[DanielVZ]

Absolutely! I’ll dive into this a bit more in the second section, where even technical acronyms can be considered harmful because they are learned at a surface level and then spread at meme-like speed.

For instance most people don’t know that even though both CAP and ACID contain consistency, they do not refer to the same idea. In CAP it’s about linearizability, while in ACID it’s about preserving invariants.

[koreth1]

> For instance most people don’t know that even though both CAP and ACID contain consistency, they do not refer to the same idea.

But wouldn't people still be unaware of the difference in meaning if the acronyms were spelled out? The word "consistency" appears in both names, with no indication that its meaning is context-dependent. I don't think you can lay the blame for this one at the feet of the acronyms.

[DanielVZ]

The parent comment explains it. The acronym makes buries the idea one level deeper. When people learn it means Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance, they get an illusion of understanding but in reality they’ve only decoded the acronym.

[jibal]

Right. This whole argument is ridiculous.