I have noticed for a long time that whenever I go to look up a meaning of a term or phrase,  I often do not understand the definition or explanation that is given.   Often the definition involves jargon or words with which I am unfamiliar.  Take the following examples.

I was looking up information on Word Press, a blogging program, and was reading the following introductory  sentence in Wikipedia:

“WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between.”  Already I am confused by the terms.  What is a templating system?  What is a widget?  I am fairly familiar with the terms PHP and HTML, but I could see how somebody who knew even less than I do might be confused by this sentence which was supposedly written to convey information to uninformed people. Now some of these terms are linked to other sites which can be followed to determine the meaning.  But then one can find oneself in an endless link quest.

Not knowing what a template processor was,  I looked that term up–also on Wikipedia, and found the following:  “A template processor (also known as a template engine or a template parser) is software or a software component that is designed to combine one or more templates with a data model to produce one or more result documents.”    Ok, the template processor is a program(?) designed to combine templates (now what is a template?) with a “data model” (?) to produce a “result document.”

I follow the link to template since I’m not what exactly the mean by the term and find the following: “

The term template, when used in the context of software engineering has various technical specifications, but is generally identified as any processing element that can be combined with a data model and processed by a template engine to produce a result document.  I got the feeling that I was going in circles and really not understanding much.  How did I get here?  Oh yes, I was looking up information on Word Press, trying to understand more about it.

Is it just me?  Am I stupid or what?  I find this problem almost every where that I look.  It seems, in my humble opinion, to be a real need for people, when writing to an ignorant audience, as opposed to one who is already knowledgeable about the subject, to write in clear concise terms.  One shouldn’t have to follow endless links to more obfuscatory articles which offer more links to unknown terms, etc.  Actually the more I think about it, the more I think that even IF the article is aimed at a jargon-savy audience, it should STILL be written in a clear, concise manner!

This is just one example.  I could list numerous such writings that I run across every day.  When I do run across a clear explanation of a subject in which I am interested, it is like a breath of fresh air.