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Re: [BULK] Re: On the value of glossaries containing terms the audience should already know
Subject:Re: [BULK] Re: On the value of glossaries containing terms the audience should already know From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwrl <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 20 Dec 2013 12:02:51 -0800
I think that's wrong when you're writing highly technical
documentation for products that are used only by people who use those
acronyms all day long.
At my last job I was documenting a complex enterprise product that was
usable only by very experienced networking professionals. Anyone
trying to use it who did not know what RFC, ssh, LDAP, DNS, and IP
mean would have to hire someone who did. The jargon is so standard in
that realm that I can't even remember what all of those acronyms stand
for, even though I know exactly what they are. Nobody reading my docs
would think they had anything to do with a deviated nasal septum.
The more general rule is that when the audience is only advanced
users, you don't write the same way you would for beginners. It's like
the difference between "Java for Dummies" and "Advanced Java
Programming Techniques for Computational Biology." There are
prerequisites.
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 11:26 AM, Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> It does not hurt to define your acronyms, no matter how common you think
> they are in your industry. I can guarantee you that someone, somewhere uses
> the exact same letters to mean something totally different that what you're
> expecting.
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