meaning - What does "new normal" mean?


From one of the survey result (IT related), I came across the following line:



Agile Development and Service-Oriented-Architectures (SOA) represent the “new normal.”



What does "new normal" mean here? Is it an idiom?



Answer



Ah, it's an instantiation of the "X is the new Y" snowclone (also see here and here), like "pink is the new red" or "ugly is the new cute" or "Google is the new Microsoft". It means (to claim) that AD&SOA, or whatever they represent, are now so common that they're normal now, and constitute the new (normal) state of the world.


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