Rename "DDO" to "DID Document"... avoid acronyms

Hi all,

This was a bit buried in the meeting today, but at one point Drummond
suggested we rename DDO to DID Document.

The original spec says "DID Description Object".

The recently proposed spec says "DID Description".

and now we have "DID Document" as the suggestion, which garnered a
number of +1s on the call:

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/meetings/2017-09-19/#82

The rationale for the change is basically this:

* Simplify the language in the specification so that its an easy read
  even for a non-technologist.
* Make it such that talking about the concepts to non-developers is as
  easy as possible without losing key concepts.

This means aggressively culling acronyms, using simpler language when
possible, reducing the number of definitions required to understand the
work, reducing the overall length of the spec, etc.

In short... we're striving for understandability through further
simplification of the spec where possible.

We've been using DID Description Object and shortening it to "DDO"...
but I'd like to stop using the acronym in the spec and in our
explanations of the technology. Using acronyms tends to alienate
newcomers and make it harder to explain new technology.

During the discussion, Christian rightly pointed out that "DID Document"
still contains an acronym, which is true. But at least removing DDO from
our language provides one less acronym that we have to explain to people.

So, we're left with this sort of interaction with people new to the
community:

"What are you people working on?"
"We're working on Decentralized Identifiers, which you may hear people
refer to as DIDs"

... and...

"What does a DID point to?"
"It points to a DID Document, which describes more about the DID."

That feels better than having to expand and then explain what a DDO is.
Thoughts?

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Rebalancing How the Web is Built
http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/

Received on Tuesday, 19 September 2017 22:00:29 UTC