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The point that M. Bellotti came close to, but missed, is that "of course they do" is because every field has jargon. The error here is in thinking that one set
by JdeBP 8y ago
The point that M. Bellotti came close to, but missed, is that "of course they do" is because every field has jargon. The error here is in thinking that one set of jargon is intuitive and normal whilst another set of jargon is "special and completely unintuitive".
The simple truth is that there are many people to whom jargon such as "WIMP", "ISOs", "flat UI", "IIFE", "DOM", "pull request", and "UX" is equally as opaque and foreign as "DASD", "APAR", "SRC", "PMR", and "PTF" (http://jdebp.info./FGA/fix-terminology.html http://jdebp.info./FGA/fix-terminology.html). All are in fact niche terminology.
- exolymph 8y agoI recently started learning more about git in order to use GitHub for work. I can confirm that "pull request" makes no sense whatsoever before you have a working mental model of git (even now, I don't think I could adequately explain it to someone else).
- southern_cross 8y agoIIRC, as the story goes the folks who designed IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture) went out of their way in order to come up with a whole new set of technical jargon for that. I don't remember why, though. BTW, I've been around long enough to have had conversations like the following: Them: "I want to run Lotus 1-2-3." (This was the near-universal spreadsheet standard before Microsoft Excel came along.) Me: "OK, then first we're going to have to get you a PC." Them: "What's a PC?" Then I would have to explain that this was a "Personal Computer". And not just any personal computer, either, but rather an "IBM" PC, in order to distinguish it from an Apple or Commodore or TRS-80 or TI-99/4A or Atari or whatever. And they might respond that they didn't even know that IBM made personal computers. (Which they don't any longer, of course.)