On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Felix Rabe wrote:
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 12:16:13 +0200 From: Felix Rabe <xitnalta@...128...> To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Acronyms
Alan Horkan wrote:
ANSI is not a subset of anything.
Just use http://www.acronymfinder.com/ instead of Google next time :)
The point is not that I am unable to use or undserstand acronyms, I sometimes forget myself and use acronyms for my own convenience but more often than not I end up having to write twice as much to explain the acronym. I correctly expanded the acronyms from memory and only needed Google to verify that, I did not even need to use the google keyword "define:".
In fact I know quite a lot of acronyms, and I know that there is a limited number of TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) so there tend to be confilicts and acronyms are abiguous.
Did you know that SCUBA and RADAR are acronyms? Thankfully they have come into common usage (and in the case of scuba, there is the more descriptive term available: 'aqualung') and the original acronym has become unimportant, and I wish the same could happen to terms like GNU, KDE, and Gnome. Wiser minds have taken terms like SMB and turned it into "Samba". Other projects have picked acronyms/abbreviations that look like real words that do not require eplanation, the elm and pine mail clients are good examples. Developers have put up with so much nonsensical bad marketing (vapourware, "innovation", etc) there is a tendancy to over react and fail to appreciate the utility of good marketing and branding. Inkscape is an excellent brand name, it manages to be both distinctive and at the same time vaguely suggestive of the applications intended purpose.
The point is that acronyms add unnecessary confusion. Acronyms (and abbreviations) make it harder for otherwise intelligent people to understand what the hell you are talking about, scientists and engineers are terribly immodest and elitist and use complicated jargon to exclude normal people and make themselves feel important. It is annoying for us as computer scientists when we are outside of our expertise and people try to baffle us with bull, when there is a good chance we would understand exactly what they were talking about if they could just speak common English.
Not all people involved in computers have English as their first language. As I am not able to speak other languages as well as English it is my responsibility to at least use simple straightforward English and keep things as simple as possible. People often apologize for their poor English but I commend those who by necessity are forced to stuggle to express themselves in English, it is usually a lot better than my attempts at German would be.
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me." If this sounds like a rant, well that is because it is a rant but it is a rant that has a solid basis to it.
I encourage you all to try and keep in mind the idea "Keep It Simple Stupid" in all your writing, be it code or comments.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape, Draw Freely http://inkscape.org Free SVG Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org