This page classifies a broad definition for real-time and then breaks into different categories (hard, soft, fail-safe, fail-operational).
Is the default definition of real-time "hard real-time", or does it always need to be defined by its classification?
My point around context is that no one in the web world is saying that soft real-time systems are hard real-time systems. That would be blatant misappropriation of a term. They are saying that "real-time" defaults to "soft" in the web world. Just like "real-time" defaults to "hard" in the embedded world.
I don't know if I would classify this project as the embedded world (despite it using hardware), because it's consuming a stream of packets and isn't at the actual physical device level. I may be misunderstanding what they're doing, but I believe this to be the case.
The broader reason why I commented in the first place is that your comment feels like gate-keeping of a term when most people are going to quickly pick up on the context of how the term is being used. I understand and agree with your point around hard vs soft, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you seem to think it is regarding what the default classification is in different contexts.
So now we have two terms referring to exactly the same thing, which doesn't resolve the term conflation problem I initially wrote about. The "web world" context isn't that different from the larger software engineering world that they should repurpose engineering terms.
> Saying context doesn't matter is just ignoring how everyone else uses language and saying that your view of it is right.
I am saying that web programmers do tend to use professional language wrong, that it's unfortunate, and that we should try to correct it when it happens. I don't think the first part is controversial, but apparently trying to insist on precise engineering terminology when talking about engineering systems is controversial.