Re: Acronyms

[Lloyd Wood <l.wood at eim.surrey.ac.uk>]

It's good practice to always define an abbreviation
(abbreviation!=acronym) in full the first time it is used.

_Especially_ if you're part of the group that has brought that
abbreviation into existence. Littering a draft (and its abstract) with
abbreviations meaningful only within your working group is a great way
to have zero impact on the world.

(I suspect the biggest reason for reorganising the whole MPLS area was
the sheer number of impenetrable drafts produced, filled with
abbreviations as shorthand for concepts they'd just made up but were
still arguing about. They'd just handwave at the moving target of
another work-in-progress draft instead.)

I'm always amazed at how some people seem to _like_ inventing
pointless abbreviations where plain language would do; encapsulating
the concept in jargon seems to be a way to avoid thinking
about what the concept _is_.

L.

<L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>