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3DDave
Aerospace
- May 23, 2013
- 10,689
Normally in a technical document ALL the abbreviations are in a table in the beginning. When that isn't the case the abbreviation is introduced in the first use of it in the document. Finally, the abbreviations are usually found in the index.
However 2018 handles AME in a peculiar way - oddly more so for a reference book.
The first introduction of AME is in defining "Coaxiality" which is unlikely to be the first place a person might look trying to find what AME, as mentioned by users without explanation, means.
The best place would be in a definition of "Actual Mating Envelope" but the committee thought that was too straightforward and created "Envelope, Actual Mating", but this is after AME is used in several other definitions. But sure, if one memorized the entire document from the beginning, they would know it from "Coaxiality" The drive to present information on the basis of grouping by alphabetical sorting by spreadsheet rather than how people look for information is an unfriendly one.
At this point one would normally look to the index, but there isn't one.
Another feature is the frequent reference to UAME in discussions, though it never appears in the standard, though almost every instance of the AME abbreviation is actually referring to the "unrelated AME." The alternative is the "related AME, "which appears a small number of times and also has no specific abbreviation, though I think RAME has been used here as well.
It strikes me how user hostile this latest version is, particularly in using abbreviations that save so little of the page and sacrifice of clarity. Normally such compression is useful for cases where the typical user will save time over thousands to tens of thousands of cases - like how "A multiplied by B" in mathematics becomes "AB". Typical users of the standard will not need to write out "actual mating envelope," and for the few who do, they are still stuck writing out "unrelated" They can always add "AME = ACTUAL MATING ENVELOPE" on relevant documents.
Another hostility is the quiet removal of directly toleranced locating dimensions. This is covered in Appendix I-2 rather than a banner at the start of the document "ALL LOCATING DIMENSIONS IN FIGURES ARE BASIC" I think that an important concept should not require going into the basement of a document to find this critical piece of information when it was apparently a change that was of major importance to the committee.
However 2018 handles AME in a peculiar way - oddly more so for a reference book.
The first introduction of AME is in defining "Coaxiality" which is unlikely to be the first place a person might look trying to find what AME, as mentioned by users without explanation, means.
The best place would be in a definition of "Actual Mating Envelope" but the committee thought that was too straightforward and created "Envelope, Actual Mating", but this is after AME is used in several other definitions. But sure, if one memorized the entire document from the beginning, they would know it from "Coaxiality" The drive to present information on the basis of grouping by alphabetical sorting by spreadsheet rather than how people look for information is an unfriendly one.
At this point one would normally look to the index, but there isn't one.
Another feature is the frequent reference to UAME in discussions, though it never appears in the standard, though almost every instance of the AME abbreviation is actually referring to the "unrelated AME." The alternative is the "related AME, "which appears a small number of times and also has no specific abbreviation, though I think RAME has been used here as well.
It strikes me how user hostile this latest version is, particularly in using abbreviations that save so little of the page and sacrifice of clarity. Normally such compression is useful for cases where the typical user will save time over thousands to tens of thousands of cases - like how "A multiplied by B" in mathematics becomes "AB". Typical users of the standard will not need to write out "actual mating envelope," and for the few who do, they are still stuck writing out "unrelated" They can always add "AME = ACTUAL MATING ENVELOPE" on relevant documents.
Another hostility is the quiet removal of directly toleranced locating dimensions. This is covered in Appendix I-2 rather than a banner at the start of the document "ALL LOCATING DIMENSIONS IN FIGURES ARE BASIC" I think that an important concept should not require going into the basement of a document to find this critical piece of information when it was apparently a change that was of major importance to the committee.