[natefinch]

How can someone know if they're interested or not in an implementation of BGP if they don't know what it is?

I have been a professional software developer for 22 years with a 4 year CS degree from a good school, and I only ever heard of BGP for the first time last year. Most developers never need to know about BGP. People learn new stuff every day.

The point stands. Define your acronyms unless they're really really basic, like HTTP or JSON.

[platinumrad]

HTTP and JSON may count as "really really basic" to you and BGP may not, but I worked on BGP years before I ever touched HTTP or JSON so the opposite would be true for me. People from different backgrounds are familiar with different acronyms and as a result different acronyms are assumed to be known in different contexts. Don't assume your experience to be universal.

[innocentoldguy]

It is good form in technical writing (or any writing, really), to define your acronyms the first time they are used. For example, this would have been helpful:

"GoBGP is an open source Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) implementation..."

Writers should never assume that knowledge of an acronym is universal.

[markkrj]

Would you post something like "go-json is an go implementation of JavaScript Object Notation"? Or "Nginx is an Hypertext Transfer Protocol Server"? Please.... It is not that hard to search for "BGP" on the web.

[spc476]

Maybe so, but I wrote about mixing acronyms towards the end of this post: <http://boston.conman.org/2003/11/19.2>, where IRA can stand for one of three different things. My solution: use use <abbr> (<acronym> seems to be deprecated these days).

[cortesoft]

> Most developers never need to know about BGP.

That is my point. If I have a repo for a BGP implementation, the only people who are going to use my code are going to know what BGP is. No one is going to stumble upon the repo, read about what BGP is, and then decide to use the code. Really, they wouldn’t even be ABLE to use the code… they aren’t going to have access to a router that supports BGP… if you have access to a router with BGP, you already know what BGP is.

[irowe]

I don’t want to sound rude, but I’m shocked that you have a 4 year CS degree and never heard of BGP. Does your degree predate widespread use of the internet? I went to a fairly average state school and both networking courses I took (one required, one elective) covered BGP (at least at a high level).

[cortesoft]

Well if they started their 22 year career right after they graduated, then they were in school from 1996-2000… BGP was very new, and likely not taught.

[wrycoder]

Nope, I’d rather HN was not cluttered up with introductory material.

Use DDG if the HN thread doesn’t immediately give you a hint.