[masterofmasters]

The above post makes sense with this context, but I wouldn't say it was needlessly downvoted. A post doesn't stand on its own when it throws around uncommon metaphors without explanation.

Personally, I'd prefer of posts/articles all explained their metaphors and acronyms before using them. This is Hacker News, not Enterprise IT News. For example, the article tosses out USP and CI which I don't believe are very common terms either. They should be spelled out.

[mcv]

Continuous Integration is pretty common, but I have no idea what USP means.

[esteth]

USP is Unique Selling Point.

There's lots of technologists on HN and lots of business types, and only a subset of each understand the other's lingo. People should try and explain their lingo when they use it, for the benefit of the other camp :)

[bmelton]

For people with government / federal contracting experience that aren't familiar with the 'USP' jargon (as I wasn't, once), the appropriate federal term is "key differentiator".

[jrockway]

To be fair, the metaphor is pretty common in our industry, especially if you've ever done (or been lectured about) project management.

My take is that I've never seen a chicken or a pig program a computer, so if you need code produced, you'd better not get either. But then, talking about project management really brings out my inner asshole.