Expected this to be an analysis of the replacement of the "Sawzall®" trademark name with the generic "Reciprocating saw". Milwaukee used to be the only manufacturer, now everybody makes one, and in cordless versions too. It would be an interesting language study to analyze the construction and demolition domains to find out at what rate do people stop calling them Sawzalls, and how is this age or experience dependent?<p>And no, Googler, they're rarely used for cutting regular logs. Green wood is likely to pinch the blade and cutting will be slow. That's what chainsaws are for. Sawzalls are useful for two reasons: The blades are cheap, thin, flexible, and replaceable, so they're ideal for demolition. Need to remove a sill plate that's been nailed to the concrete? Push the sawzall blade under it and cut the nails flush. Need to remove a header to resize a window or door? Just cut it with the sawzall. Also, the blade is short, so you can cut curves in thin material. Need to cut a profile out of that installed gypsum board (language migration - was "Drywall®") or cement board? Skip the hand saw and use the Reciprocating Saw/Sawzall.<p>What would be further interesting is at what rate do these trends appear and disappear in other, faster-moving domains - for example, Skype still has an advantage because some people use it as a generic word for video chat. How does this affect Apple, Google, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other providers? How long does this last? Do people still "check in" to CVS/SVN when they really mean they "git commit"?
"<i>At Google, most Sawzall analysis has been replaced by Go. ... To ease the process of migrating from Sawzall, we’ve developed a set of Go libraries that we call Lingo (for Logs in Go).</i>"<p>The eternal conflict between domain specific languages and libraries in general purpose languages.