Three Letter Acronyms (TLA) Every Developer Should Know

Here is a list of Three Letter Acronyms I think every developer (and those professionals involved with software development) should know, at least be familiar with:

1NF First Normal Form
2NF Second Normal Form
3NF Third Normal Form
ALM Application Lifecycle Management
API Application Programming Interface
BDD Behavior Driven Development
BRD Business Requirements Document
CBS Cost Breakdown Structure
CMS Content Management System
CRM Customer Relationship Management
CTM Close To Metal
CTS Clear To Send
CUA Common User Access
DDD Domain Driven Development
DDL Data Definition Language
DML Document Object Model
DRY Don't Repeat Yourself
DTD Document Type Definition
EOD End Of Day
EOF End Of File
EOL End Of Line
EOM End Of Message
ERD Entity Relationship Diagram
ERM Entity Relationship Model
ESB Enterprise Service Bus
ETA Estimated Time Of Arrival
ETL Extract, Transform, Load
FDD Feature Driven Development
FTP File Transfer Protocol
FTW For The Win
FUD Fear Uncertainty (and) Doubt
FYI For Your Information
GUI Graphical User Interface
IDE Integrated Development Environment
IPS Instructions Per Second
IRC Internet Relay Chat
ISO Internet Organization for Standardization
JIT Just In Time
KVM Keyboard, Video, Mouse
LOC Lines Of Code
LOE Level Of Effort
LSB Least Significant Bit
LTR Left To Right
LUN Logical Unit Number
MDA Mail Delivery Agent
MDA Model Driven Architecture
MDI Multiple Document Interface
MIS Management Information Systems
MOM Message Oriented Middleware
MSB Most Significant Bit
MUA Mail User Agent
MVC Model View Controller
NCQ Native Command Queuing
NDA Non Disclosure Agreement
NFS Network File System
NIC Network Interface Controller
NOC Network Operations Center
NTP Network Time Protocol
NaN Not A Number
OID Object Identifier
OLE Object Linking (and) Embedding
OOE Out (of) Order Execution
OOM Out Of Memory
OOO Out Of Office
OOT Out Of Town
ORM Object Relational Mapping
OSS Open Source Software
POC Proof Of Concept
QOS Quality Of Service
RAD Rapid Application Design/Development
RFC Request For Comments
RFP Request For Proposal
RFQ Request For Quote
RIA Rich Internet Application
RLE Run Length Encoding
ROI Return On Investment
ROM Rough Order Of Magnitude
RTC Real Time Clock
RTL Right To Left
RTS Ready To Send
SCM Source Code Management
SDI Single Document Interface
SDK Software Development Kit
SMT Simultaneous Multi-Threading
SOA Service Oriented Architecture
SLA Service Level Agreement
SPA Single Page Application
SQL Structured Query Language
SSO Single Single On
SSL Secure Socket Layer
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
TDD Test Driven Development
TLA Three Letter Acronym
TLS Transport Layer Security
TTF True Type Font
UAC User Account Control
UAT User Acceptance Testing
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UML Unified Modeling Language
UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
URL Uniform Resource Locator
URN Uniform Resource Name
UTC Coordinated Universal Time
UTF Unicode Transformation Format
VFS Virtual File System
VPN Virtual Private Network
W3C World Wide Web Consortium
WAI Web Accessibility Initiative
WET We Enjoy Typing or Write Everything Twice
WFH Working From Home
WFI Wait For Interrupt
XML eXtensible Markup Language
XSD XML Schema Definition
XSL eXtensible Stylesheet Language
XSS Cross Site Scripting
YTD Year To Date

10 lb Turkey, 5 lb Pot

One day a man was watching his wife prepare a turkey for the Thanksgiving feast. She got out her 5lb pot, reached for her 10lb turkey and immediately trimmed off half of the meat from the turkey. She then proceeded to forcibly stuff the turkey into the pot – meeting with resistance and having to lean into it to get that turkey to fit into that pot.

Curious the man asked “Why do you prepare the turkey this way?” to which his wife responded “Well it’s the way my mother does it and it’s the way I have always done it for 10 years now”.

The next year with a new grandchild the couple decide to spend Thanksgiving with her parents. The time comes and the man watches the grandmother get out the 5lb turkey and a 5lb pot proceed efficiently to put the turkey into the pot and put it into the oven. He asked why she taught her daughter differently which she responded “Oh the market was all out of 5lb turkeys that year so I got a 10lb one”.

Seek to understand why we are doing what we are doing, don’t assume the standard course is the best direction.