[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!