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January 3, 2007

IT Jargon

One of the problems with explaining any technical field is that there is a large amount of jargon involved, because both precision and concise expression are necessary and jargon provides that. This is certainly true of the IT (information technology — see what I mean about jargon?) world, where the amount of shared jargon is daunting, and where more than a few conversations are almost entirely conducted in acronyms. To make matters worse, or at least more confusing, each enterprise develops its own jargon, or its own definitions of fairly standard jargon, as it goes along. Finally, adding insult to injury, the same term is often overloaded with multiple, similar but distinct meanings. The resulting terminological ambiguity is sometimes comical, and often expensive (miscommunication costs money to fix the resultant mistakes).

When I decided that I really do want to talk more about what I do for a living, the first thing I wanted to address was what makes an enterprise so different from any other computing environment, and why enterprise IT is so difficult to get right. But I realized that in order to do that, I would have to either heavily footnote the entry, or start by explaining a very large number of terms, which would heavily distract from the point.

Fortunately, there is a better way: a jargon dictionary. Such already exist (see here and here for a couple of good ones), but none of them are very complete, and mostly their definitions are themselves laden with jargon. As a result, it appears that I'll just have to write up the jargon as I go along, in entries separate from the topics I'm actually discussing. My definitions may not be canonical, but they will at least allow you to figure out what I'm talking about.

So consider this post both an introduction and a request. Are there any computer or IT terms that baffle you? Ask in the comments, and I'll define them, without unexplained jargon and with examples and maybe even color glossy photographs.

Posted by jeff at January 3, 2007 6:02 PM

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