6 ms·

This is spot on. Being able to express ideas without jargon is to me a sign of mastery. You've learned the subject so well you can convey it in layman terms. I

This is spot on. Being able to express ideas without jargon is to me a sign of mastery. You've learned the subject so well you can convey it in layman terms. I learned the most out of computer science from talks given by such people. I feel like its the exact same with the Agile crowd and their daily stand-ups, burn-down charts, velocity and other forms of cargo cult management. I haven't seen anyone explaining all of it without massive jargon. Another form would be this trend of adding "awesome" to everything, ie.: "build something awesome!" While the jargon isn't advanced its still the very same lack of scientific integrity.

UncleMeat 10y ago
Jargon is not necessarily a bad thing. It is often necessary to be precise. I can describe the "meaning" of a computer program to a layperson but when talking with other experts it becomes essential to distinguish between, say, operational and denotational semantics. That's jargon but it is absolutely necessary for good work.
- jeremiep 10y ago
  I agree, but even in those cases if you can't explain it without jargon its often a sign of a shallow understanding to begin with. I feel that if you can explain a concept without jargon such that a layperson understands it, then you can be much more precise to experts when using said jargon. Because your understanding is also much more precise as well.
- Koshkin 10y ago
  In science, we use a lot of words that were borrowed from Latin and Classical Greek. It is an interesting mental exercise, to imagine yourself trying to explain notions of modern science and artifacts of modern life to a person from, say, 2,500 years ago, whose native language was Latin or Greek. Not only would it be difficult to transfer our jargon - because the the original meaning of the word might have been different (why is 'atom' divisible? or, why is amber a basic constituent of matter?), many things we are so used to would make little sense (what is it that you are computing all the time?).
  - dsmithatx 10y ago
    I'm confused by your use of the word "amber". Did you mean to write lepton or quark? I realize the irony in this comment.
    - Koshkin 10y ago
      The Greek word for 'amber' is ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron).

UncleMeat 10y ago

Jargon is not necessarily a bad thing. It is often necessary to be precise. I can describe the "meaning" of a computer program to a layperson but when talking with other experts it becomes essential to distinguish between, say, operational and denotational semantics. That's jargon but it is absolutely necessary for good work.

jeremiep 10y ago
I agree, but even in those cases if you can't explain it without jargon its often a sign of a shallow understanding to begin with. I feel that if you can explain a concept without jargon such that a layperson understands it, then you can be much more precise to experts when using said jargon. Because your understanding is also much more precise as well.
Koshkin 10y ago
In science, we use a lot of words that were borrowed from Latin and Classical Greek. It is an interesting mental exercise, to imagine yourself trying to explain notions of modern science and artifacts of modern life to a person from, say, 2,500 years ago, whose native language was Latin or Greek. Not only would it be difficult to transfer our jargon - because the the original meaning of the word might have been different (why is 'atom' divisible? or, why is amber a basic constituent of matter?), many things we are so used to would make little sense (what is it that you are computing all the time?).
- dsmithatx 10y ago
  I'm confused by your use of the word "amber". Did you mean to write lepton or quark? I realize the irony in this comment.
  - Koshkin 10y ago
    The Greek word for 'amber' is ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron).