Wednesday, August 27, 2008

How much is that widget in the window?

"Widget" is a nonsense name for an unspecified product or device. Much like "whatchamacallit," "doohickey," or "thingamajiggy." So when you call and ask how much a widget costs, I can't answer you.

2 comments:

Navin said...

or they are techies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_widget

Seth said...

Come now. If they're techies, they should know better. Look at Wikipedia's definition: "...a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation."

In other words, an undefined code set that performs an undefined task to be executed somewhere on the Internet.

Techies, in my experience, will call and say, "I'd like to be able to perform this function on this website (or across these types of websites). What would it take to do that?" Fair enough, let's talk.

"How much does a widget cost?" is best answered with "USD $N," but that just gets you in trouble.

Nevertheless, your point is well taken and I should exhibit more patience.