If an author thinks that defining something inline will add clutter, the simple solution is to link the term to an article that defines it.

We may be a technical audience here on HN, but I wager that the vast majority of HN readers have never heard these terms before, just as I never had.

Based on what kyberias said in a sibling comment, it sounds like these terms will be familiar to those who have written DirectX and perhaps other GPU code, but for the rest of us they are esoteric terms.

It is so easy to add a link when you first mention a term like this. Why not do that?

The article goes on to explain the difference between immediate mode and retained mode in detail after the first example. A link would just distract the reader (the reader would then leave the site to learn about the terms, then come back, only to have them explained again).

Why are you assuming that HN is the intended audience? Just because some random person posted the article here does not mean you are the intended audience of the author. It seems quite presumptious to criticise on that basis.

At the risk of repeating what I mentioned in one or two other comments, I am not criticizing the author, and I am not assuming that HN is the intended audience. (And please don't put words in my mouth like that.)

I am offering writing advice that can benefit anyone writing on a technical topic.

You may have an idea of who your intended audience is, but when you put something out on the internet, you don't know where it will end up and who will read it.

It only takes a few minutes to link terms to their definitions or to write a very short definition.

Your expected audience may not need it, but your unexpected audience will definitely appreciate it.

So if his article were posted on a non-technical forum should he also define what a gui is, just in case? Would it not get extremely tedious defining the basics in every article?

I think it is perfectly OK to have an intended audience and ignore an unintended audience if catering for the unintended audience dumbs your writing down for your intended audience.

It is good writing advice to not clutter your writing with needless explanations.

You have a good point that writing out all your definitions may be needless clutter. It was always a good idea in print, but now we have the web and hyperlinks.

So wouldn't linking to definitions or references make both of us happy? If you're in the target audience you can ignore them, and if you're someone more ignorant, like me, you can click the link to learn more. Seems like a good thing all around.

Technical terms are easy enough to Google. I didn't know the difference either, but that would be my first thing to try before complaining on HN.

At the company I work for, so many things I need to know are internal and so impossible to Google, and even asking somebody usually yields a less than thorough answer. I have to build a picture of how the whole thing works in my head over time. Then I become the resource everybody who is in the position I was before hounds.

Having to Google a term because the author didn't think to include a link is roughly a 0.01 on the frustration meter compared to my current job.

I get the desire for easy and flat interlinking of information. But we need to look at the people who do the work to make that happen as bearers of gifts, not sources of misery. Be the change you want to see in the world, don't just demand others do it for you. Google is your friend.

adding a link is very different to adding a definition. The web is made of links, and linking to the wikipedia article (or other sources) is not only recommended, but encouraged.

Immediate mode and retained mode are not technical jargon in user interface APIs, however, which I the technical audience of this article. I don't think it's reasonable to assume the audience is familiar with jargon from an unrelated field, even if that jargon is in common use in that field.