I never heard any other meaning of Cargo Cult than Feynman's. In everyday speak it's an established term for "doing all the movements and expecting results but

I never heard any other meaning of Cargo Cult than Feynman's. In everyday speak it's an established term for "doing all the movements and expecting results but not understanding why the results won't materialize". > Feyman's cargo-cult science has no chance of working, while cargo-cult programming works but isn't understood. I disagree with this conclusion. Cargo cult programming is (for example) creating a microservices product without understanding and then when it doesn't work (it takes 20x longer, it didn't provide the promised decoupling) not understanding why. Cargo cult programming where the desired results are actually achieved in any meaningful way isn't cargo cult programming at all. > The second problem with "cargo cult" is that the pop-culture description of cargo cults is historically inaccurate. It's a language construct. It's not really important whether there is any connection at all to anything that has historically happened, so long as everyone has the same mental model of what it means. And as far as I'm aware, enough people do to make the term useful. Whether it's scientific nonsense isn't relevant. The same can be said for a lot of commonly used phrases like "Jedi mind tricks". It doesn't matter that this is a purely fictional construct. And it doesn't matter whether diehard Star Wars fans know exactly what it means. Most people have a vague understanding about in what sense it's used. The de facto usage is the real meaning. > Finally, the cargo cult metaphor turns decades of harmful colonialism into a humorous anecdote. I think this is the only objection that has any real merit. But I don't think it has enough merit tbh. It doesn't represent a current problem.