Good analogies and metaphors (Score 2, Informative)

Any time you are trying to explain something, you have to bridge the gap between what they already know and understand, and what they need to know and understand.

When a programmer first learns about data structures, s/he might learn about "trees". Imagine explaining a tree without the implicit metaphor of roots, branches, and leaves. Sure, you could do it, but not without a lot of pain. Maybe it would be a "pointer-based hierarchical polyfurcating network of arbitrary data nodes".

But it goes beyond just explaining the concept. If your analogy is any good, many items are, at a basic level, self-documenting. A debugger or profiler, for instance, uses the analogy of a VCR. You already know what the play, pause, and stop buttons are likely to do. You might consult the docs to see what exactly the difference is between pause and stop, but whatever it is it won't be a big surprise.