Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs) seen as harmful

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Also posted on: The Norfolk Punt

FWIW, I’m NBG at writing long words either (too lazy, in fact), but use of the TLA is getting well OTT—a real PITA in fact.

I’m reading about SCM (Software Configuration Management) at the moment, I think, but it might be SCM (Source Code Management) instead. Or SCM (Source Control Management). Or SCM (Software Change Management). Are they all different things? I think they might be all part of SCM (Service Control Management), perhaps carried out by an SCM (Service Configuration Manager). Anyway, sorting all this out must be adding to the SCM (Software Cost Model), I imagine, especially if any of this software figures prominently in the SCM (Software Criticality Matrix).

Of course, perhaps it is all something to do with SCM (Security Configuration Management)—perhaps I should write a letter to the editor of SCM (Secure Computing Magazine) and ask. Unless it is really SCM (Service Continuity Management)—but I think that’s part of CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability), which is security.

No matter, I’ve LTT (Lost The Thread) of the article anyway, now. Except that I was wrong, it’s apparently all about SCM (Supply Chain Management), in reality. I think I must be having an SCM (Senior Citizen Moment)—I’ve got several years older in the few minutes it took me to write this. 

I’m not sure that I can think of a useful SCM (Suggested Control Measure), because a quick check in an AF (Acronym Finder) on the Interweb suggests that SCM by itself has over 140 meanings. Not counting 250 extra meanings it keeps in its attic…