cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/3658116

or maybe some other terminology would be better? lots of people get confused when you ask them to choose an instance, sometimes I think even the word “proxy”, “host”, or “hub” is simpler

the specific terms aren’t my point, just a discussion to see if we can come up with a better name

  • @FondotsEnglish
    11•1 year ago

    Of all the words I would come up with to replace instance, proxy would probably be very near the bottom of the list.

    For me the first thing that comes to mind is the websites we used back in school to circumvent the school network filters. I suspect that’s probably the case for a lot of people who would be confused by the term instance enough to be put off by it. Others would probably think “it’s proxy for what? Why shouldnt I go right to the actual source instead of going through a proxy?”

    Server would probably be my first choice if we wanted to ditch the instance terminology, and off the top of my head, host, home, hub, portal, access point, provider, node, center, affiliate, axis, and core, would all come to mind before proxy (and most of those I wouldn’t consider to be better terms than instance, though still far better than proxy)