Remove references to “instance”

[basil]

Describe your use-case which is not covered by existing documentation.

This repository has hundreds of references to a Jenkins “instance,” a particularly irritating term that has neither a clear meaning nor a definition in the glossary. (The only clear concept of “instance” in the Jenkins ecosystem is Instance Identity, which is an internal implementation detail that is likely out of scope for most documentation.) The term should likely be replaced with “controller” in most cases.

Reference any relevant documentation, other materials or issues/pull requests that can be used for inspiration.

No response

[gounthar]

Thank you, Basil.

I must admit, I frequently use it in my blog posts.

What term would you use to refer to the combination of a controller, one or more agents, and/or clouds?

[zbynek]

Related PR for plugin site jenkins-infra/plugin-site#1743 (just merged)

[basil]

“Deployment” might be a good term to use in that situation—while a bit vague (for example, a Jenkins deployment could include multiple controllers), it is still more specific than “environment” or “instance,” which could be referring to just about anything, even an instance of a Java object (of which there are thousands within a controller JVM process). Most of the usages I found really did mean “controller” (e.g., logging into an instance controller), but in rare cases where precision is required and “deployment” is too vague then perhaps one could use the more laborious phrase “controller and agents.”

[gounthar]

Thanks for the clarification. 👍