#jargon #semantics

One way that folks talk about “transparency” is as “organizations should share details of their operations with the people they affect” (employees, customers, the public, etc.). This kind of transparency is good! Being able to see things lets people make informed decisions; not being able to hide things prevents bad behaviour.

However, in computer systems transparency tends to mean something like “replacing a component with a different one that has the same interface but a different implementation”. It's a seductive notion: systems that are designed this way can sometimes have one component change without breaking others, or add capabilities by inserting new components that mesh with what's already there.