[standfest]

I would like to support this observation. Obviously, they generated some language of their own, with lots of implications and references. Once you start reading it, it becomes a rabbit hole (back in the days my entry point was Adorno and Horkheimer). Words might be familiar, but their meaning is different. There was a reason to study, and the trend to render science accessible to laypeople was not yet born. Maybe even not wanted, to quote the ideas behind the concept of cultural industrial complex.

[steveklabnik]

I would like to third this as well. Software developers are incredibly familiar with the concept of a field that contains a lot of jargon and that you can't have meaningful conversations about certain things until you've learned some of it: that's also software engineering!

Just because these folks are writing for people with a different background than the one that you have doesn't mean it's nonsense, it means you have yet to engage with enough of the field to understand what's going on. Everyone starts there!