alt Hacker NewsI'm guessing Berkeley Packet Filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Packet_Filter
This is why National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) guidance is the following:
> Acronyms often confuse readers. Avoid them whenever possible. If an acronym is necessary for future reference, spell the full word and follow with the acronym in parentheses on the first reference. For example, The General Services Administration (GSA).
https://nasa.github.io/content-guide/abbreviations-and-acron...
There is also this longer memo on the NASA Technical Reports Server: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19950025292
Replies
To be honest BPF is one of those acronyms that I think might be more recognizable as the acronym than what it actually stands for.
Not quite as much as Radar or Laser, but halfway there.
Spelling out Berkeley Packet Filter doesn't really tell you anything about what eBPF actually is.
In fairness to the authors README, there isn't really any other BPFs in this domain and if someone didn't already know what BPF was, then this project wouldn't be of any interest to them (and would be a bad place to start on an BPF journey too).
So I can't blame the project's author for the lack of explanation about what BPF is. Particularly when it's just someone's personal project.
And before anyone complains about this comment: I do think the GP is completely fair in asking for clarification as to what BPF is too. There sometimes seems to be backlash on HN against people asking for a term to be explained. This comment isn't that.