Forum: english.stackexchange.com
Tags: <meaning>
Title: What does "fine-grained" mean?
Question: I always see "fine-grained" in technology articles. What does it mean?

Answers:
sents: text: When used in the context of "fine-grained control", for example, it carries the connotation of "very precise": a volume knob that gives you fine-grained control means that you can set your volume to the exact level that you desire, you don't have to choose only between "too quiet" and "too loud".
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/2490/Hellion
score: 21
sents: text: I can't find a reference on this, but I think the etymology comes from sandpaper.
text: Sandpaper is made with grains (originally sand) and if you make coarse-grain sandpaper you can quickly remove lots of unwanted wood, but the result is rough.
text: If you make fine-grain sandpaper you can smooth or polish the wood to a high degree, with great control, but the work is slower because the smaller grains don't remove as much wood.
text: This metaphor extends into other tools where the tools offer control of minute details in order to achieve specific results.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/380/Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
score: 9
sents: text: It just means what it sounds like: comprised of smaller entities.
text: This could imply higher quality or fidelity if smaller entities make the system's overall properties better.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/3422/H2ONaCl
score: 5
sents: text: The sandpaper analogy reads very well.
text: In pre-digital photography, "grains" of light-sensitive silver nitrate were used to capture images.
text: It gets very technical, very fast,
text: but I think it's safe to say "the smaller (finer) the grain, the higher the possible image resolution: Wikipedia search results
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/10112/AWAbooks
score: 3
sents: text: In Computer Science (as you're looking for), coarse-grained means ' monolithic ' fine-grained means ' modulized ' or ' devided into smaller pieces ' For examples, there are many kinds of architecture for web services: monolithic architecture is coarse-grained architecture.
text: microservice architecture is fined-grained architecture.
text: These meanings are illustrated in this article .
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/58294/Jason Heo
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
The term "fine-grained" can have various meaning depending on context, although in the context of "fine-grained control" it carries the connotation of being "very precise". It could alos refer to the level of detail or the resolution of images. In Computer Science, "fine-grained" means "modulized" or "divided into smaller pieces".
When used in the context of "fine-grained control", for example, it carries the connotation of "very precise":  a volume knob that gives you fine-grained control means that you can set your volume to the exact level that you desire, you don't have to choose only between "too quiet" and "too loud". The etymology comes from sandpaper which is made from grains and you can smooth or polish the wood and by extension to other tools. In photography, grains of silver nitrate were used to capture images. It suggests higher fidelity because of the smaller entities involved. Similar terms are used in Computer science and architecture.
The term "fine-grained" can have various meaning depending on context, although in the context of "fine-grained control" it carries the connotation of being "very precise". It could alos refer to the level of detail or the resolution of images. In Computer Science, "fine-grained" means "modulized" or "divided into smaller pieces".
Fine grain means it is made up of small entities to make it very precise.
Fine-grained means "very precise".
There is no clear definitive answer, but in the context of technology, "fine-grained" could either mean that it provides precision control over something or is comprised of smaller entities.