Acronyms believed harmful

[Ceri Davies]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 12:52:07PM -0400, Bill Moran wrote:
> 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?

Originally I had intended for this to be FreeBSD specific - I'm now of
the opinion that this is kind of unworkable and a bit pointless to boot.
The main things to focus on would be things that crop up a lot, and
stuff marked up in firstterm or acronym elements.

Ceri
-- 
It is not tinfoil, it is my new skin.  I am a robot.
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