[9rx]

All words are arbitrary, but how does it not make sense? "Server" is a well understood term in software. "Less a X" is well understood in English to mean something akin to "without X", or "not having X". Serverless is short for "less a server", which succinctly indicates exactly what it is: The application is without a server. Which is a shift in how these types of applications are written, as since the mid-2000s it was common to include a server as part of the application. "Serverless" makes more sense than most terms we use in industry. It literally describes itself, although does require some historical context to understand why "server" is relevant.

Understandably, if you don't come from the software world you might think a server is a person who does work at your request, like serve you food at a restaurant. Is that where the problem lies? There are definitely still people, servers, serving the care to the systems that run the software. But that is clearly not the context in which it is used. It is very much used as a software term, and as a software term alone.

[Izkata]

> "Server" is a well understood term in software.

This might be why people are having trouble with it. "Cloud" and "serverless" both refer to hardware, not software.

"Cloud" was moving the hardware from something you managed, either in office or a datacenter, to using machines someone else managed, but it was still server-oriented (such as software in VMs or bare-metal that you managed).

"Serverless" drops even that, using ephemeral code that doesn't care what server it's running on, so the people managing the hardware can move your software as-needed.

[9rx]

> "Cloud" and "serverless" both refer to hardware, not software.

Not really. "Cloud" refers to a software abstraction that tries to hide the existence of actual hardware namely to remove dependence on the availability of any specific hardware component (like, as in, being able to transparently move to another physical machine without the user ever knowing). It is clearly a software term. I can't go down to my local Walmart and buy a "Cloud". Amazon won't ship a "Cloud" to my place. There is nothing "hard" implied by the word as used in this context. I'll grant you that it more or less maintains some kind of "virtual" hardware concept. Perhaps that is what you mean?

There is no hardware association with "serverless". It refers to a pattern for developing a certain breed of applications that resemble servers, but without the server. "Server" is definitively a software term as used here. A server is an application that listens for requests from a client, typically on a network port if we are to dive into implementation territory, but could be something else like a unix domain socket. Much like CGI of yore, these "serverless" applications shed the server, relying on the runtime environment to fill in the missing pieces.

[Brian_K_White]

This doesn't make sense to me because "fooless" means "lacks foo"

You are describing a thing that is not a foo, or does not do foo, not a thing that posesses no foo.

So, I say, this is just something you're saying and not a definition I ever heard or would have implied from context from others usage. And it's not a new term by now, so there has been several years for me to have gained this impression or understanding if anyone else were using it that way.

[9rx]

> "fooless" means "lacks foo"

Exactly. "Serverless" lacks a server. Which, granted, wouldn't make sense with no context, but when you remember that the same types of applications were previously written to include a server and no longer include a server when written in a "serverless" fashion, that is exactly where the differentiation is found. It literally describes what it is.

> And it's not a new term by now, so there has been several years for me to have gained this impression or understanding

I have never, ever, seen "serverless" refer to anything else outside of the previous commenter who thinks it has something to do with hardware. But it clearly has nothing to do with hardware. There aren't warehouses full of "serverlesses" ready to be loaded onto trucks. It is not something physical. It is not in any way "hard", that much is obvious. It is undeniably a software term. So, what, exactly, is your impression?

[Izkata]

To try and put my first comment more clearly: They both refer to distance removed from hardware. Neither refers purely to software things like webservers or application servers, which is how you and others described them in what I was first responding to.

"Server" does not solely refer to software, it is also a name used for hardware. Think along the lines of mainframe, host, hypervisor, and so on.

[9rx]

> does not solely refer to software, it is also a name used for hardware.

A computer that primarily runs a server (or multiple servers) is often colloquially also called a server in recognition of what it is doing, but server is still in reference to the software. If you repurposed that hardware to sit on someone's desk to run Excel, most wouldn't call it a server anymore.

> Think along the lines of mainframe

I am not sure that works. I expect a mainframe running Excel on someone's desk would still be considered a mainframe by most as mainframe usually refers to a hardware architecture. A server, in the colloquial hardware sense, could be of any kind of architecture, including a mainframe!

Regardless, serverless is not associated with hardware as it is usually used. It is, as virtually everyone uses it, about removing/not needing the server in your application, typically used in the context of a service like AWS Lamba which offers the aforementioned runtime environment that negates the need for your application to be a server. In fact, Lambda is specifically named in what looks like a majority of the sibling threads here. It is abundantly clear where the typical use lies. If you know of instances of people using it to refer to another concept, I would love to see it.