Acronyms believed harmful

[Bill Moran]

Ceri Davies <ceri at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 10:38:52AM -0400, Leonard Zettel wrote:
> 
> > Things like DTD are not English, they
> > are jargon! They place an unnecessary
> > burden on the reader. This burden
> > falls most heavily on newbies and
> > (I would imagine) people to whom
> > English is a second (or third or fourth)
> > language - exactly the people who
> > most need the help of clear documentation.
> > 
> > At a minimum I plead for the following rule:
> > all uses of acronyms in any document
> > should include the term fully spelled out
> > at the first appearance of said acronym.
> 
> Well, there's a work in progress(ish) to have the first use of an
> acronym expand to a link to it's entry in the glossary.  This can't
> happen until the glossary is full.  Help to fill it.

I was going to _try_ to spend some time contributing to this over
the weekend.

Before I start, I have a policy question:  If we look at tech terms
that are NOT FreeBSD-specific (such as DTD) should the FreeBSD
glossary contain a full definition, or possibly a link to another
source?

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com