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portability

portability

3 4.3
How easily software or code runs on different computers without many changes
  • noun
  • /ˌpɔːrtəˈbɪləti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : portabilidad
  • Unfortunately, portability and processing power will always be at odds with each other, forcing a tradeoff.
  • enhance portability

Examples

  • The much-celebrated Data Portability Working Group has become a subject of heated debate.

    Blog text (13)
  • Our method is general and provides programs with increased portability.

    Academic text (2000)
  • For security and portability reasons, it was never intended to be a thin client or a website.

    Blog text (24)
  • However, Spring is designed for portability between application servers, and we also tested our code on other products.

    Blog text (17)
  • There's also a large focus on portability and standardized interfaces.

    Blog text (17)
  • NeXTstep (the combined GUI/OS that ran on the hardware) was built for portability and ran on multiple processors.

    Blog text (22)
  • There is also a sub-project code-named Glance, an image discovery and delivery service that enables portability of workloads between OpenStack clouds.

    Blog text (23)
  • MPI's derived datatypes further enhance the portability and efficiency of MPI codes by enabling the architect to communicate noncontiguous data with a single MPI function call.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Software developers focus on increasing portability so that applications can run on various operating systems.

  • With enhanced portability, the program can easily be transferred between computers without needing adjustments.

Synonyms

transportability
vsportability
6.1

How easily something works the same in different places or systems

applies specifically to software moved across computing environments with minimal change

Antonyms

A situation where two things cannot work or live together without problems

How Portable

portability
  • Specialized
3 4.3
interoperability
  • Specialized
8 6.5
platform
  • Specialized
278 4.9

Surface Forms

portability singular
portabilities plural

Morphology

portability = portable (transparent) = portable + ity

Formed by nominalizing 'portable' with -ity; the technical extension to software is a metaphor but the derivation is regular.

Etymology

Portability comes from the Latin root portare, 'to carry', and in computers it keeps that image: software that is 'carried' from one computer or system to another. So software portability means a program can run on different systems with little or no change.