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List:       webkit-dev
Subject:    Re: [webkit-dev] Terminology: Could we change 'roll out' to 'roll back'?
From:       Ryosuke Niwa <rniwa () webkit ! org>
Date:       2020-03-07 2:29:49
Message-ID: CABNRm60A+_tzA5W3R+pBLwXy9eQQsvdmBLPsJcTWd04KtQ4Eow () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 6:15 PM Kirsling, Ross <Ross.Kirsling@sony.com> wrote:
> 
> Late on Friday seems like a good time for a terminological debate (), so I'd like \
> to propose we revisit one of the strangest items of WebKit-specific terminology: \
> the phrase ‘roll out'. 
> In our industry, the typical meaning of the phrase ‘roll out' is, of course, \
> ‘deploy' or ‘launch'; this corresponds with the colloquial usage of ‘roll \
> out' to mean ‘depart (for a destination)'. In WebKit, we use ‘roll out' to mean \
> the exact opposite, ‘revert' or ‘roll back'.

I think the ship has sailed on this one. People who have been working
on the WebKit project for long enough are so used to the phrase
"rollout a patch" that it's gonna be tricky to change the terminology.
Having said that, I'd much prefer the term "revert" over "rollout" or
"rollback". It's also the term git uses.

> This term is confusing enough for native English speakers outside our community, \
> let alone non-natives (since phrasal verbs are notoriously tricky as it is).

As a non-native speaker myself, I never find this term confusing
because I have no mental model of what "rollout" or "rollback" means.
However, I find those two terms infinitely more confusing than the
very direct "revert".

- R. Niwa
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