--On Wednesday, 14 July, 2004 18:06 -0700 Christian Huitema
<huitema(_at_)windows(_dot_)microsoft(_dot_)com> wrote:
...
Or consider the RFC that describes Classical IP and ARP over
Automatic Teller Machines...
What did you say an ARP was? Some sort of fuzzy alien, perhaps?
A digestive sound made after excessive SIPPING ? Or, given
those teller machines, perhaps an Advanced Reimbursement
Procedure?
<grin>
I am not suggesting that we never expand an abbreviation and
never explain an acronym. I suggest only that
* we need to rethink the application of the rules a bit
for situations in which the constructed or shortened
term has become a word in its own right and, more
important, in which an expansion would tend to confuse
rather than illuminate, and
* that we get a little more serious about the
requirement that abstracts be sufficient for someone who
doesn't know what the document is about to figure that
out because titles will never be able to adequately do
that job.
For the second, pretend that you are reading the title that
Christian cites above: "Classical IP and ARP over ATM". Now
pretend that you don't know much about that corner of the IETF's
work, or even that you are an applications type who doesn't know
much about _anything_ at that layer. Now expand the
abbreviations and try to convince yourself that you would know
something you didn't know with the present title. Reaction to
present title: "Huh? Strange abbreviations". Reaction to title
with abbreviations expanded: "Huh? What on earth do those words
mean?"
I don't see a lot of difference.
john
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