Engineering: Hazardous to Literary Sense?

After a couple of decades of doing software engineering, I realize that all that cool stuff I learned in AP English in the 70's is pretty much gone. You know, understatement, metaphor, synecdoche, and all that good stuff where you say less than you mean, or more than you mean, the opposite of what you mean, etc.

I no longer have any patience with anybody who is not saying exactly what they mean!