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I’m working on a REST project, so the “fraicheur” of data is quite important.

I know that the translation of “frais” is “cool”. Should I use this word in an IT technical environment (not only for REST project, this problematic also exists with sessions, caching, cookies, ...)?

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  • Definitely don't use "cool". "Current", "recent", "up-to-date", "latest", "fresh", etc. could all work. – Charles Mar 20 '14 at 18:02
  • Cool is not the translation of frais. It is a possible translation, and in this case, certainly not the most appropriate. – oerkelens Mar 20 '14 at 18:07
  • fraicheur = freshness – relaxing Mar 20 '14 at 18:27
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If you want to describe up-to-date (current) data, you will be best understood describing it as “fresh”.

I work in the (US) tech sphere and hear this phrasing frequently. And I'm not alone: Google Ngram comparison of “fresh data”, “topical data” and “cool data”

A quick search confirms that “data freshness” is a common and appropriate term, as here:

However, problems lie in the data freshness[;] information in warehouse is not always up-to-date.
Source: Wikipedia - Data Integration

There's also this example relaxing found on Stack Overflow:

Is it possible to conditionally select the data source? Meaning presenting the data from the REST API or the local models depending on their "freshness"?
Source: Stack Overflow - Django calling REST API from models or views?

And one last n-gram comparing “data freshness” and “data currency”, also from relaxing: Google Ngram comparison of “data freshness” and “data currency”

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    I wonder (and this is for @FumbleFingers, too) if current or most current (data) might not be the least ambiguous adjective, and data currency the appropriate nominal. According to Google Ngrams data currency is three times as frequent as data freshness. – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 20 '14 at 17:58
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    @StoneyB: I worked for decades on data analysis for bus companies. Maybe they all tended to adopt the terminology of a small number of "atypical" technical staff, but to the best of my recollection everyone to whom the distinction made any difference referred to historical and topical data. The latter, being primarily relevant to ongoing operational concerns, usually meant only days (or at most a few weeks) old, for answering questions like "Did the driver hand in the right amount of cash to match ticket sales in yesterday's shift?". The former would analyse trends, perhaps over years. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Mar 20 '14 at 18:35
  • (judging by the downvotes, not only OP's co-workers, but ELL users in general, are unfamiliar with this usage! :) – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Mar 20 '14 at 18:37
  • Here's an example from SO using freshness, and a more applicable ngram – relaxing Mar 20 '14 at 18:44
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    @relaxing Wow! That will remind me that with computers, there about three years to a generation instead of 30! – StoneyB on hiatus Mar 20 '14 at 18:50
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To further reinforce the sentiment that using the term "fresh" may be the most appropriate:

Cool is often used in data contexts to refer to its availability. Hot refers to data that can be retrieved very quickly, cool data will take a bit longer and cold data will take even longer.

In one context it would be hot data in RAM, cool data on local hard drive and cold data on a network share. In another it would be hot data in Amazon DynamoDB, cool data in amazon s3 and cold data in amazon Glacier.

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In a technical context such as OP's, the adjective of choice is probably...

topical - of immediate relevance, interest, or importance owing to its relation to current events.
topicality - the attribute of being of interest at the present time.

Since it's a relatively specialised usage that might not be familiar to OP's co-workers, he might like to consider more transparent terms such as [very] latest, [bang] up-to-date.

Personally I would not endorse even fresh, because "fresh data" often just means data which is not currently in the system (but it might still be "old, historical" data). Definitely don't use cool.

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