I've been reading a report on a minor railway accident which could have been much more serious - a crane driver swung a piece of rail he was replacing on one track in front of a train that was approaching on another line - [report here], and it struck me as I read just how many abbreviations / acronyms / referencing numbers there were:

1D76, 4BA, AP, ATSM, ATSM1, ATWS, CC1, CIRAS, COSS, DE21, ES, GE/RT8000, IMDU, LOLER, NR/L2/OHS/00112, NR/L2/OHS/019, NR/L2/OHS/040, NR/L2/RMVP/0203, NR/L3/INI/TK0042, NR/L3/MTC/MG0210, NR/L3/MTC/PL0159, NR/L3/OCS/041, NR/L3/OPS/047, NR/L3/RVE/0168, NR/L3/TRK/1011, NR/L3/TRK/6001, NRN, OTP, PICOP, PPE, RAIB, RMMM, RRV, SSOWPS, T2, T7, TMC06, TSM, TSM/ATSM, TSM1, UK and XC

Now - to be fair to the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB), almost all of the terms were bracketed like I have just done with RAIB the first time they occurred in the text, but still I found myself playing mental gymnastics and wondering if there would have been an alternative; spelling it out every time would have made for a wordy report as the terms came thick and fast, in strings in a sentence, but I do wonder if a shortened description could have been used.

"person in charge of the possession (PICOP)" says the text the first time he is mentioned. then there are lots of PICOPs - sentences line "The RRV operator, COSS, PICOP and ATSM1 had all the qualifications required ..."

How about:

"person in charge of the possession (gaffer)" the first time he is mentioned. then "The crane driver, safety chap, gaffer and section manager had all the qualifications required ..."


I have similar misgivings when I introduce new delegates to Object Orientation. My language could - very easily - get peppered with classes and objects, statics and dynamics, constructors and destructors, subclasses and superclasses, overriding and overloading, abstract and virtual, inheritance and interfaces, encapsulation and polymorphism. In order to ensure that delegates leave with a clear understanding of all the terms they'll come across later on, I do introduce these terms as we go along the way, but gently, starting off with common terms and phrases to introduce the concepts.
(written 2011-01-30)

 Q909 - Object Orientation and General technical topics - Object Orientation: Composite Objects
  [477] Class, static and unbound variables - (2005-10-25)
  [592] NOT Gone phishing - (2006-02-05)
  [1345] Perl and Shell coding standards / costs of an IT project - (2007-09-11)
  [1348] Screw it or Glue it? Access to Object variables - a warning - (2007-09-12)
  [2170] Designing a heirarcy of classes - getting inheritance right - (2009-05-11)
  [2641] Object Oriented Programming in PHP - (2010-02-19)
  [2865] Relationships between Java classes - inheritance, packaging and others - (2010-07-10)
  [2922] Getting the OO design write - with PHP a example - (2010-08-14)
  [3142] Private and Public - and things between - (2011-01-22)
  [3251] C++ - objects that are based on other objects, saving coding and adding robustness - (2011-04-17)
  [3609] How do classes relate to each other? Associated Classes - (2012-02-12)
  [3979] Extended and Associated objects - what is the difference - C++ example - (2013-01-18)
  [4377] Designing a base class and subclasses, and their extension, in C++ - (2015-01-01)
  [4394] Philosophy behind object design - and how I applied in to a Java example - (2015-01-14)
  [4450] Deciding whether to use parameters, conditional statements or subclasses - (2015-03-05)

G504 - Well House Consultants - Writing Notes
  [4] Seeing the wood for the trees. - (2004-08-06)
  [7] Writing on a Sunday - (2004-08-08)
  [9] Study room - the Oxford train - (2004-08-10)
  [394] A year on - should we offer certified PHP courses - (2005-07-28)
  [398] Training course material - why we write our own - (2005-07-30)
  [407] Theft of training material - (2005-08-09)
  [797] Writing up new C / C++ notes. - (2006-07-09)
  [979] Empty seats, Nodding Donkeys and buses - (2006-12-11)
  [982] Notes from the white board - (2006-12-14)
  [1950] Copyright of Training Notes and Web Site - (2008-12-18)
  [2010] How long should a training module be? - (2009-01-27)
  [2192] Copy writing - allowing for the cut - (2009-05-21)
  [2414] Hello World - a good traditional start to a Java course - (2009-09-22)
  [2481] Sample code with errors in it on our web site - (2009-10-29)
  [2812] What is Perl? - (2010-06-15)
  [2828] Sharing our programs - easy. Sharing our data - harder. - (2010-06-26)
  [4009] Clear, concise examples - Ruby classes and objects. - (2013-02-17)
  [4031] Showing what programming errors look like - web site pitfall - (2013-03-06)

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Forward to Points West to Belfast

Splitting data reading code from data processing code - Ruby
Rake - a build system using code written in Ruby
Changing a class later on - Ruby
Points West to Belfast
Jargon busting
Disassembling Python and Java - previously compiled code
Python dictionaries - mutable and immutable keys and values
Looking back at www.wellho.net
OpenGL / C / C++ - an example to get you started
Hotel star ratings - towards a better system of review