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Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers should know?

I just discovered YAGNI — "You aren't gonna need it" — and facepalmed at all the time I would've saved if I'd really internalized that lesson sooner. Apparently, it's a frequent enough problem that it's now an acronym.

What else should I be liberally referring to as I try to improve my practices?

( 27 comments | 11 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by rwieruch on Thursday May 11, 2017 @01:20AM (#14313998)
API [0] - application programming interface

- not often explained when learning programming, but essential

- [0] https://www.robinwieruch.de/what-is-an-api-javascript/

Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by deliriousferret on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @05:55PM (#14312085)
KISS: Keep it simple stupid
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by sh87 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @02:48AM (#14314236)
Looking for acronyms is a waste of time, let alone save you time. Just make enough mistakes fast enough to learn from them. And Let The Acronyms Be Alone. ALTABA.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by gtvwill on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @10:55PM (#14313549)
PEMDAS Mathematical order of operations. Parenthesis, exponent, multiply, divide, add, subtract. I only learnt this a year ago and it's almost embarrassing how much my maths or ability to understand math has improved from this(I'm 28 and never gotten taught this in schools general maths so I used to find math really difficult).
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by saurabhn on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:28PM (#14318777)
To complete the picture, you might've been taught a completely different mnemonic in other countries. The one I was taught was BODMAS ( "B"rackets, "O"f or "O"rder, "D"ivision, "M"ultiplication, "A"ddition and "S"ubtraction) and some African countries teach this as BIDMAS [0]. Caused a lot of confusion when I came to the US and drew a blank when someone mentioned PEMDAS in an example.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations#Mnemonics

Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by neilsimp1 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @08:21AM (#14315474)
I'm curious, where did you go to school. I remember learning PEMDAS in 6th grade (New York State) and it's been burnt into my brain since.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by gtvwill on Friday May 12, 2017 @08:24AM (#14323346)
Australia, mid price private school in the country. I was blown away to have never had it expressed during school after learning it.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by wingerlang on Thursday May 11, 2017 @07:23AM (#14315227)
How come it was never taught?
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by Leviter on Friday May 12, 2017 @10:59AM (#14324512)
Definitely SOLID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID_(object-oriented_design)

It contains: - SRP - OCP - LSP - ISP - DIP

Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by 1ba9115454 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:05AM (#14314504)
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by kojeovo on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @08:32PM (#14312998)
PEBKAC
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by hijinks on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:35PM (#14319268)
as a ops person.. this is my favorite
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by robin_philip on Thursday May 11, 2017 @02:05AM (#14314129)
CRUD - create read update delete ACID - atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by tmaly on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @06:05PM (#14312152)
RTFM
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by dikiaap on Thursday May 11, 2017 @09:46PM (#14320883)
LGTM, SGTM. Looks, Sounds good to me. WIP. Work in progress.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by probinso on Sunday May 14, 2017 @11:20PM (#14338923)
Pebcak is the only one you need
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by boyter on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @09:16PM (#14313234)
CAP

Consistency Availability Performance. At scale, pick any two.

Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by borplk on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:30AM (#14315044)
"P" is for partition tolerance.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by biksnep on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @09:42PM (#14313326)
Partition tolerance?
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by joeclark77 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @09:07AM (#14315681)
Yeah, it just means that you can distribute the system across a cluster. Since we only talk about the CAP theorem in the context of distributed systems, you have to assume "P" has already been chosen. So the theorem is really about a trade-off between "C" and "A".
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by beamatronic on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @05:36PM (#14311950)
FUBAR, WTF, SOL, SSDD, STFU, FML
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by jaberwock1 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:43AM (#14314428)
WET - Write Everything Twice
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by NonEUCitizen on Saturday May 13, 2017 @05:58AM (#14330184)
NDA 83(b) IPO AMT
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by savethefuture on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @06:08PM (#14312169)
REPL, SOLID, DRY, CQRS
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by tedmiston on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @07:53PM (#14312804)
The various stack acronyms such as LAMP and MEAN.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by BjoernKW on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:39AM (#14314411)
TLA
Re:Ask HN: What are the best acronyms that programmers shoul... by laynetrain on Wednesday May 10, 2017 @06:02PM (#14312132)
DRY