be up next in a multi-process environment. The scheduler had to know whether a certain (section of a) process was “io-bound” or “compute-bound”, indicating that the thing stopping faster/more execution of that process was that it was either performing a lot of slow i/o or was a voracious number-cruncher. This would be in the early 80’s (gulp). My £0.02p ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/28 "2017-07-05T16:29:33Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Azure’s compute, storage, network, and application services […] (p. vii) > > […] provide self-service access to compute resources to users in your organization […] (p. 2) > > […] the deployment of additional compute nodes […] (p. 2) > > Azure provides several PaaS compute offerings […] (p. 3) > > This makes VMSS an ideal platform to host higher-level microservice compute clusters such as […] (p. 4) > > So as you can see, it’s incredibly prevalent—these were just the first five hits I got with a search, you can easily find many more throughout the ebook. It seems to me that “compute services” is different than in the OP. “Compute services” means services for computing - here they took a verb and made it into an adjective, which is standard English. But the OP is talking about nouning a verb, which is not standard, at least until it catches on and becomes a noun in its own right. And I had never heard that usage before. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/29 "2017-07-05T17:53:54Z")
“Compute” is very common in high-performace computing (HPC - clusters). You hear things like: - storage node - large-memory compute node - GPU node - 28-core compute node ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/30 "2017-07-05T18:52:15Z")
It is also used that way in the context of 3D and GPU programming. It is used when you are using a GPU (the chip that is usually used to draw 3D stuff) to do general-purpose computation that has nothing to do with drawing stuff. e.g. [compute shaders](https://www.khronos.org/opengl/wiki/Compute_Shader). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/31 "2017-07-05T19:31:06Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > … fungible and finely subdividable. Nice ring to that. If I’m ever caught in adultery I’ll know how to describe my lovin’. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/32 "2017-07-05T20:27:46Z")
There’s also the product line called Intel Compute Stick. You might think that with “Compute” in the name these would be pretty heavy-duty devices. You’d be wrong. I think it’s more like “You’ll be amazed that these can compute anything at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/33 "2017-07-06T16:38:10Z")
Thanks for the responses. The sense I’m getting is that ‘compute’ essentially refers to computation thought of as a sort of amorphous resource, which can be reallocated/distributed essentially in a continuous manner. That’s a bit of a different usage than the historical one pointed out above (and also, as has been pointed out by some, it differs from the sense used in the OP), but well, I guess language evolves. I still don’t like it on a purely aesthetic basis, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272/34 "2017-07-06T16:55:01Z")
Yes, it’s being used as a jargon synonym for “computing power”. Why they use “compute” instead of “computing power” is that it’s two syllables vs five. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-usage-of-compute-in-it-context/790272.md?page=1)