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"No"? Are backronyms somehow illegitimate? A term can be a backronym and also, over forty years later, be considered generally accepted parlance.

tialaramex 4y ago
The reason to write an expansion like in the article is that it explains to the reader as we go. For example if I write "Universal Serial Bus or USB was developed..." then we've established what USB is during the text, for anybody who didn't know. But the backronym adds nothing to blob, the reader learns nothing of value from this deliberately meaningless expansion. It's a blob.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  I don't usually get involved in anything that smells of pedantry but I'm confused by your argument. I understand from your earlier comment that Binary Large Object is a backronym for blob. This is news to me: I've always "known" that blob was an abbreviation for Binary Large OBject: for at least the last 20 years. Until your comment, I had no idea that the term "blob" had ever been used as a word in itself in the context of software. All of which is to say that I think there's value in explaining what a blob is: without any context, it's not a meaningful term.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    > I think there's value in explaining what a blob is: without any context, it's not a meaningful term. The problem with the backronym for this is that it's plainly wrong. Which didn't matter in the context in which it was created, it reminds me of the R.V.Jones story about why H2S (a second world war radar system) was called that, you mustn't say it's because the big boss said "It stinks", and that reminded the chemists on the team of H2S, the formula for rotten egg smell -- that would make the boss look bad - so you pretend it stands for "Home Sweet Home" even though that makes no sense because it is for identifying bombing targets. The blobs Debian cares about aren't necessarily "Binary", it's just as much a problem if we're obliged to send 4MB of inexplicable ARM assembler text to a remote device, or if the firmware is base 64 encoded (and thus ASCII text) for some daft reason. If Binary just means "Of course they are because it's a computer" see Object. The blobs Debian cares about aren't necessarily "Large" either, what would constitute "large"? If I've got 64 bytes of firmware that are fed to an 8501 controller that's probably its entire program, but it's way smaller than this paragraph of text. Does large just mean "Non-zero size" ? So that leaves us with "Object", which I mean, I guess? It's as vague a word as blob was.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I've been using computers since about 1993 and first installed Linux around 1999 and this is the first time I've ever heard that "blob" in this context is supposed to be any kind of acronym. It's a dumb one, too. They don't have to be large.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Personally, I don't think expanding USB would add any meaning in any context. If somebody knows what USB means, they know the acronym, not the expansion. But expanding blob adds meaning, even with it being a backronym. Maybe it would be better to define it instead of expanding, but it is better than nothing (differently from USB).

tialaramex 4y ago

The reason to write an expansion like in the article is that it explains to the reader as we go. For example if I write "Universal Serial Bus or USB was developed..." then we've established what USB is during the text, for anybody who didn't know. But the backronym adds nothing to blob, the reader learns nothing of value from this deliberately meaningless expansion. It's a blob.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
I don't usually get involved in anything that smells of pedantry but I'm confused by your argument. I understand from your earlier comment that Binary Large Object is a backronym for blob. This is news to me: I've always "known" that blob was an abbreviation for Binary Large OBject: for at least the last 20 years. Until your comment, I had no idea that the term "blob" had ever been used as a word in itself in the context of software. All of which is to say that I think there's value in explaining what a blob is: without any context, it's not a meaningful term.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  > I think there's value in explaining what a blob is: without any context, it's not a meaningful term. The problem with the backronym for this is that it's plainly wrong. Which didn't matter in the context in which it was created, it reminds me of the R.V.Jones story about why H2S (a second world war radar system) was called that, you mustn't say it's because the big boss said "It stinks", and that reminded the chemists on the team of H2S, the formula for rotten egg smell -- that would make the boss look bad - so you pretend it stands for "Home Sweet Home" even though that makes no sense because it is for identifying bombing targets. The blobs Debian cares about aren't necessarily "Binary", it's just as much a problem if we're obliged to send 4MB of inexplicable ARM assembler text to a remote device, or if the firmware is base 64 encoded (and thus ASCII text) for some daft reason. If Binary just means "Of course they are because it's a computer" see Object. The blobs Debian cares about aren't necessarily "Large" either, what would constitute "large"? If I've got 64 bytes of firmware that are fed to an 8501 controller that's probably its entire program, but it's way smaller than this paragraph of text. Does large just mean "Non-zero size" ? So that leaves us with "Object", which I mean, I guess? It's as vague a word as blob was.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I've been using computers since about 1993 and first installed Linux around 1999 and this is the first time I've ever heard that "blob" in this context is supposed to be any kind of acronym. It's a dumb one, too. They don't have to be large.
marcosdumay 4y ago
Personally, I don't think expanding USB would add any meaning in any context. If somebody knows what USB means, they know the acronym, not the expansion. But expanding blob adds meaning, even with it being a backronym. Maybe it would be better to define it instead of expanding, but it is better than nothing (differently from USB).