Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zura 4316 days ago
Also, programmers are usually "to the point" people, while business people love buzzwords.
4 comments

Condescending remarks like this don't help the issue. A business person can also say "Business people are down to earth, while programmers love to use jargon that nobody understands."

There are good and bad communicators on both sides.

There is a reason why anybody who works in a job in which he faces the laws of nature, will prefer a very precise vocabulary and will shy away from using words that could not possibly have an unambiguous meaning. It is exactly the opposite of what for example advertisers, politicians or business people do. They want to keep everything as ambiguous as possible. They do this because in their jobs they do not face the laws of nature but other people. So, it is way less of a problem for them than for an engineer. The bridge will simply collapse if the computations are ambiguous.
Not the most scientific test in the world, but Wikipedia's 'List of Buzzwords'[1] page has 79 for business and 82 for technology. Programmers love them more!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_buzzwords

Many of the technology buzzwords are actually business buzzwords, not programming buzzwords. For instance, PaaS and SaaS are business models, not anything technical. Cloud and Digital Rights Management are marketing terms.
Does your experience with business people resonate with this at all? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
I'm sure there are some business people who love buzzwords but surely you're not saying that ALL business people (anybody who runs a business) love buzzwords?