Ask HN: When is 'powerful' the right adjective for software?

2 points by felixr 5y ago ↗ HN

Quite a few projects describe their software as powerful. eg. a powerful editor, a powerful type checker, powerful platform,...

My impression is they just want to say its is great in some way, but I don't think powerful is the right adjective. Quite often it should be replaced by versatile, customizable, comprehensive, ...

To me a powerful tool means it will have a lot of impact even if I put minimal energy into it. E.g. `rm -rf /` is quite powerful, but is this what software projects want to convey when using powerful to describe themselves?

1 comment

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uberman 5y ago ↗

"it will have a lot of impact even if I put minimal energy into"

It seems reasonable to me that someone claiming to have a power editor might mean that.

It also see a little odd to try to produce a counter example to software potentially being powerful using software.