> The cargo cult metaphor should be avoided for three reasons. First, the metaphor is essentially meaningless and heavily overused.
> Note that the metaphor in cargo-cult programming is the opposite of the metaphor in cargo-cult science: Feyman's cargo-cult science has no chance of working, while cargo-cult programming works but isn't understood.
This isn’t how I’ve seen the phrase used most often. People generally complain about cargo culting when management forces practices on a team that don’t work, nor are they understood. The “cargo cult” element describes the root cause of these ineffective practices as coming from imitating something they saw or heard about, but don’t understand. Using imitation as a substitute for experience.
For that, the phrase is uniquely effective at communicating what’s happening. People understand the situation without needed a long explanation.
I don’t see a need to retire the phrase, nor do I think this article accurately captures how it’s used.