"ETA" IS NOT ETA

[petfold]

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[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
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...
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WHILE DOWNLOADING, YOUTUBE-DL GIVES FEEDBACK SUCH AS

[download] 35.1% of 576.20MiB at 360.25KiB/s ETA 17:42

IN THIS LINE, THE USE OF "ETA" IS INCORRECT. WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY IS THAT THE DOWNLOAD IS EXPECTED TO FINISH 17 MINUTES FROM NOW. ETA ALWAYS MEANS AN ABSOLUTE TIME (ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL). INSTEAD OF "ETA" IT SHOULD SAY "remaining time" OR "remaining". IT'S NOT ETA, PLEASE CHANGE THIS, THANKS.

[jaimeMF]

Well, it seems that both formats are accepted: http://english.stackexchange.com/a/104893.
And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_time_of_arrival, Bittorrent clients also use it in this way.

I'm far from being an expert on the terminology, could you provide some reference that supports your view?

[davidbailey00]

IN THIS LINE, THE USE OF "ETA" IS INCORRECT. WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY IS THAT THE DOWNLOAD IS EXPECTED TO FINISH 17 MINUTES FROM NOW. ETA ALWAYS MEANS AN ABSOLUTE TIME (ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL). INSTEAD OF "ETA" IT SHOULD SAY "remaining time" OR "remaining". IT'S NOT ETA, PLEASE CHANGE THIS, THANKS.

You don't need to shout dude :D

[dstftw]

Closing since no certain proof provided.

[petfold]

Even if you close my ticket and even if you cite Bittorrent as using it, it is an incorrect usage. The term comes from aviation and I asked pilots who confirm this is only used with absolute time.
Look it is not essential for me that you don't make fools of yourselves. I am just trying to help you. But if you resist, I give up on you and your attitude. I will also submit a bug report to bittorrent, maybe they have more sense. Which bittorrent client did you mean?

The fact fact that I am right is clear from how in some applications both ETA and remaining time is displayed (e.g. Waze). In this case both are referred to correctly. I am really puzzled by why you insist confusing your users by using an incorrect, or at least ambiguous term.

[rg3]

The term "ETA" has been used by the program almost since I wrote the initial version, for two reasons. I was trying to keep the progress line as short as possible, because it needs to fit in a single terminal line typically below 80 characters for the line to be properly overwritten when using the carriage return method. Second, the term was already being widely used by GNU wget in its output, so it would be familiar to anybody who had used the ubiquitous program. GNU wget uses it to express the remaining time.

Nowadays, on top of that, we can find many GUIs and tools on top of youtube-dl that parse its progress output, and may beed to be rewritten if we change the line.

Nobody is insisting on "confusing [our] users by using an incorrect [...] term". There are contextual, historical and practical reasons to keep it the way it is, and they're more important than the point raised here, however right it may be.