Is domain-specific meaning acceptable/advisable when used in a document directed outside the domain?

Solution 1:

This is interesting and something I always thought about when reading programming materials in German since this problem is solved: if it is an English word like instantiate then it is a tech word and there is another German word for that same concept even if is it basically the Latin equivalent, e.g. instanziieren. So you know if the English word is being used, it has the tech meaning, and if the German word is being used, it has the conventional meaning.

So I see your conundrum when writing an IT book in English.

Perhaps you and the editor could just agree on a special font/color for these English words that have special IT meanings, so you would have sentences like this:

The managers persisted in reminding us that the data had to be persisted in both SQL Server and MySQL.

Solution 2:

To me it's obvious that you should do what the editor suggests. I can't tell you how exasperating it is to read text where the authors insist on introducing jargon words for no apparent reason, just because that is the way that the experts talk. It slows down my pace of reading and thus is highly irritating, and I usually feel like the author is just wasting my time in order to show how clever he is by using these words. Glossaries and endnotes are just really annoying. Does your message to the "suits" really consists of teaching them this jargon? If not, remove them as your editor suggests, or put the jargon into the endnotes/footnotes/a special section.