🔤 Acronyms & Abbreviations

Essential IT acronyms: API (Application Programming Interface), REST (Representational State Transfer), CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment), CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete), ORM (Object-Relational Mapping), JWT (JSON Web Token), DNS (Domain Name System), SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security), IaC (Infrastructure as Code), SLA (Service Level Agreement).

Acronyms are pronounced as words: NASA ("NAH-sah"), SCRUM ("skrum"), YAML ("YAM-ul"). Initialisms spell out each letter: API ("A-P-I"), SQL (often "S-Q-L" though "sequel" is also common), HTTP ("H-T-T-P"). In IT, both are loosely called "acronyms." The distinction matters for knowing how to say them aloud — using the wrong pronunciation in interviews or meetings signals unfamiliarity with the field.

Best practice: write the full form first, then the acronym in parentheses: "We use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to serve static assets." After introducing it once, use the acronym throughout. In documents with many acronyms, add a glossary. In international teams, avoid uncommon acronyms without definition — what's obvious to one team may be unknown to another.

Essential DevOps acronyms: CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Delivery/Deployment), IaC (Infrastructure as Code), SRE (Site Reliability Engineering), MTTR (Mean Time to Recovery), MTTF (Mean Time to Failure), SLO (Service Level Objective), SLA (Service Level Agreement), SLI (Service Level Indicator), DORA (DevOps Research and Assessment), SIEM (Security Information and Event Management).

Common security acronyms: OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project), CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System), MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), SAST (Static Application Security Testing), DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing), WAF (Web Application Firewall), IAM (Identity and Access Management), CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management).

Both are acceptable. "Sequel" is the original pronunciation (SQL was designed as a successor to SEQUEL). Many database professionals say "sequel" (Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL users often say "my sequel"). "S-Q-L" is also widely used, especially in academic and European contexts. In a job interview or professional setting, both are understood — just be consistent within a conversation.

Agile/Scrum acronyms: PO (Product Owner), SM (Scrum Master), DoD (Definition of Done), DoR (Definition of Ready), MVP (Minimum Viable Product), MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have — prioritisation method), WIP (Work in Progress), BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development), TDD (Test-Driven Development), UAT (User Acceptance Testing).

YAGNI stands for "You Ain't Gonna Need It" — a principle from Extreme Programming that says don't implement something until it's actually needed. Use it in code reviews and planning discussions to push back against premature optimisation or over-engineering: "YAGNI — let's solve the actual problem first." Related principle: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself), SOLID.

Strategies for staying current: follow engineering blogs from major tech companies (Google, Netflix, Stripe), read The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, browse Hacker News and lobste.rs, participate in relevant subreddits (/r/devops, /r/programming), and look up unfamiliar acronyms immediately in context. The IT lexicon evolves fast — new acronyms like eBPF, WASM, and LLM/RAG have become essential knowledge in the past few years.

Cloud acronyms: VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), S3 (Simple Storage Service), IAM (Identity and Access Management), EKS/GKE/AKS (managed Kubernetes), CDN (Content Delivery Network), WAF (Web Application Firewall), TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), FinOps (Financial Operations for cloud), DR (Disaster Recovery), RTO/RPO (Recovery Time/Point Objective).