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I have a program for managing products and intermediate artifacts stored in a human concrete building somewhere. The program is not only manage the artifacts existed, but also the resource planning for non-existed artifacts. So, what should I call this program, an inventory manager, or a repository manager, or warehouse manager, or something else?

Personally, I feel that inventory is not intuitive, it's prefixed with invent-, however, there are also purchased artifacts which are not invented by ourselves in the repository. Though, most people/documents call this piece of program as inventory manager.

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up vote 2 down vote accepted

A repository is a specific location where something is stored. A warehouse is a specific type of repository. An inventory is a list of stored objects. In other words, a repository is a concrete location (although nowadays, it's most commonly referred to in a programming context), a warehouse is also a concrete location (actually, a building), and an inventory is a more abstract idea.

When you're talking about a program that will list owned assets, you will want to go with the term inventory manager, because it's not a physical location.

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Then, how about asset manager v. inventory manager? – Xiè Jìléi Feb 17 '11 at 4:16
@Ray Asset manager works in this situation. – waiwai933 Feb 17 '11 at 4:18
A repository doesn't need to be physical; it only needs to store something (as opposed to an inventory, which only lists what's stored). For exampele, a repository of software packages is a virtual, digital, non-physical thing, and it's still a repository because it stores stuff. – CesarGon Feb 17 '11 at 7:16
Is a backpack considered a repository? – Pacerier Nov 26 '13 at 0:08

A warehouse manager is more likely to be interpreted as the person in charge of running a warehouse.

A repository manager makes me think of a code repository, such as you might have in Subversion or Mercurial or some other source control system. The manager of a repository, whether human or heuristic, would have the job of dealing with that system.

An inventory manager makes me think of something that manages an inventory of products, which may, for example, be stored in a human concrete building somewhere. Therefore, I would go with that one.

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I agree. Inventory Manager fits the context. A a native English speaker, I do not automatically associate "inventory" with "invent" so there is no possible misunderstanding there:)

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