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From: Steven D'Aprano on 13 Jun 2010 22:20
On Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:43:01 -0700, alex23 wrote:

> a...(a)pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:
>> If a new-ish term is being introduced, expecting each person to search
>> for the meaning is rude.
>
> The question then becomes how does one determine whether a term one is
> using needs defining? Does OO? How about FP? Or TDD?

My rule of thumb is that unless an acronym has entered the wider
vocabulary of the general public (e.g. NASA, CIA, KGB, WW2) or is
specific to the community you're talking to (e.g. LOL or ROFL on most web
forums), I always treat such acronyms as niche terms that need defining
at least the first time I use it in a thread.

Especially when, like FP and TDD, it could have multiple meanings. Did
you mean Floating Point or Functional Programming? Top Down Development
or Test Driven Development?

(I suppose you youngsters no longer care about the great controversy of
the 1970s and 80s, whether Top Down or Bottom Up was better.)


> Is there a metric
> for how many years or how many journals etc a concept needs to exist
> within before we just assume people know it?

No. Some jargon can exist for decades and never spread beyond a tiny
niche, and others spread to the wider community like wildfire in a matter
of months.


> If something is
> ridiculously obvious to you, does that necessarily hold true for
> everyone else?
>
> Or is it just easier to assume that people within a specific domain have
> the means to fill in their gaps of understanding themselves?

Oh, it's *easier*, that's for sure. But is it *better*? The aim of
communication is to share information, and communication which fails to
do so has failed.

When posting a message that aims to introduce Lettuce, which clearly is a
niche product, it's probably not a good idea to assume that the jargon
used within that niche is widespread.

Google has no clue what BDD is either. Googling for "define:BDD" comes up
with four definitions:

Two for Body Dysmorphic Disorder.
One for Binary Decision Diagram.
And one for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Disability Determination.


Without the "define:" prefix, Googling finds:

The stock exchange code for DB Base Metals
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Behaviour Driven Development
Brand Distribution and Development
BDD stairlifts
BDD Insurance

and many more. I assume the one you're talking about is Behaviour Driven
Development. Wikipedia defines it as:

BDD is a second-generation, outside-in, pull-based,
multiple-stakeholder, multiple-scale, high-automation,
agile methodology. It describes a cycle of interactions
with well-defined outputs, resulting in the delivery of
working, tested software that matters.

Bingo!


--
Steven
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