> it’s a perfectly valid use of metonymy
and I'm not really sure what it means. I appreciate the wikipedia link and understand what metonymy is, but at the end of the day, metonymy is a figure of speech and formal technical writing discourages the use of extraneous figures of speech that don't serve any purpose, preferring clear technical language. If not this, then what does an invalid use of metonymy look like?
An invalid use would be one that is not widely recognized. For example, referring to our library as MSVCP. That’s the name (minus version) of our DLL, but very few people recognize it as such.
So... not here? ("Standard library" and "STL" are about the same number of syllables).
I still think metonymy is a bit besides the point. The explanation "Using STL in place of the standard library is a perfectly valid use of metonymy, which is a type of rhetorical device, which is typically avoided in formal writing - therefore you should not do this" seems coherent to me. That is - being a "perfectly valid use of metonymy" is neither clearly an argument for not clearly an argument against the use of term.