I’d agree with this. Think of it like Push and Pull.
Sorry, but I’ve done that procedure many times and it’s called “uploading the program” since you are sending a file from your computer to the brick. Uploading it.
Like “here” or “there”, “upload” and “download” are relative terms. I upload data to another computer. I download data from another computer. If I have two computers in my possession, the one downloading or uploading can change depending on which one I’m referring to. But the one sending the data is uploading and the one receiving data is downloading.
Rockwell Automation disagrees with my definition and of course they’re blatantly wrong. As they explain it, you download from a bigger computer to a smaller computer and upload the other way. And apparently to them, no matter how powerful the PLC or how puny the laptop, the PLC is always “the little computer”. It’s very frustrating to mentally translate all their documentation and representatives whenever they say “download to the PLC” and “upload from it” when as I define the terms you always “download from” and “upload to”.
I understand many other people and companies inexplicably agree with Rockwell’s definition. My college professors and I can assure you that they are incorrect. But we all must suffer fools in order to do our jobs in peace. The fact is you need to know how the other person (or document) defines the terms before you can understand what they are saying and apply that understanding properly.
We seem to be split into two major camps. Explanation 1 says it depends on where you sit; sending is “upload”, receiving is “download”. Explanation 2 says it depends on the size and power of the computer; from big to small is “download”, from small to big is “upload”. I agree with explanation 2, unless the two computers are equal size, then I’d fall back to explanation 1.
Moving a file from a server to my laptop is a download, both from my point of view and the server’s point of view.
Moving a file from my phone to my laptop is an upload, both from the point of view of my phone and my laptop.
Moving a file from my laptop to yours is an upload from my point of view but a download from your point of view.
To answer the OP directly: Which way is up? Up is toward the bigger, more powerful computer. If there are the same size, up is toward the computer that is farther away.
It bugs me when I hear people say it backwards or use the words interchangeably. Just like it bugs me when some people apparently think “on line” and “off line” mean the same thing. “Where did you get those shoes?” “I bought them off line.”
So if I’m transferring files from machine X to machine Y I have to figure out which one is “bigger”??? Maybe the computer on the other end is a Raspberry Pi or a Sun server. I don’t need to know this, if I know it at all, in order to decide to say upload or download.
Maybe the computer at the other end has more memory, etc. but is an older model than my computer. So probably not as powerful. And this makes a difference how?
It doesn’t. It has nothing to do with machine size or power. It’s what direction the file is being moved. Uploading is sending, downloading is receiving by definition. There is no ambiguity. If you’re transferring files from X to Y, machine X is uploading and machine Y is downloading.
The fact some people are confused doesn’t change that.
It has nothing to do with which is ‘bigger’. It’s about which is higher up the networking hierarchy.
Maybe it’s older computer professionals who see it this way, from being around when the terms first came into use.
It’s not rocket science. The terms themselves clearly imply that there are different levels, an ‘up’ and a ‘down’. If you drew a network diagram, you would conventionally put the mainframe/server/internet at the top and the connected peripherals/computers below. I believe this is where the terms originated.
It’s not just Rockwell. GE, Schneider/Modicon, MTL (now part of GE), Siemens, ABB, Omron, and Emerson all follow this convention. In fact, I can’t name a single major PLC or controls company that does not follow this convention.
The entire controls industry pretty much disagrees with your definition. You may say that they are blatantly wrong, but I’m sure they would say the same about your definition.
When programming a device of some sort, upload/download being from the PC’s point of view is not universal.
That’s the great thing about standards. There’s so many to choose from! 
Dare I bring up sideloading? 
nm
But I feel equally strongly that you’re confused.
We agree that I’d download a software update from an Apple server to my PC. Looked at from Apple’s perspective, you are claiming that an Apple tech would say that he’s uploading that file from his server to me. That seems completely wrong to me - he’d still say he’s downloading the file from his server to me. So my mental model is certainly based on hierarchy, at least where a hierarchy is clear.
I think if your gut feeling is equally strong in the opposite direction, we have to accept that nobody is confused. It seems like there’s a real dichotomy in people’s mental models for the usage of these words.
The Apple server is SENDING you a file. It is UPLOADING.
After I hit reply, the SDMB server is sending me the page to display. Would you say the SDMB is downloading the page to me?
Yes, of course.
Yes. Not just that, I’m just as surprised as you are to find that you would call that uploading.
There’s an interesting phenomenon with language that we are quite happy accepting (say) that Japanese people have completely different words for things; we are moderately happy to accept that quirky Brits speak English but with significant differences; but that we become increasingly resistant to surprising discoveries of variation the closer we are to our “home” dialect.
It’s closely related to the really interesting way that consensus language usage tends to spread rapidly across socially connected populations.
And, of course, it’s related to the phenomenon of peeving about people who are ostensibly speaking your own dialect are not using words the same way as you. If you want 10,000 comments, the surest way is to start a thread about people’s language “pet peeves”, about the way that they perceive others are mistreating their dialect.
Having lived in various parts of the U.K. and the U.S., I have learned to be very circumspect about assuming that someone is making an error, however “wrong” something sounds to me.
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I was replying to one of the “relative sizes of the machines people”.
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Sure, but what do you call the entire process of data going from X to Y? Not just the breakdown into pieces.
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And if you do break it down into pieces, just call sending “sending” and receiving “receiving”. Simple, right?
Just obsolete or niche, the language has moved on, as it tends to do.
As many have mentioned, this is no confusion: up=send, down=receive. I hadn’t previously been aware there were any other definitions.
I think it’s time to label ourselves. In the upload/download dispute, we are hierarchists or relativists.
I agree. Nobody at Apple, or Google, or Microsoft, or any other large tech company would ever talk about ‘uploading’ data to users. They download apps, updates, etc. to users.
But I accept that usage may have changed, or be changing, especially among non-tech users.
I’m not sure I understand why you guys are saying this.
I am downloading the page from the SDMB servers. Therefore, the servers HAVE to be uploading the page to me. There are only two terms, upload and download. The servers and I cannot both be “downloading”.