Techronyms and their place in the industry

Tech terms tend to be long, cumbersome and confusing, until we compact them into clever acronyms. The tech industry is full of these, and it's generally important for tech workers to be familiar with them. It allows us to communicate better without resorting to word salad. It keeps communication terse.

I like to call them "techronyms".

Using those letters!

Many years ago, I had a boss who was dismayed at how some members of our team did not even know what "HTTP" stood for, and made it a point to test us by playing a game. He would toss out acronyms at us while we told him what each one stood for. While the game was mildly amusing, it also struck me as ultimately pointless.

Here's why

I've come across people who throw out acronym after acronym in an attempt to sound savvy. These tech poseurs get away with it precisely because they are throwing them at laypeople who just lap it up.

Pretty, but empty.

At the end of the day, it's empty knowledge. It's just used by people to appear knowledgeable without actually having to expend the effort to acquire that knowledge. All the while, people who actually have that knowledge aren't heard because they don't look like they know anything.

By placing this much emphasis on knowing acronyms, we enable this behavior.

What really matters

Is it important that web developers know what "HTTP" stands for rather than simply knowing that it's the prefix of a generic URL? (That's Universal Resource Locator, by the way. Heh heh)

Sure it is. But is it enough?

So imagine if we knew that "HTTP" was an acronym for "Hyper-text Transfer Protocol" but couldn't explain what that meant? Wouldn't it amount to the same thing?

Learn the concepts, not
just the acronyms.

Maybe it's just me, but I would rather tech workers understand the concepts rather than simply being able to parrot the terms. If a tech worker could tell me that the protocol is a set of procedures used to transport HTML content from server to client, I really wouldn't care if this person knew exactly what it stood for. Let's be honest here; what knowledge is more valuable - the label or the concept? Ideally, we'd know both, but if we could only choose one, I know what I would choose.

That's all!

That was just a short rant. Needed to get it out there.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Fakers are gonna fake. And the people who actually know their shit, will just go on being useful. The world will continue to spin on its axis, and if such is the world we inhabit, I'll make my peace with it.

TTYL,
T___T