Ejub Kajan
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ACRONYMS
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York, 2002
Hardcover, pp.684 EUR 49.95
ISBN 3-540-41793-1
http://www.springer.de

In general about the book

For over half a century of computer history, many hundreds of thousands people have worked in this area. In order to efficiently communicate, they have developed a separate computer jargon. From the first computing days up to today, acronyms were one part of language used by computer users. During the time, regarding to the development of computers and wide integration of computing and telecommunications, the number of acronyms has risen to tens of thousand. One part of these acronyms is used only by professionals, but there are also a lot of acronyms which are of interest to an unlimited group of people. There are so much acronyms used in everyday language that a lot of professionals in information technology, managers, marketing people, salespersons and end-users meet unknown acronyms from time to time. In these cases a lot of people try to find solution using internet, but this method takes time and it is not sure that this will produce an adequate answer.

This book contains more than four thousand different acronyms. At this moment 100 acronyms appear every three months.

All choosen acronyms are classified into four groups. The most important group gives an up-to-date overview of modern architectures and technologies in use now or which are going to be in use very soon. The second group covers major companies, research organizations and organizations founded as standardization bodies or professional associations involved in specification and technology development. Terms of common interest fall into the third group and include filenames, common electronic terms, chat terms, bussines terms, measrement units, etc. The fourth group covers some historical terms and interesting acronyms.

The primary benefit of this book is convenient access to the meaning of a lot of acronyms connected with telecommunications and information technology.

Chapter content

The book is diveded into two parts.

The main body of the book consists of 27 chapters that cover acronyms in alphabetical order from the numbers and symbols chapter "#" to the letter "Z". For every acronym a clear explanation of its origin is given in red colour.

The second part of the book has two chapters. The "Suggested Reading" chapter covers many reference books and important articles, websities etc. The second chapter is the "Subject Index" which covers all the terms explained in the firs part of the book, categorizing them and listing the relevant main-body page numbers.

Useful book

This book represents a unique attempt to help people to find their way through the ever-changing world of computer and telecommunications related acronyms. This book will be very valuable for the modern engineer and information techology practitioner and at the same time this book is very valuable guide for specialists outside computing and engineering disciplines. The author not only provides the origin of the abbreviation but also includes a brief technical explanation of the acronym himself.

Due to extensive cross references, this book could be used as a textbook for learning many computer topics, particulary new advances in computer networking. A large number of illustration makes the reading and understanding of complex topics easy. Such book should be part of the reference library of each computer professional.