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= A =
abbrev: /*-breev'/, /*-brev'/ n. Common abbreviation for
`abbreviation'.
ABEND: [ABnormal END] /ah'bend/, /*-bend'/ n. Abnormal
termination (of software); {crash}; {lossage}. Derives from an
error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but
seriously mainly by {code grinder}s. Usually capitalized, but may
appear as `abend'. Hackers will try to persuade you that ABEND is
called `abend' because it is what system operators do to the
machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day, and hence
is from the German `Abend' = `Evening'.
accumulator: n. 1. Archaic term for a register. On-line use of it
as a synonym for `register' is a fairly reliable indication that
the user has been around for quite a while and/or that the
architecture under discussion is quite old. The term in full is
almost never used of microprocessor registers, for example, though
symbolic names for arithmetic registers beginning in `A' derive
from historical use of the term `accumulator' (and not, actually,
from `arithmetic'). Confusingly, though, an `A' register name
prefix may also stand for `address', as for example on the
Motorola 680x0 family. 2. A register being used for arithmetic or
logic (as opposed to addressing or a loop index), especially one
being used to accumulate a sum or count of many items. This use is
in context of a particular routine or stretch of code. "The
FOOBAZ routine uses A3 as an accumulator." 3. One's in-basket
(esp. among old-timers who might use sense 1). "You want this
reviewed? Sure, just put it in the accumulator." (See {stack}.)
ACK: /ak/ interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110]
Acknowledge. Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream
*Yo!*). An appropriate response to {ping} or {ENQ}.
2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of
surprised disgust, esp. in "Ack pffft!" Semi-humorous.
Generally this sense is not spelled in caps (ACK) and is
distinguished by a following exclamation point. 3. Used to
politely interrupt someone to tell them you understand their point
(see {NAK}). Thus, for example, you might cut off an overly
long explanation with "Ack. Ack. Ack. I get it now".
There is also a usage "ACK?" (from sense 1) meaning "Are you
there?", often used in email when earlier mail has produced no
reply, or during a lull in {talk mode} to see if the person has
gone away (the standard humorous response is of course {NAK}
(sense 2), i.e., "I'm not here").
ad-hockery: /ad-hok'*r-ee/ [Purdue] n. 1. Gratuitous assumptions
made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to
the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact
entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching input tokens that
might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as
though a program knows how to spell. 2. Special-case code to cope
with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to
{choke}, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner
and more regular way. Also called `ad-hackery', `ad-hocity'
(/ad-hos'*-tee/). See also {ELIZA effect}.
Ada:: n. A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made
mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the
Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that,
technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind
of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult
to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle
(one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers
find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication
features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of
Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while
cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical
computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch
at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
small language screaming to get out from inside its vast,
{elephantine} bulk.
adger: /aj'r/ [UCLA] vt. To make a bonehead move with consequences
that could have been foreseen with a slight amount of mental
effort. E.g., "He started removing files and promptly adgered the
whole project". Compare {dumbass attack}.
admin: /ad-min'/ n. Short for `administrator'; very commonly
used in speech or on-line to refer to the systems person in charge
on a computer. Common constructions on this include `sysadmin'
and `site admin' (emphasizing the administrator's role as a site
contact for email and news) or `newsadmin' (focusing specifically
on news). Compare {postmaster}, {sysop}, {system
mangler}.
ADVENT: /ad'vent/ n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first
implemented on the {PDP-10} by Will Crowther as an attempt at
computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a
puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods. Now better known as Adventure,
but the {{TOPS-10}} operating system permitted only 6-letter
filenames. See also {vadding}.
This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in
text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have
become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars
the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a
maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little
maze of twisty passages, all different." The `magic words'
{xyzzy} and {plugh} also derive from this game.
Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the
Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a
`Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that
also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary
entrance.
AI-complete: /A-I k*m-pleet'/ [MIT, Stanford: by analogy with
`NP-complete' (see {NP-})] adj. Used to describe problems or
subproblems in AI, to indicate that the solution presupposes a
solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the synthesis of a
human-level intelligence). A problem that is AI-complete is, in
other words, just too hard.
Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem'
(building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The
Natural Language Problem' (building a system that can understand
and speak a natural language as well as a human). These may appear
to be modular, but all attempts so far (1991) to solve them have
foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence'
they seem to require. See also {gedanken}.
AI koans: /A-I koh'anz/ pl.n. A series of pastiches of Zen
teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around
various major figures of the Lab's culture (several are included in
appendix A). See also {ha ha only serious}, {mu}, and
{{Humor, Hacker}}.
AIDS: /aydz/ n. Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome (`A*' is a
{glob} pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple),
this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe
{SEX}. See {virus}, {worm}, {Trojan horse},
{virgin}.
airplane rule: n. "Complexity increases the possibility of
failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems
as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and
electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness (see
also {KISS Principle}). It is correspondingly argued that the
right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one
basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good*
basket.
aliasing bug: n. A class of subtle programming errors that can
arise in code that does dynamic allocation, esp. via
`malloc(3)' or equivalent. If more than one pointer addresses
(`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the
storage is freed through one alias and then referenced through
another, which may lead to subtle (and possibly intermittent) lossage
depending on the state and the allocation history of the malloc
{arena}. Avoidable by use of allocation strategies that never
alias allocated core. Also avoidable by use of higher-level
languages, such as {LISP}, which employ a garbage collector
(see {GC}). Also called a {stale pointer bug}. See also
{precedence lossage}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on core},
{memory leak}, {overrun screw}, {spam}.
Historical note: Though this term is nowadays associated with
C programming, it was already in use in a very similar sense in the
Algol-60 and FORTRAN communities in the 1960s.
all-elbows: adj. Of a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) IBM PC
program, such as the N pop-up calendar and calculator utilities
that circulate on {BBS} systems: unsociable. Used to describe a
program that rudely steals the resources that it needs without
considering that other TSRs may also be resident. One particularly
common form of rudeness is lock-up due to programs fighting over
the keyboard interrupt. See also {mess-dos}.
alpha particles: n. See {bit rot}.
ALT: /awlt/ 1. n. The ALT shift key on an IBM PC or {clone}.
2. [possibly lowercased] n. The `clover' or `Command' key on a
Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked
PCs before coming to the Mac (see also {command key}). Some Mac
hackers, confusingly, reserve `ALT' for the Option key. 3. n.obs.
[PDP-10] Alternate name for the ASCII ESC character (ASCII
0011011), after the keycap labeling on some older terminals. Also
`ALTMODE' (/awlt'mohd/). This character was almost never
pronounced `escape' on an ITS system, in {TECO}, or under
TOPS-10 --- always ALT, as in "Type ALT ALT to end a TECO
command" or "ALT U onto the system" (for "log onto the [ITS]
system"). This was probably because ALT is more convenient to say
than `escape', especially when followed by another ALT or a
character (or another ALT *and* a character, for that matter).
alt bit: /awlt bit/ [from alternate] adj. See {meta bit}.
Aluminum Book: [MIT] n. `Common LISP: The Language', by
Guy L. Steele Jr. (Digital Press, first edition 1984, second
edition 1990). Note that due to a technical screwup some printings
of the second edition are actually of a color the author describes
succinctly as "yucky green". See also {{book titles}}.
amoeba: n. Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.
amp off: [Purdue] vt. To run in {background}. From the UNIX shell `&'
operator.
amper: n. Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&',
ASCII 0100110) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
angle brackets: n. Either of the characters `<' (ASCII
0111100) and `>' (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or
greater-than signs). The {Real World} angle brackets used by
typographers are actually taller than a less-than or greater-than
sign.
See {broket}, {{ASCII}}.
angry fruit salad: n. A bad visual-interface design that uses too
many colors. This derives, of course, from the bizarre day-glo
colors found in canned fruit salad. Too often one sees similar
affects from interface designers using color window systems such as
{X}; there is a tendency to create displays that are flashy and
attention-getting but uncomfortable for long-term use.
AOS: 1. /aws/ (East Coast), /ay-os/ (West Coast) [based on a
PDP-10 increment instruction] vt.,obs. To increase the amount of
something. "AOS the campfire." Usage: considered silly, and now
obsolete. Now largely supplanted by {bump}. See {SOS}. 2. A
{{Multics}}-derived OS supported at one time by Data General. This
was pronounced /A-O-S/ or /A-os/. A spoof of the standard
AOS system administrator's manual (`How to load and generate
your AOS system') was created, issued a part number, and circulated
as photocopy folklore. It was called `How to goad and
levitate your chaos system'. 3. Algebraic Operating System, in
reference to those calculators which use infix instead of postfix
(reverse Polish) notation.
Historical note: AOS in sense 1 was the name of a {PDP-10}
instruction that took any memory location in the computer and added
1 to it; AOS meant `Add One and do not Skip'. Why, you may ask,
does the `S' stand for `do not Skip' rather than for `Skip'? Ah,
here was a beloved piece of PDP-10 folklore. There were eight such
instructions: AOSE added 1 and then skipped the next instruction
if the result was Equal to zero; AOSG added 1 and then skipped if
the result was Greater than 0; AOSN added 1 and then skipped
if the result was Not 0; AOSA added 1 and then skipped Always;
and so on. Just plain AOS didn't say when to skip, so it never
skipped.
For similar reasons, AOJ meant `Add One and do not Jump'. Even
more bizarre, SKIP meant `do not SKIP'! If you wanted to skip the
next instruction, you had to say `SKIPA'. Likewise, JUMP meant
`do not JUMP'; the unconditional form was JUMPA. However, hackers
never did this. By some quirk of the 10's design, the {JRST}
(Jump and ReSTore flag with no flag specified) was actually faster
and so was invariably used. Such were the perverse mysteries of
assembler programming.
app: /ap/ n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a
systems program. What systems vendors are forever chasing
developers to create for their environments so they can sell more
boxes. Hackers tend not to think of the things they themselves run
as apps; thus, in hacker parlance the term excludes compilers,
program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a user would
consider all those to be apps. Oppose {tool}, {operating
system}.
arc: [primarily MSDOS] vt. To create a compressed {archive} from a
group of files using SEA ARC, PKWare PKARC, or a compatible
program. Rapidly becoming obsolete as the ARC compression method
is falling into disuse, having been replaced by newer compression
techniques. See {tar and feather}, {zip}.
arc wars: [primarily MSDOS] n. {holy wars} over which archiving
program one should use. The first arc war was sparked when System
Enhancement Associates (SEA) sued PKWare for copyright and
trademark infringement on its ARC program. PKWare's PKARC
outperformed ARC on both compression and speed while largely
retaining compatibility (it introduced a new compression type that
could be disabled for backward-compatibility). PKWare settled out
of court to avoid enormous legal costs (both SEA and PKWare are
small companies); as part of the settlement, the name of PKARC was
changed to PKPAK. The public backlash against SEA for bringing
suit helped to hasten the demise of ARC as a standard when PKWare
and others introduced new, incompatible archivers with better
compression algorithms.
archive: n. 1. A collection of several files bundled into one file
by a program such as `ar(1)', `tar(1)', `cpio(1)',
or {arc} for shipment or archiving (sense 2). See also {tar
and feather}. 2. A collection of files or archives (sense 1) made
available from an `archive site' via {FTP} or an email server.
arena: [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by
`brk(2)' and `sbrk(2)' and used by `malloc(3)' as
dynamic storage. So named from a semi-mythical `malloc:
corrupt arena' message supposedly emitted when some early versions
became terminally confused. See {overrun screw}, {aliasing
bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack}.
arg: /arg/ n. Abbreviation for `argument' (to a function),
used so often as to have become a new word (like `piano' from
`pianoforte'). "The sine function takes 1 arg, but the
arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args." Compare
{param}, {parm}, {var}.
armor-plated: n. Syn. for {bulletproof}.
asbestos: adj. Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect
one from {flame}s. Important cases of this include {asbestos
longjohns} and {asbestos cork award}, but it is used more
generally.
asbestos cork award: n. Once, long ago at MIT, there was a {flamer}
so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made,
and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been
nominated for the `asbestos cork award'. Persons in any doubt as
to the intended application of the cork should consult the
etymology under {flame}. Since then, it is agreed that only a
select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn
this dubious dignity --- but there is no agreement on *which*
few.
asbestos longjohns: n. Notional garments often donned by {USENET}
posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit
{flamage}. This is the most common of the {asbestos} coinages.
Also `asbestos underwear', `asbestos overcoat', etc.
ASCII:: [American Standard Code for Information Interchange]
/as'kee/ n. The predominant character set encoding of present-day
computers. Uses 7 bits for each character, whereas most earlier
codes (including an early version of ASCII) used fewer. This
change allowed the inclusion of lowercase letters --- a major
{win} --- but it did not provide for accented letters or any
other letterforms not used in English (such as the German sharp-S
and the ae-ligature
which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse,
though. It could be much worse. See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.
Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names --- some
formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII
characters are collected here. See also individual entries for
{bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi}, {shriek},
{splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.
This list derives from revision 2.3 of the USENET ASCII
pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character,
common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the
particularly silly names introduced by {INTERCAL}. Ordinary
parentheticals provide some usage information.
!
Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>.
Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey;
wham; [spark-spot]; soldier.
"
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark;
double-glitch; <quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk;
[rabbit-ears]; double prime.
#
Common: <number sign>; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp;
{crunch}; hex; [mesh]; octothorpe. Rare: flash; crosshatch;
grid; pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; {splat}.
$
Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol; buck;
cash; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of
ASCII ESC); ding; cache; [big money].
%
Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes. Rare:
[double-oh-seven].
&
Common: <ampersand>; amper; and. Rare: address (from C);
reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from
`sh(1)'); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand';
what could be sillier?]
'
Common: single quote; quote; <apostrophe>. Rare: prime;
glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation
mark>; <acute accent>.
()
Common: left/right paren; left/right parenthesis; left/right; paren/thesis;
open/close paren; open/close; open/close parenthesis; left/right banana.
Rare: so/al-ready; lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>;
open/close round bracket, parenthisey/unparenthisey; [wax/wane];
left/right ear.
*
Common: star; [{splat}]; <asterisk>. Rare: wildcard; gear;
dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see
{glob}); {Nathan Hale}.
+
Common: <plus>; add. Rare: cross; [intersection].
,
Common: <comma>. Rare: <cedilla>; [tail].
-
Common: dash; <hyphen>; <minus>. Rare: [worm]; option; dak;
bithorpe.
.
Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>. Rare: radix
point; full stop; [spot].
/
Common: slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash. Rare:
diagonal; solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].
:
Common: <colon>. Rare: dots; [two-spot].
;
Common: <semicolon>; semi. Rare: weenie; [hybrid],
pit-thwong.
<>
Common: <less/greater than>; left/right angle bracket;
bra/ket; left/right broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read
from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out;
crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].
=
Common: <equals>; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe;
[half-mesh].
?
Common: query; <question mark>; {ques}. Rare: whatmark;
[what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.
@
Common: at sign; at; strudel. Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
[whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage;
<commercial at>.
V
Rare: [book].
[]
Common: left/right square bracket; <opening/closing bracket>;
bracket/unbracket; left/right bracket. Rare: square/unsquare;
[U turn/U turn back].
\
Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh;
backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; <reverse slant>; reversed
virgule; [backslat].
^
Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare:
chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
fang; pointer (in Pascal).
_
Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under. Rare:
score; backarrow; [flatworm].
`
Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
<grave accent>; grave. Rare: backprime; [backspark];
unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
<opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.
{}
Common: open/close brace; left/right brace; left/right
squiggly; left/right squiggly bracket/brace; left/right curly
bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>. Rare: brace/unbrace;
curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; left/right squirrelly;
[embrace/bracelet].
|
Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
<vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from
UNIX); [spike].
~
Common: <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not. Rare: approx;
wiggle; swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].
The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S. but
a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more apposite
use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound
graphic
happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes call `#'
on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the American error).
The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of
using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading.
The character is usually pronounced `hash' outside the U.S.
The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
version), which had these graphics in those character positions
rather than the modern punctuation characters.
The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
as tilde in typeset material
but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
brackets}).
Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The `#',
`$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
`$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
`&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See
also {splat}.
The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
international networks continues to increase (see {software
rot}). Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set; this is a
a major irritant to people who want to use a character set suited
to their own languages. Perversely, though, efforts to solve this
problem by proliferating `national' character sets produce an
evolutionary pressure to use a *smaller* subset common to all
those in use.
ASCII art: n. The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII
character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\', and
`+'). Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
graphics'; see also {boxology}. Here is a serious example:
o----)||(--+--|<----+ +---------o + D O
L )||( | | | C U
A I )||( +-->|-+ | +-\/\/-+--o - T
C N )||( | | | | P
E )||( +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o U
)||( | | | GND T
o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+
A power supply consisting of a full
wave rectifier circuit feeding a
capacitor input filter circuit
Figure 1.
And here are some very silly examples:
|\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___
| | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` '| _/ \
| | =(_)= THPHTH! / \/ \/ \
| (o)(o) U / \
C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/
| ,___| (oo) \/ \/
| / \/-------\ U (__)
/____\ || | \ /---V `v'- oo )
/ \ ||---W|| * * |--| || |`. |_/\
Figure 2.
There is an important subgenre of humorous ASCII art that takes
advantage of the names of the various characters to tell a
pun-based joke.
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
" A Bee in the Carrot Patch "
Figure 3.
Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are
reproduced in Figure 2; here are three more:
(__) (__) (__)
(\/) ($$) (**)
/-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/
/ | 666 || / |=====|| / | ||
* ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----||
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love
Figure 4.
attoparsec: n. `atto-' is the standard SI prefix for
multiplication by 10^{-18}. A parsec (parallax-second) is
3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus 3.26 * 10^{-18} light
years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1 attoparsec/{microfortnight}
equals about 1 inch/sec). This unit is reported to be in use
(though probably not very seriously) among hackers in the U.K. See
{micro-}.
autobogotiphobia: /aw'to-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ n. See {bogotify}.
automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ or /aw-toh-maj'i-k*l-ee/ adv.
Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically
because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too
trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See
{magic}. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically
invokes `cc(1)' to produce an executable."
avatar: [CMU, Tektronix] n. Syn. {root}, {superuser}. There
are quite a few UNIX machines on which the name of the superuser
account is `avatar' rather than `root'. This quirk was
originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term `superuser',
and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at Tektronix.
awk: 1. n. [UNIX techspeak] An interpreted language for massaging
text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian
Kernighan (the name is from their initials). It is characterized
by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable typing
and declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text
processing. See also {Perl}. 2. n. Editing term for an
expression awkward to manipulate through normal {regexp}
facilities (for example, one containing a {newline}). 3. vt. To
process data using `awk(1)'.
= B =
back door: n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately left
in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for this is
not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out
of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field
service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers.
Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than
anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
The infamous {RTM} worm of late 1988, for example, used a back door
in the {BSD} UNIX `sendmail(8)' utility.
Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM revealed the
existence of a back door in early UNIX versions that may have
qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time.
The C compiler contained code that would recognize when the
`login' command was being recompiled and insert some code
recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the
system whether or not an account had been created for him.
Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the
source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to
recompile the compiler, you have to *use* the compiler --- so
Thompson also arranged that the compiler would *recognize when
it was compiling a version of itself*, and insert into the
recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login'
the code to allow Thompson entry --- and, of course, the code to
recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around!
And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the
compiler from the original sources, leaving his back door in place
and active but with no trace in the sources.
The talk that revealed this truly moby hack was published as
"Reflections on Trusting Trust", `Communications of the
ACM 27', 8 (August 1984), pp. 761--763.
Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a `wormhole'. See also
{iron box}, {cracker}, {worm}, {logic bomb}.
backbone cabal: n. A group of large-site administrators who pushed
through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of {USENET}
during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list} disbanded in
late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, but the net hardly
noticed.
backbone site: n. A key USENET and email site; one that processes
a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home
site of any of the regional coordinators for the USENET maps.
Notable backbone sites as of early 1991 include uunet and the
mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western
Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of
Texas. Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.
backgammon:: See {bignum}, {moby}, and {pseudoprime}.
background: n.,adj.,vt. To do a task `in background' is to do
it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your undivided
attention, and `to background' something means to relegate it to
a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a list of nodes and
links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem in background."
Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or
in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back burner' (which
connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity).
Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have
queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often
fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work).
Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}.
Technically, a task running in background is detached from the
terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower
priority); oppose {foreground}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears to have been first used
in this sense on OS/360.
backspace and overstrike: interj. Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest
that someone just said or did something wrong. Common among
APL programmers.
backward combatability: /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ [from
`backward compatibility'] n. A property of hardware or software
revisions in which previous protocols, formats, and layouts are
discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols, formats, and
layouts. Occurs usually when making the transition between major
releases. When the change is so drastic that the old formats are
not retained in the new version, it is said to be `backward
combatable'. See {flag day}.
BAD: /B-A-D/ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed'] adj. Said
of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and misfeatures
rather than because of bugginess. See {working as designed}.
Bad Thing: [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody `1066 And
All That'] n. Something that can't possibly result in improvement
of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing
all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would be a Bad
Thing". Oppose {Good Thing}. British correspondents confirm
that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob. therefore {Right
Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book referenced in the
etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad
Things. This has apparently created a mainstream idiom on the
British side of the pond.
bag on the side: n. An extension to an established hack that is
supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually
derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and
should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,
inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, `to hang a bag on the side
[of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...." "They
want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."
bagbiter: /bag'bi:t-*r/ n. 1. Something, such as a program or a
computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy
manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line
longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has
caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by
failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: {loser},
{cretin}, {chomper}. 3. adj. `bagbiting' Having the
quality of a bagbiter. "This bagbiting system won't let me
compute the factorial of a negative number." Compare {losing},
{cretinous}, {bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under
{barfulous}) and `chomping' (under {chomp}). 4. `bite
the bag' vi. To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing
every 5 minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the
bag." The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly
obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current
usage they have become almost completely sanitized.
A program called Lexiphage on the old MIT AI PDP-10 would draw on
a selected victim's bitmapped terminal the words "THE BAG" in
ornate letters, and then a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off.
This is the first and to date only known example of a program
*intended* to be a bagbiter.
bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from old X-Men comics] interj. Notional sound made
by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's
vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality} (esp. {MUD})
electronic {fora} when a character wishes to make a dramatic entrance
or exit. 2. The sound of magical transformation, used in virtual
reality {fora} like sense 1. 3. [from `Don Washington's
Survival Guide'] n. Acronym for `Bad-Ass Mother Fucker', used to
refer to one of the handful of nastiest monsters on an LPMUD or
other similar MUD.
banana label: n. The labels often used on the sides of {macrotape}
reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended
bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current
but visibly headed for obsolescence.
banana problem: n. [from the story of the little girl who said "I
know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to stop"]. Not
knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare
{fencepost error}). One may say `there is a banana problem' of an
algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions,
or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing
to featuritis (see also {creeping elegance}, {creeping
featuritis}). See item 176 under {HAKMEM}, which describes a
banana problem in a {Dissociated Press} implementation.
bandwidth: n. 1. Used by hackers in a generalization of its
technical meaning as the volume of information per unit time that a
computer, person, or transmission medium can handle. "Those are
amazing graphics, but I missed some of the detail --- not enough
bandwidth, I guess." Compare {low-bandwidth}. 2. Attention
span. 3. On {USENET}, a measure of network capacity that is
often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others
are a waste of bandwidth.
bang: 1. n. Common spoken name for `!' (ASCII 0100001),
especially when used in pronouncing a {bang path} in spoken
hackish. In {elder days} this was considered a CMUish usage,
with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring {excl} or {shriek};
but the spread of UNIX has carried `bang' with it (esp. via the
term {bang path}) and it is now certainly the most common spoken
name for `!'. Note that it is used exclusively for
non-emphatic written `!'; one would not say "Congratulations
bang" (except possibly for humorous purposes), but if one wanted
to specify the exact characters `foo!' one would speak "Eff oh oh
bang". See {shriek}, {{ASCII}}. 2. interj. An exclamation
signifying roughly "I have achieved enlightenment!", or "The
dynamite has cleared out my brain!" Often used to acknowledge
that one has perpetrated a {thinko} immediately after one has
been called on it.
bang on: vt. To stress-test a piece of hardware or software: "I
banged on the new version of the simulator all day yesterday and it
didn't crash once. I guess it is ready to release." The term
{pound on} is synonymous.
bang path: n. An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address specifying
hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the addressee,
so called because each {hop} is signified by a {bang} sign.
Thus, for example, the path ...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me
directs people to route their mail to machine bigsite (presumably
a well-known location accessible to everybody) and from there
through the machine foovax to the account of user me on
barbox.
In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
using the { } convention (see {glob}) to give paths from
*several* big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me). Bang paths
of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths
were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
messages would often get lost. See {{Internet address}},
{network, the}, and {sitename}.
banner: n. 1. The title page added to printouts by most print
spoolers (see {spool}). Typically includes user or account ID
information in very large character-graphics capitals. Also called
a `burst page', because it indicates where to burst (tear apart)
fanfold paper to separate one user's printout from the next. 2. A
similar printout generated (typically on multiple pages of fan-fold
paper) from user-specified text, e.g., by a program such as UNIX's
`banner({1,6})'. 3. On interactive software, a first screen
containing a logo and/or author credits and/or a copyright notice.
bar: /bar/ n. 1. The second metasyntactic variable, after {foo}
and before {baz}. "Suppose we have two functions: FOO and BAR.
FOO calls BAR...." 2. Often appended to {foo} to produce
{foobar}.
bare metal: n. 1. New computer hardware, unadorned with such
snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or
even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the
bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing}
needed to create these basic tools for a new machine. Real
bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and
BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device
drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the
compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real
development environment. 2. `Programming on the bare metal' is
also used to describe a style of {hand-hacking} that relies on
bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, esp.
tricks for speed and space optimization that rely on crocks such as
overlapping instructions (or, as in the famous case described in
appendix A, interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimize
fetch delays due to the device's rotational latency). This sort of
thing has become less common as the relative costs of programming
time and machine resources have changed, but is still found in
heavily constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems.
See {real programmer}.
In the world of personal computing, bare metal programming (especially
in sense 1 but sometimes also in sense 2) is often considered a
{Good Thing}, or at least a necessary thing (because these
machines have often been sufficiently slow and poorly designed
to make it necessary; see {ill-behaved}). There, the term
usually refers to bypassing the BIOS or OS interface and writing
the application to directly access device registers and machine
addresses. "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the serial port, you need to
get down to the bare metal." People who can do this sort of thing
are held in high regard.
barf: /barf/ [from mainstream slang meaning `vomit']
1. interj. Term of disgust. This is the closest hackish
equivalent of the Val\-speak "gag me with a spoon". (Like, euwww!)
See {bletch}. 2. vi. To say "Barf!" or emit some similar
expression of disgust. "I showed him my latest hack and he
barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he
literally vomited. 3. vi. To fail to work because of unacceptable
input. May mean to give an error message. Examples: "The
division operation barfs if you try to divide by 0." (That is,
the division operation checks for an attempt to divide by zero, and
if one is encountered it causes the operation to fail in some
unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.) "The text editor
barfs if you try to read in a new file before writing out the old
one." See {choke}, {gag}. In Commonwealth hackish,
`barf' is generally replaced by `puke' or `vom'. {barf}
is sometimes also used as a metasyntactic variable, like {foo} or
{bar}.
barfulation: /bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ interj. Variation of {barf}
used around the Stanford area. An exclamation, expressing disgust.
On seeing some particularly bad code one might exclaim,
"Barfulation! Who wrote this, Quux?"
barfulous: /bar'fyoo-l*s/ adj. (alt. `barfucious',
/bar-fyoo-sh*s/) Said of something that would make anyone barf,
if only for esthetic reasons.
baroque: adj. Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on
excessive. Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has
many of the connotations of {elephantine} or {monstrosity} but is
less extreme and not pejorative in itself. "Metafont even has
features to introduce random variations to its letterform output.
Now *that* is baroque!" See also {rococo}.
BartleMUD: /bar'tl-muhd/ n. Any of the MUDs derived from the
original MUD game by Richard Bartle (see {MUD}). BartleMUDs are
noted for their (usually slightly offbeat) humor, dry but friendly
syntax, and lack of adjectives in object descriptions, so a player
is likely to come across `brand172', for instance (see {brand
brand brand}). Some MUDders intensely dislike Bartle and this
term, and prefer to speak of `MUD-1'.
BASIC: n. A programming language, originally designed for
Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the
early 1960s, which has since become the leading cause of
brain-damage in proto-hackers. This is another case (like
{Pascal}) of the bad things that happen when a language
deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too
seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of
10--20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer is (a) very
painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will bite him/her later
if he/she tries to hack in a real language. This wouldn't be so
bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end
micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a year.
batch: adj. 1. Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat more
loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in
particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare
it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to
as `batch mode' switches. A `batch file' is a series of
instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running
in batch mode. 2. Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting.
"I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all
those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next
week..." 3. Accumulation of a number of small tasks that can be
lumped together for greater efficiency. "I'm batching up those
letters to send sometime" "I'm batching up bottles to take to the
recycling center."
bathtub curve: n. Common term for the curve (resembling an
end-to-end section of one of those claw-footed antique bathtubs)
that describes the expected failure rate of electronics with time:
initially high, dropping to near 0 for most of the system's
lifetime, then rising again as it `tires out'. See also {burn-in
period}, {infant mortality}.
baud: /bawd/ [simplified from its technical meaning] n. Bits per
second. Hence kilobaud or Kbaud, thousands of bits per second.
The technical meaning is `level transitions per second'; this
coincides with bps only for two-level modulation with no framing or
stop bits. Most hackers are aware of these nuances but blithely
ignore them.
baud barf: /bawd barf/ n. The garbage one gets on the monitor
when using a modem connection with some protocol setting (esp.
line speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice extension
on the same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts the
connection. Baud barf is not completely {random}, by the way;
hackers with a lot of serial-line experience can usually tell
whether the device at the other end is expecting a higher or lower
speed than the terminal is set to. *Really* experienced ones
can identify particular speeds.
baz: /baz/ [Stanford: corruption of {bar}] n. 1. The third
metasyntactic variable, after {foo} and {bar} and before
{quux} (or, occasionally, `qux'; or local idiosyncracies like
`rag', `zowie', etc.). "Suppose we have three functions: FOO,
BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ...."
2. interj. A term of mild annoyance. In this usage the term is
often drawn out for 2 or 3 seconds, producing an effect not unlike
the bleating of a sheep; /baaaaaaz/. 3. Occasionally appended to
{foo} to produce `foobaz'.
bboard: /bee'bord/ [contraction of `bulletin board'] n.
1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used of {BBS} systems
running on personal micros, less frequently of a USENET
{newsgroup} (in fact, use of the term for a newsgroup generally
marks one either as a {newbie} fresh in from the BBS world or as
a real old-timer predating USENET). 2. At CMU and other colleges
with similar facilities, refers to campus-wide electronic bulletin
boards. 3. The term `physical bboard' is sometimes used to
refer to a old-fashioned, non-electronic cork memo board. At CMU,
it refers to a particular one outside the CS Lounge.
In either of senses 1 or 2, the term is usually prefixed by the
name of the intended board (`the Moonlight Casino bboard' or
`market bboard'); however, if the context is clear, the better-read
bboards may be referred to by name alone, as in (at CMU) "Don't
post for-sale ads on general".
BBS: /B-B-S/ [acronym, `Bulletin Board System'] n. An electronic
bulletin board system; that is, a message database where people can
log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped (typically)
into {topic group}s. Thousands of local BBS systems are in
operation throughout the U.S., typically run by amateurs for fun
out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each.
Fans of USENET and Internet or the big commercial timesharing
bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tend to consider local BBSes
the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they serve a
valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and users in
the personal-micro world who would otherwise be unable to exchange
code at all.
beam: [from Star Trek Classic's "Beam me up, Scotty!"] vt. To
transfer {softcopy} of a file electronically; most often in
combining forms such as `beam me a copy' or `beam that over to
his site'. Compare {blast}, {snarf}, {BLT}.
beanie key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.
beep: n.,v. Syn. {feep}. This term seems to be preferred among micro
hobbyists.
beige toaster: n. A Macintosh. See {toaster}; compare
{Macintrash}, {maggotbox}.
bells and whistles: [by analogy with the toyboxes on theater
organs] n. Features added to a program or system to make it more
{flavorful} from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily
adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished from
{chrome}, which is intended to attract users. "Now that we've
got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and
whistles." No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a
whistle.
bells, whistles, and gongs: n. A standard elaborated form of
{bells and whistles}; typically said with a pronounced and ironic
accent on the `gongs'.
benchmark: [techspeak] n. An inaccurate measure of computer
performance. "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of
lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." Well-known ones include
Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see {h}), the Gabriel LISP
benchmarks (see {gabriel}), the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK. See
also {machoflops}, {MIPS}.
Berkeley Quality Software: adj. (often abbreviated `BQS') Term used
in a pejorative sense to refer to software that was apparently
created by rather spaced-out hackers late at night to solve some
unique problem. It usually has nonexistent, incomplete, or
incorrect documentation, has been tested on at least two examples,
and core dumps when anyone else attempts to use it. This term was
frequently applied to early versions of the `dbx(1)' debugger.
See also {Berzerkeley}.
berklix: /berk'liks/ n.,adj. [contraction of `Berkeley UNIX'] See
{BSD}. Not used at Berkeley itself. May be more common among
{suit}s attempting to sound like cognoscenti than among hackers,
who usually just say `BSD'.
berserking: vi. A {MUD} term meaning to gain points *only*
by killing other players and mobiles (non-player characters).
Hence, a Berserker-Wizard is a player character that has achieved
enough points to become a wizard, but only by killing other
characters. Berserking is sometimes frowned upon because of its
inherently antisocial nature, but some MUDs have a `berserker
mode' in which a player becomes *permanently* berserk, can
never flee from a fight, cannot use magic, gets no score for
treasure, but does get double kill points. "Berserker
wizards can seriously damage your elf!"
Berzerkeley: /b*r-zer'klee/ [from `berserk', via the name of a
now-deceased record label] n. Humorous distortion of `Berkeley'
used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the
{BSD} UNIX hackers. See {software bloat}, {Missed'em-five},
{Berkeley Quality Software}.
Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and
political peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported
from as far back as the 1960s.
beta: /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n. 1. In
the {Real World}, software often goes through two stages of
testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Software is said
to be `in beta'. 2. Anything that is new and experimental is in
beta. "His girlfriend is in beta" means that he is still testing
for compatibility and reserving judgment. 3. Beta software is
notoriously buggy, so `in beta' connotes flakiness.
Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a
pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software
by making it available to selected customers and users. This term
derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints,
first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry.
`Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test phase; `Beta
Test' was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier
A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and
manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design
and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the
engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test
(corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early
samples of the production design.
BFI: /B-F-I/ n. See {brute force and ignorance}. Also
encountered in the variant `BFMI', `brute force and
*massive* ignorance'.
bible: n. 1. One of a small number of fundamental source books
such as {Knuth} and {K&R}. 2. The most detailed and
authoritative reference for a particular language, operating
system, or other complex software system.
BiCapitalization: n. The act said to have been performed on
trademarks (such as NeXT, {NeWS}, VisiCalc, FrameMaker,
TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of
common coinage by nonstandard capitalization. Too many
{marketroid} types think this sort of thing is really cute, even
the 2,317th time they do it. Compare {studlycaps}.
BIFF: /bif/ [USENET] n. The most famous {pseudo}, and the
prototypical {newbie}. Articles from BIFF are characterized by
all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos,
`cute' misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE"S A K00L
DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE
THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments of {talk mode}
abbreviations, a long {sig block} (sometimes even a {doubled
sig}), and unbounded na"ivet'e. BIFF posts articles using his elder
brother's VIC-20. BIFF's location is a mystery, as his articles
appear to come from a variety of sites. However, {BITNET} seems to
be the most frequent origin. The theory that BIFF is a denizen of
BITNET is supported by BIFF's (unfortunately invalid) electronic
mail address: BIFF@BIT.NET.
biff: /bif/ vt. To notify someone of incoming mail. From the
BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after the
implementor's dog (it barked whenever the mailman came). No
relation to {BIFF}.
Big Gray Wall: n. What faces a {VMS} user searching for
documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation
taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of layered
products such as compilers, databases, multivendor networking,
and programming tools. Recent (since VMS version 5) DEC
documentation comes with gray binders; under VMS version 4 the
binders were orange (`big orange wall'), and under version 3
they were blue. See {VMS}.
big iron: n. Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used generally
of {number-crunching} supercomputers such as Crays, but can include
more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes. Term of
approval; compare {heavy metal}, oppose {dinosaur}.
Big Red Switch: [IBM] n. The power switch on a computer, esp. the
`Emergency Pull' switch on an IBM {mainframe} or the power switch
on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This !@%$%
{bitty box} is hung again; time to hit the Big Red Switch."
Sources at IBM report that, in tune with the company's passion for
{TLA}s, this is often acronymized as `BRS' (this has also
become established on FidoNet and in the PC {clone} world). It
is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually
fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed; the BRSes on
more recent machines physically drop a block into place so that
they can't be pushed back in. People get fired for pulling them,
especially inappropriately (see also {molly-guard}). Compare
{power cycle}, {three-finger salute}, {120 reset}.
Big Room, the: n. The extremely large room with the blue ceiling
and intensely bright light (during the day) or black ceiling with
lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found outside all
computer installations. "He can't come to the phone right now,
he's somewhere out in the Big Room."
big win: n. Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists discovered
high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had
been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule.
Small mistake; big win!" See {win big}.
big-endian: [From Swift's `Gulliver's Travels' via the famous
paper `On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace' by Danny Cohen,
USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] adj. 1. Describes a computer
architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric
representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address
(the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most processors, including
the IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola microprocessor
families, and most of the various RISC designs current in mid-1991,
are big-endian. See {little-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI
problem}. 2. An {{Internet address}} the wrong way round. Most
of the world follows the Internet standard and writes email
addresses starting with the name of the computer and ending up with
the name of the country. In the U.K. the Joint Networking Team had
decided to do it the other way round before the Internet domain
standard was established; e.g., me@uk.ac.wigan.cs. Most gateway
sites have {ad-hockery} in their mailers to handle this, but can
still be confused. In particular, the address above could be in the
U.K. (domain uk) or Czechoslovakia (domain cs).
bignum: /big'nuhm/ [orig. from MIT MacLISP] n. 1. [techspeak] A
multiple-precision computer representation for very large integers.
More generally, any very large number. "Have you ever looked at
the United States Budget? There's bignums for you!"
2. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on the dice are called
`bignums', especially a roll of double fives or double sixes
(compare {moby}, sense 4). See also {El Camino Bignum}.
Sense 1 may require some explanation. Most computer languages
provide a kind of data called `integer', but such computer
integers are usually very limited in size; usually they must be
smaller than than 2^{31} (2,147,483,648) or (on a losing
{bitty box}) 2^{15} (32,768). If you want to work with
numbers larger than that, you have to use floating-point numbers,
which are usually accurate to only six or seven decimal places.
Computer languages that provide bignums can perform exact
calculations on very large numbers, such as 1000! (the factorial
of 1000, which is 1000 times 999 times 998 times ... times 2
times 1). For example, this value for 1000! was computed by the
MacLISP system using bignums:
40238726007709377354370243392300398571937486421071
46325437999104299385123986290205920442084869694048
00479988610197196058631666872994808558901323829669
94459099742450408707375991882362772718873251977950
59509952761208749754624970436014182780946464962910
56393887437886487337119181045825783647849977012476
63288983595573543251318532395846307555740911426241
74743493475534286465766116677973966688202912073791
43853719588249808126867838374559731746136085379534
52422158659320192809087829730843139284440328123155
86110369768013573042161687476096758713483120254785
89320767169132448426236131412508780208000261683151
02734182797770478463586817016436502415369139828126
48102130927612448963599287051149649754199093422215
66832572080821333186116811553615836546984046708975
60290095053761647584772842188967964624494516076535
34081989013854424879849599533191017233555566021394
50399736280750137837615307127761926849034352625200
01588853514733161170210396817592151090778801939317
81141945452572238655414610628921879602238389714760
88506276862967146674697562911234082439208160153780
88989396451826324367161676217916890977991190375403
12746222899880051954444142820121873617459926429565
81746628302955570299024324153181617210465832036786
90611726015878352075151628422554026517048330422614
39742869330616908979684825901254583271682264580665
26769958652682272807075781391858178889652208164348
34482599326604336766017699961283186078838615027946
59551311565520360939881806121385586003014356945272
24206344631797460594682573103790084024432438465657
24501440282188525247093519062092902313649327349756
55139587205596542287497740114133469627154228458623
77387538230483865688976461927383814900140767310446
64025989949022222176590433990188601856652648506179
97023561938970178600408118897299183110211712298459
01641921068884387121855646124960798722908519296819
37238864261483965738229112312502418664935314397013
74285319266498753372189406942814341185201580141233
44828015051399694290153483077644569099073152433278
28826986460278986432113908350621709500259738986355
42771967428222487575867657523442202075736305694988
25087968928162753848863396909959826280956121450994
87170124451646126037902930912088908694202851064018
21543994571568059418727489980942547421735824010636
77404595741785160829230135358081840096996372524230
56085590370062427124341690900415369010593398383577
79394109700277534720000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000.
bigot: n. A person who is religiously attached to a particular
computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see
{religious issues}). Usually found with a specifier; thus,
`cray bigot', {ITS bigot}, `APL bigot', `VMS bigot',
{Berkeley bigot}. True bigots can be distinguished from mere
partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn
alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is
threatening to obsolete the favored tool. It is said "You can
tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." Compare
{weenie}.
bit: [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT'] n.
1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information
obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes
are equally probable. 2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that
can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done
eventually. "I have a bit set for you." (I haven't seen you for
a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.) 4. More
generally, a (possibly incorrect) mental state of belief. "I have
a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS."
(Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what
I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this
isn't true.")
"I just need one bit from you" is a polite way of indicating that
you intend only a short interruption for a question that can
presumably be answered yes or no.
A bit is said to be `set' if its value is true or 1, and
`reset' or `clear' if its value is false or 0. One
speaks of setting and clearing bits. To {toggle} or
`invert' a bit is to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from
1 to 0. See also {flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.
bit bang: n. Transmission of data on a serial line, when
accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the
appropriate times. The technique is a simple
loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte.
Input is more interesting. And full duplex (doing input and output
at the same time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the
{wannabee}s.
Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers,
presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros
with a Zilog PIO but no SIO. In an interesting instance of the
{cycle of reincarnation}, this technique is now (1991) coming
back into use on some RISC architectures because it consumes such
an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense
not to have a UART.
bit bashing: n. (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit twiddling}) Term
used to describe any of several kinds of low-level programming
characterized by manipulation of {bit}, {flag}, {nybble},
and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data; these
include low-level device control, encryption algorithms, checksum
and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors of
graphics programming (see {bitblt}), and assembler/compiler code
generation. May connote either tedium or a real technical
challenge (more usually the former). "The command decoding for
the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the
control registers still has bugs." See also {bit bang},
{mode bit}.
bit bucket: n. 1. The universal data sink (originally, the
mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end
of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or
destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'. On {{UNIX}},
often used for {/dev/null}. Sometimes amplified as `the Great
Bit Bucket in the Sky'. 2. The place where all lost mail and news
messages eventually go. The selection is performed according to
{Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely to end up in
the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost 100% probability
of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically
performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower
layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all unwanted mail
responses: "Flames about this article to the bit bucket."
Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames.
4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you
those figures last week; they must have ended in the bit bucket."
Compare {black hole}.
This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the fanciful
notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only
misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term
`bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time
hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU
stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the
bit box'. See also {chad box}.
Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the
`parity preservation law', the number of 1 bits that go to the bit
bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in
bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician
can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.
bit decay: n. See {bit rot}. People with a physics background
tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle decay. See
also {computron}, {quantum bogodynamics}.
bit rot: n. Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the existence
of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs
or features will often stop working after sufficient time has
passed, even if `nothing has changed'. The theory explains that
bits decay as if they were radioactive. As time passes, the
contents of a file or the code in a program will become
increasingly garbled.
There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
(alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip
packages, for example, can change the contents of a computer memory
unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle media failures can
corrupt files in mass storage), but they are quite rare (and
computers are built with error-detecting circuitry to compensate
for them). The notion long favored among hackers that cosmic
rays are among the causes of such events turns out to be a myth;
see the {cosmic rays} entry for details.
The term {software rot} is almost synonymous. Software rot is
the effect, bit rot the notional cause.
bit twiddling: n. 1. (pejorative) An exercise in {tuning} in
which incredible amounts of time and effort go to produce little
noticeable improvement, often with the result that the code has
become incomprehensible. 2. Aimless small modification to a
program, esp. for some pointless goal. 3. Approx. syn. for {bit
bashing}; esp. used for the act of frobbing the device control
register of a peripheral in an attempt to get it back to a known
state.
bit-paired keyboard: n. obs. (alt. `bit-shift keyboard') A
non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with
the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early
computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see
{EOU}), so the only way to generate the character codes from
keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33
assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified
by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In order
to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than it
already was, the design had to group characters that shared the
same basic bit pattern on one key.
Looking at the ASCII chart, we find:
high low bits
bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001
010 ! " # $ % & ' ( )
011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a
Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was
*not* the weirdest variant of the {QWERTY} layout widely
seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several
(differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card
punches.
When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there
was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be
laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard,
while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make
their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives
became known as `bit-paired' and `typewriter-paired' keyboards. To
a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical --- and
because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type,
there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt
keyboards to the typewriter standard.
The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale
introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office
environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use
the equipment. The `typewriter-paired' standard became universal,
`bit-paired' hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty
corners, and both terms passed into disuse.
bitblt: /bit'blit/ n. [from {BLT}, q.v.] 1. Any of a family
of closely related algorithms for moving and copying rectangles of
bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped device, or
between two areas of either main or display memory (the requirement
to do the {Right Thing} in the case of overlapping source and
destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky). 2. Synonym
for {blit} or {BLT}. Both uses are borderline techspeak.
BITNET: /bit'net/ [acronym: Because It's Time NETwork] n.
Everybody's least favorite piece of the network (see {network,
the}). The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs and
VAXen (the latter with lobotomized comm hardware) that communicate
using 80-character {{EBCDIC}} card images (see {eighty-column
mind}); thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of
third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/RFC-822 world with
annoying regularity. BITNET is also notorious as the apparent home
of {BIFF}.
bits: n.pl. 1. Information. Examples: "I need some bits about file
formats." ("I need to know about file formats.") Compare {core
dump}, sense 4. 2. Machine-readable representation of a document,
specifically as contrasted with paper: "I have only a photocopy
of the Jargon File; does anyone know where I can get the bits?".
See {softcopy}, {source of all good bits} See also {bit}.
bitty box: /bit'ee boks/ n. 1. A computer sufficiently small,
primitive, or incapable as to cause a hacker acute claustrophobia
at the thought of developing software for it. Especially used of
small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal machines such as
the Atari 800, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80, or IBM PC.
2. [Pejorative] More generally, the opposite of `real computer'
(see {Get a real computer!}). See also {mess-dos},
{toaster}, and {toy}.
bixie: /bik'see/ n. Variant {emoticon}s used on BIX (the Byte
Information eXchange). The {smiley} bixie is <@_@>, apparently
intending to represent two cartoon eyes and a mouth. A few others
have been reported.
black art: n. A collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by
implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular
application or systems area (compare {black magic}). VLSI design
and compiler code optimization were (in their beginnings)
considered classic examples of black art; as theory developed they
became {deep magic}, and once standard textbooks had been written,
became merely {heavy wizardry}. The huge proliferation of formal
and informal channels for spreading around new computer-related
technologies during the last twenty years has made both the term
`black art' and what it describes less common than formerly. See
also {voodoo programming}.
black hole: n. When a piece of email or netnews disappears
mysteriously between its origin and destination sites (that is,
without returning a {bounce message}) it is commonly said to have
`fallen into a black hole'. "I think there's a black hole at
foovax!" conveys suspicion that site foovax has been dropping
a lot of stuff on the floor lately (see {drop on the floor}).
The implied metaphor of email as interstellar travel is interesting
in itself. Compare {bit bucket}.
black magic: n. A technique that works, though nobody really
understands why. More obscure than {voodoo programming}, which
may be done by cookbook. Compare also {black art}, {deep
magic}, and {magic number} (sense 2).
blast: 1. vt.,n. Synonym for {BLT}, used esp. for large data
sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of {snarf}. Usage:
uncommon. The variant `blat' has been reported. 2. vt.
[HP/Apollo] Synonymous with {nuke} (sense 3). Sometimes the
message `Unable to kill all processes. Blast them (y/n)?' would
appear in the command window upon logout.
blat: n. 1. Syn. {blast}, sense 1. 2. See {thud}.
bletch: /blech/ [from Yiddish/German `brechen', to vomit, poss.
via comic-strip exclamation `blech'] interj. Term of disgust.
Often used in "Ugh, bletch". Compare {barf}.
bletcherous: /blech'*-r*s/ adj. Disgusting in design or function;
esthetically unappealing. This word is seldom used of people.
"This keyboard is bletcherous!" (Perhaps the keys don't work very
well, or are misplaced.) See {losing}, {cretinous},
{bagbiter}, {bogus}, and {random}. The term {bletcherous}
applies to the esthetics of the thing so described; similarly for
{cretinous}. By contrast, something that is `losing' or
`bagbiting' may be failing to meet objective criteria. See also
{bogus} and {random}, which have richer and wider shades of
meaning than any of the above.
blinkenlights: /blink'*n-li:tz/ n. Front-panel diagnostic lights
on a computer, esp. a {dinosaur}. Derives from the last word of
the famous
blackletter-Gothic
sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the
computer rooms in the English-speaking world. One version ran in
its entirety as follows:
ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.
This silliness dates back at least as far as 1959 at Stanford
University and had already gone international by the early 1960s,
when it was reported at London University's ATLAS computing site.
There are several variants of it in circulation, some of which
actually do end with the word `blinkenlights'.
In an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers
have developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in
fractured English, one of which is reproduced here:
ATTENTION
This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away
and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished
the blinkenlights.
See also {geef}.
blit: /blit/ vt. 1. To copy a large array of bits from one part
of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the
memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display
screen. "The storage allocator picks through the table and copies
the good parts up into high memory, and then blits it all back
down again." See {bitblt}, {BLT}, {dd}, {cat},
{blast}, {snarf}. More generally, to perform some operation
(such as toggling) on a large array of bits while moving them.
2. All-capitalized as `BLIT': an early experimental bit-mapped
terminal designed by Rob Pike at Bell Labs, later commercialized as
the AT&T 5620. (The folk etymology from `Bell Labs Intelligent
Terminal' is incorrect.)
blitter: /blit'r/ n. A special-purpose chip or hardware system
built to perform {blit} operations, esp. used for fast
implementation of bit-mapped graphics. The Commodore Amiga and a
few other micros have these, but in 1991 the trend is away from
them (however, see {cycle of reincarnation}). Syn. {raster
blaster}.
blivet: /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term
meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] n. 1. An
intractable problem. 2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be
fixed or replaced if it breaks. 3. A tool that has been hacked
over by so many incompetent programmers that it has become an
unmaintainable tissue of hacks. 4. An out-of-control but
unkillable development effort. 5. An embarrassing bug that pops up
during a customer demo.
This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it
seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to
hackish use of {frob}). It has also been used to describe an
amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that
appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that
the parts fit together in an impossible way.
block: [from process scheduling terminology in OS theory] 1. vi.
To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. "We're blocking
until everyone gets here." Compare {busy-wait}. 2. `block
on' vt. To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is blocked on
Phil's arrival."
block transfer computations: n. From the television series
"Dr. Who", in which it referred to computations so fiendishly
subtle and complex that they could not be performed by machines.
Used to refer to any task that should be expressible as an
algorithm in theory, but isn't.
blow an EPROM: /bloh *n ee'prom/ v. (alt. `blast an EPROM',
`burn an EPROM') To program a read-only memory, e.g. for use
with an embedded system. This term arises because the programming
process for the Programmable Read-Only Memories (PROMs) that
preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memories
(EPROMs) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on
the chip. Thus, one was said to `blow' (or `blast') a PROM, and
the terminology carried over even though the write process on
EPROMs is nondestructive.
blow away: vt. To remove (files and directories) from permanent
storage, generally by accident. "He reformatted the wrong
partition and blew away last night's netnews." Oppose {nuke}.
blow out: vi. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious
as {crash and burn}. See {blow past}, {blow up}.
blow past: vt. To {blow out} despite a safeguard. "The server blew
past the 5K reserve buffer."
blow up: vi. 1. [scientific computation] To become unstable. Suggests
that the computation is diverging so rapidly that it will soon
overflow or at least go {nonlinear}. 2. Syn. {blow out}.
BLT: /B-L-T/, /bl*t/ or (rarely) /belt/ n.,vt. Synonym for
{blit}. This is the original form of {blit} and the ancestor
of {bitblt}. It referred to any large bit-field copy or move
operation (one resource-intensive memory-shuffling operation done
on pre-paged versions of ITS, WAITS, and TOPS-10 was sardonically
referred to as `The Big BLT'). The jargon usage has outlasted the
{PDP-10} BLock Transfer instruction from which {BLT} derives;
nowadays, the assembler mnemonic {BLT} almost always means
`Branch if Less Than zero'.
Blue Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on the page-layout and graphics-control language
PostScript (`PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook', Adobe
Systems, Addison-Wesley 1985, QA76.73.P67P68, ISBN 0-201-10179-3);
the other two official guides are known as the {Green Book} and
{Red Book}. 2. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on Smalltalk: `Smalltalk-80: The Language and its
Implementation', David Robson, Addison-Wesley 1983, QA76.8.S635G64,
ISBN 0-201-11371-63 (this is also associated with green and red
books). 3. Any of the 1988 standards issued by the CCITT's
ninth plenary assembly. Until now, they have changed color each review
cycle (1984 was {Red Book}, 1992 would be {Green Book}); however,
it is rumored that this convention is going to be dropped before 1992.
These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and
the Group 1 through 4 fax standards. See also {{book titles}}.
Blue Glue: [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture), an
incredibly {losing} and {bletcherous} communications protocol
widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better. The
official IBM definition is "that which binds blue boxes
together." See {fear and loathing}. It may not be irrelevant
that {Blue Glue} is the trade name of a 3M product that is
commonly used to hold down the carpet squares to the removable
panel floors common in {dinosaur pens}. A correspondent at
U. Minn. reports that the CS department there has about 80 bottles
of the stuff hanging about, so they often refer to any messy work
to be done as `using the blue glue'.
blue goo: n. Term for `police' {nanobot}s intended to prevent
{gray goo}, denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put
ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and promote
truth, justice, and the American way, etc. See
{{nanotechnology}}.
BNF: /B-N-F/ n. 1. [techspeak] Acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', a
metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programming
languages, command sets, and the like. Widely used for language
descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, so that it must
usually be learned by osmosis from other hackers. Consider this
BNF for a U.S. postal address:
<postal-address> ::= <name-part> <street-address> <zip-part>
<personal-part> ::= <name> | <initial> "."
<name-part> ::= <personal-part> <last-name> [<jr-part>] <EOL>
| <personal-part> <name-part>
<street-address> ::= [<apt>] <house-num> <street-name> <EOL>
<zip-part> ::= <town-name> "," <state-code> <ZIP-code> <EOL>
This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a
name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a
zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or
an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a
personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional
`jr-part' (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a
personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the
use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use
multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address
consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street
number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a
town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed
by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things
(such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or
ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These are presumed to be obvious
from context or detailed somewhere nearby. See also {parse}.
2. The term is also used loosely for any number of variants and
extensions, possibly containing some or all of the {regexp}
wildcards such as `*' or `+'. In fact the example above
isn't the pure form invented for the Algol-60 report; it uses
`[]', which was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I
definition but is now universally recognized. 3. In
{{science-fiction fandom}}, BNF means `Big-Name Fan'
(someone famous or notorious). Years ago a fan started handing out
black-on-green BNF buttons at SF conventions; this confused the
hacker contingent terribly.
boa: [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor
in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a
ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and
flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored
within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet
because beyond that length the boas get dangerous --- and it is
worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the trademark
`Anaconda'.
board: n. 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes used
even for USENET newsgroups. 2. An electronic circuit board
(compare {card}).
boat anchor: n. 1. Like {doorstop} but more severe; implies that
the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless. "That was
a working motherboard once. One lightning strike later, instant
boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up space.
bogo-sort: /boh`goh-sort'/ n. (var. `stupid-sort') The
archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as opposed to {bubble
sort}, which is merely the generic *bad* algorithm).
Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in
the air, picking them up at random, and then testing whether they
are in order. It serves as a sort of canonical example of
awfulness. Looking at a program and seeing a dumb algorithm, one
might say "Oh, I see, this program uses bogo-sort." Compare
{bogus}, {brute force}.
bogometer: /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n. See {bogosity}. Compare the
`wankometer' described in the {wank} entry; see also
{bogus}.
bogon: /boh'gon/ [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but
doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas
Adams's `Vogons'; see the Bibliography] n. 1. The elementary particle of
bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}). For instance, "the
Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is broken or
acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet sent from
a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set
instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed
packet sent on a network. 4. By synecdoche, used to refer to any
bogus thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got
to go to the weekly staff bogon". 5. A person who is bogus or who
says bogus things. This was historically the original usage, but
has been overtaken by its derivative senses 1--4. See
also {bogosity}, {bogus}; compare {psyton}.
bogon filter: /boh'gon fil'tr/ n. Any device, software or hardware,
that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons.
"Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and
the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets." See
also {bogosity}, {bogus}.
bogon flux: /boh'gon fluhks/ n. A measure of a supposed field of
{bogosity} emitted by a speaker, measured by a {bogometer};
as a speaker starts to wander into increasing bogosity a listener
might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is rising". See
{quantum bogodynamics}.
bogosity: /boh-go's*-tee/ n. 1. The degree to which something is
{bogus}. At CMU, bogosity is measured with a {bogometer}; in
a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might
raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More
extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just said
or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale,
pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one
might also say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The
agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat /mi:k`roh-len'*t/
(uL).
The consensus is that this is the largest unit practical
for everyday use. 2. The potential field generated by a {bogon
flux}; see {quantum bogodynamics}. See also {bogon flux},
{bogon filter}, {bogus}.
Historical note: The microLenat was invented as a attack against
noted computer scientist Doug Lenat by a {tenured graduate
student}. Doug had failed the student on an important exam for
giving only "AI is bogus" as his answer to the questions. The
slur is generally considered unmerited, but it has become a running
gag nevertheless. Some of Doug's friends argue that *of
course* a microLenat is bogus, since it is only one millionth of a
Lenat. Others have suggested that the unit should be redesignated
after the grad student, as the microReid.
bogotify: /boh-go't*-fi:/ vt. To make or become bogus. A
program that has been changed so many times as to become completely
disorganized has become bogotified. If you tighten a nut too hard
and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has become bogotified
and you had better not use it any more. This coinage led to the
notional `autobogotiphobia' defined as `the fear of becoming
bogotified'; but is not clear that the latter has ever been
`live' jargon rather than a self-conscious joke in jargon about
jargon. See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.
bogue out: /bohg owt/ vi. To become bogus, suddenly and
unexpectedly. "His talk was relatively sane until somebody asked
him a trick question; then he bogued out and did nothing but
{flame} afterwards." See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.
bogus: adj. 1. Non-functional. "Your patches are bogus."
2. Useless. "OPCON is a bogus program." 3. False. "Your
arguments are bogus." 4. Incorrect. "That algorithm is bogus."
5. Unbelievable. "You claim to have solved the halting problem
for Turing Machines? That's totally bogus." 6. Silly. "Stop
writing those bogus sagas."
Astrology is bogus. So is a bolt that is obviously about to break.
So is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have solved a
scientific problem. (This word seems to have some, but not all, of
the connotations of {random} --- mostly the negative ones.)
It is claimed that `bogus' was originally used in the hackish sense
at Princeton in the late 1960s. It was spread to CMU and Yale by
Michael Shamos, a migratory Princeton alumnus. A glossary of bogus
words was compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized (see
{autobogotiphobia} under {bogotify}). The word spread into
hackerdom from CMU and MIT. By the early 1980s it was also
current in something like the hackish sense in West Coast teen
slang, and it had gone mainstream by 1985. A correspondent from
Cambridge reports, by contrast, that these uses of `bogus' grate on
British nerves; in Britain the word means, rather specifically,
`counterfeit', as in "a bogus 10-pound note".
Bohr bug: /bohr buhg/ [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable
{bug}; one that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but
well-defined set of conditions. Antonym of {heisenbug}; see also
{mandelbug}.
boink: /boynk/ [USENET: ascribed there to the TV series
"Cheers" and "Moonlighting"] 1. To have sex with;
compare {bounce}, sense 3. (This is mainstream slang.) In
Commonwealth hackish the variant `bonk' is more common. 2. After
the original Peter Korn `Boinkon' {USENET} parties, used for
almost any net social gathering, e.g., Miniboink, a small boink
held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota
in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Compare {@-party}. 3. Var of `bonk';
see {bonk/oif}.
bomb: 1. v. General synonym for {crash} (sense 1) except that it
is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures.
"Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb."
2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a UNIX `panic' or
Amiga {guru} (sense 2), where icons of little black-powder bombs
or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died.
On the Mac, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally
hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to the
Amiga GURU MEDITATION number (see {guru}). {{MS-DOS}} machines
tend to get {locked up} in this situation.
bondage-and-discipline language: A language (such as Pascal, Ada,
APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed
so as to enforce an author's theory of `right programming' even
though said theory is demonstrably inadequate for systems hacking
or even vanilla general-purpose programming. Often abbreviated
`B&D'; thus, one may speak of things "having the B&D nature".
See {{Pascal}}; oppose {languages of choice}.
bonk/oif: /bonk/, /oyf/ interj. In the {MUD} community, it has
become traditional to express pique or censure by `bonking' the
offending person. There is a convention that one should
acknowledge a bonk by saying `oif!' and a myth to the effect that
failing to do so upsets the cosmic bonk/oif balance, causing much
trouble in the universe. Some MUDs have implemented special
commands for bonking and oifing. See also {talk mode},
{posing}.
book titles:: There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally
tagging important textbooks and standards documents with the
dominant color of their covers or with some other conspicuous
feature of the cover. Many of these are described in this lexicon
under their own entries. See {Aluminum Book}, {Blue Book},
{Cinderella Book}, {Devil Book}, {Dragon Book}, {Green
Book}, {Orange Book}, {Pink-Shirt Book}, {Purple Book},
{Red Book}, {Silver Book}, {White Book}, {Wizard Book},
{Yellow Book}, and {bible}.
boot: [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] v.,n. To load and
initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no
longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to
some derivatives that are still jargon.
The derivative `reboot' implies that the machine hasn't been
down for long, or that the boot is a {bounce} intended to clear
some state of {wedgitude}. This is sometimes used of human
thought processes, as in the following exchange: "You've lost
me." "OK, reboot. Here's the theory...."
This term is also found in the variants `cold boot' (from
power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all
devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software
crash).
Another variant: `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a
system, under control of other software still running: "If
you're running the {mess-dos} emulator, control-alt-insert will
cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the
system running."
Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility
towards or frustration with the machine being booted: "I'll have
to hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard."
Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short
program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in
from the front panel switches. This program was always very short
(great efforts were expended on making it short in order to
minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in),
but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex
program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it
handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the
application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk
drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up
by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays the
bootstrap is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first
stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot
block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to
load the actual OS and hand control over to it.
bottom-up implementation: n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term
`top-down design'. It is now received wisdom in most
programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels
of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in
increasing detail until you get to actual code. Hackers often find
(especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely
specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in
the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive
operations and then knitting them together.
bounce: v. 1. [perhaps from the image of a thrown ball bouncing
off a wall] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and
returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'.
See also {bounce message}. 2. [Stanford] To play volleyball.
At the now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the
Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s, there was a volleyball court on the
front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled
maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 the
computer would become unavailable, and over the intercom a voice
would cry, "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!" followed by Brian
McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the
offices of known volleyballers. 3. To engage in sexual
intercourse; prob. from the expression `bouncing the mattress',
but influenced by Piglet's psychosexually loaded "Bounce on me
too, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare
{boink}. 4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a
transient problem. Reported primarily among {VMS} users.
5. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset it.
bounce message: [UNIX] n. Notification message returned to sender by
a site unable to relay {email} to the intended {{Internet address}}
recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see {bounce}).
Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled username or a
{down} relay site. Bounce messages can themselves fail, with
occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's apprentice mode}.
The term `bounce mail' is also common.
box: n. 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box'
where foo is some functional qualifier, like `graphics', or
the name of an OS (thus, `UNIX box', `MS-DOS box', etc.) "We
preprocess the data on UNIX boxes before handing it up to the
mainframe." 2. [within IBM] Without qualification but within an
SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM front-end
processor or FEP /F-E-P/. An FEP is a small computer necessary
to enable an IBM {mainframe} to communicate beyond the limits of
the {dinosaur pen}. Typically used in expressions like the cry
that goes up when an SNA network goes down: "Looks like the
{box} has fallen over." (See {fall over}.) See also
{IBM}, {fear and loathing}, {fepped out}, {Blue
Glue}.
boxed comments: n. Comments (explanatory notes attached to program
instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so called
because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box
in a style something like this:
/*************************************************
*
* This is a boxed comment in C style
*
*************************************************/
Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add
a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The
sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves;
the `box' is implied. Oppose {winged comments}.
boxen: /bok'sn/ [by analogy with {VAXen}] pl.n. Fanciful
plural of {box} often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen',
used to describe commodity {{UNIX}} hardware. The connotation is
that any two UNIX boxen are interchangeable.
boxology: /bok-sol'*-jee/ n. Syn. {ASCII art}. This term
implies a more restricted domain, that of box-and-arrow drawings.
"His report has a lot of boxology in it." Compare
{macrology}.
bozotic: /boh-zoh'tik/ or /boh-zo'tik/ [from the name of a TV
clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] adj. Resembling or
having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously wrong,
unintentionally humorous. Compare {wonky}, {demented}. Note
that the noun `bozo' occurs in slang, but the mainstream
adjectival form would be `bozo-like' or (in New England)
`bozoish'.
BQS: /B-Q-S/ adj. Syn. {Berkeley Quality Software}.
brain dump: n. The act of telling someone everything one knows
about a particular topic or project. Typically used when someone
is going to let a new party maintain a piece of code. Conceptually
analogous to an operating system {core dump} in that it saves a
lot of useful {state} before an exit. "You'll have to
give me a brain dump on FOOBAR before you start your new job at
HackerCorp." See {core dump} (sense 4). At Sun, this is also
known as `TOI' (transfer of information).
brain-damaged: 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain Damage'
(HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter
cretinisms in Honeywell {{Multics}}] adj. Obviously wrong;
{cretinous}; {demented}. There is an implication that the
person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he
should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is
really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to
work is due to poor design rather than some accident. "Only six
monocase characters per file name? Now *that's*
brain-damaged!" 2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free
demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some
way so as not to compete with the commercial product it is
intended to sell. Syn. {crippleware}.
brain-dead: adj. Brain-damaged in the extreme. It tends to imply
terminal design failure rather than malfunction or simple
stupidity. "This comm program doesn't know how to send a break
--- how brain-dead!"
braino: /bray'no/ n. Syn. for {thinko}.
branch to Fishkill: [IBM: from the location of one of the
corporation's facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that
produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See {jump
off into never-never land}, {hyperspace}.
brand brand brand: n. Humorous catch-phrase from {BartleMUD}s, in
which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most
common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in
{talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying brand ruby
brand brand brand kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a
torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons.
Prob. influenced by the famous Monty Python "Spam" skit.
break: 1. vt. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your latest
patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands." 2. v. (of a
program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged. The place
where it stops is a `breakpoint'. 3. [techspeak] vi. To send an
RS-232 break (125 msec of line high) over a serial comm line.
4. [UNIX] vi. To strike whatever key currently causes the tty
driver to send SIGINT to the current process. Normally, break
(sense 3) or delete does this. 5. `break break' may be said to
interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verb doubling).
breath-of-life packet: [XEROX PARC] n. An Ethernet packet that
contained bootstrap (see {boot}) code, periodically sent out
from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any
computer on the network that had happened to crash. The machines
had hardware or firmware that would wait for such a packet after a
catastrophic error.
breedle: n. See {feep}.
bring X to its knees: v. To present a machine, operating system,
piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or
{pathological} that it grinds to a halt. "To bring a MicroVAX
to its knees, try twenty users running {vi} --- or four running
{EMACS}." Compare {hog}.
brittle: adj. Said of software that is functional but easily broken
by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any
minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that
responds inappropriately and disastrously to expected external
stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a
power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to
describe the results of a research effort that were never intended
to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed
software, which displays the quality far more often than it ought
to. Oppose {robust}.
broadcast storm: n. An incorrect packet broadcast on a network that
causes most hosts to respond all at once, typically with wrong
answers that start the process over again. See {network
meltdown}.
broken: adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs). 2. Behaving
strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting extreme
depression.
broken arrow: [IBM] n. The error code displayed on line 25 of a
3270 terminal (or a PC emulating a 3270) for various kinds of
protocol violations and "unexpected" error conditions (including
connection to a {down} computer). On a PC, simulated with
`->/_', with the two center characters overstruck. In true
{luser} fashion, the original documentation of these codes
(visible on every 3270 terminal, and necessary for debugging
network problems) was confined to an IBM customer engineering
manual.
Note: to appreciate this term fully, it helps to know that `broken
arrow' is also military jargon for an accident involving nuclear
weapons....
broket: /broh'k*t/ or /broh'ket`/ [by analogy with `bracket': a
`broken bracket'] n. Either of the characters `<' and `>',
when used as paired enclosing delimiters. This word
originated as a contraction of the phrase `broken bracket', that
is, a bracket that is bent in the middle. (At MIT, and apparently
in the {Real World} as well, these are usually called {angle
brackets}.)
Brooks's Law: prov. "Adding manpower to a late software project
makes it later" --- a result of the fact that the advantage from
splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is,
proportional to N), but the complexity and communications
cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work
is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N).
The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project
and author of `The Mythical Man-Month' (Addison-Wesley, 1975,
ISBN 0-201-00650-2), an excellent early book on software
engineering. The myth in question has been most tersely expressed
as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established
conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his
advice; too often, {management} does. See also
{creationism}, {second-system effect}.
BRS: /B-R-S/ n. Syn. {Big Red Switch}. This abbreviation is
fairly common on-line.
brute force: adj. Describes a primitive programming style, one in
which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power
instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the problem,
often ignoring problems of scale and applying na"ive methods suited
to small problems directly to large ones.
The {canonical} example of a brute-force algorithm is associated
with the `traveling salesman problem' (TSP), a classical NP-hard
problem: Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive
to N other cities. In what order should he or she visit
them in order to minimize the distance travelled? The brute-force
method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the
distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this
algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even
obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San
Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it
works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when
N increases (for N = 15, there are already
1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for
N = 1000 --- well, see {bignum}). See
also {NP-}.
A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding
the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing
program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the
first number off the front.
Whether brute-force programming should be considered stupid or not
depends on the context; if the problem isn't too big, the extra CPU
time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the
programmer time it would take to develop a more `intelligent'
algorithm. Alternatively, a more intelligent algorithm may imply
more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified
by the speed improvement.
Ken Thompson, co-inventor of UNIX, is reported to have uttered the
epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He probably intended
this as a {ha ha only serious}, but the original UNIX kernel's
preference for simple, robust, and portable algorithms over
{brittle} `smart' ones does seem to have been a significant
factor in the success of that OS. Like so many other tradeoffs in
software design, the choice between brute force and complex,
finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both
engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment.
brute force and ignorance: n. A popular design technique at many
software houses --- {brute force} coding unrelieved by any
knowledge of how problems have been previously solved in elegant
ways. Dogmatic adherence to design methodologies tends to
encourage it. Characteristic of early {larval stage}
programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it. Often
abbreviated BFI: "Gak, they used a bubble sort! That's strictly
from BFI." Compare {bogosity}.
BSD: /B-S-D/ n. [acronym for `Berkeley System Distribution'] a
family of {{UNIX}} versions for the DEC {VAX} and PDP-11
developed by Bill Joy and others at {Berzerkeley} starting around
1980, incorporating paged virtual memory, TCP/IP networking
enhancements, and many other features. The BSD versions (4.1, 4.2,
and 4.3) and the commercial versions derived from them (SunOS, ULTRIX,
and Mt. Xinu) held the technical lead in the UNIX world until
AT&T's successful standardization efforts after about 1986, and are
still widely popular. See {{UNIX}}, {USG UNIX}.
bubble sort: n. Techspeak for a particular sorting technique in
which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are
compared and interchanged if they are out of order; thus, list
entries `bubble upward' in the list until they bump into one with a
lower sort value. Because it is not very good relative to other
methods and is the one typically stumbled on by {na"ive} and
untutored programmers, hackers consider it the {canonical}
example of a na"ive algorithm. The canonical example of a really
*bad* algorithm is {bogo-sort}. A bubble sort might be used
out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only from
brain damage or willful perversity.
bucky bits: /buh'kee bits/ n. 1. obs. The bits produced by the
CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard, resulting in a
9-bit keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards
extended this with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and META
keys, resulting in a 12-bit character set; later, LISP Machines
added such keys as SUPER, HYPER, and GREEK (see {space-cadet
keyboard}). 2. By extension, bits associated with `extra' shift
keys on any keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and
option keys on a Macintosh.
It is rumored that `bucky bits' were named for Buckminster Fuller
during a period when he was consulting at Stanford. Actually,
`Bucky' was Niklaus Wirth's nickname when *he* was at
Stanford; he first suggested the idea of an EDIT key to set the
8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit ASCII character. This was used in a
number of editors written at Stanford or in its environs (TV-EDIT
and NLS being the best-known). The term spread to MIT and CMU
early and is now in general use. See {double bucky},
{quadruple bucky}.
buffer overflow: n. What happens when you try to stuff more data
into a buffer (holding area) than it can handle. This may be due
to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and
consuming processes (see {overrun}), or because the buffer is
simply too small to hold all the data that must accumulate before a
piece of it can be processed. For example, in a text-processing
tool that {crunch}es a line at a time, a short line buffer can
result in {lossage} as input from a long line overflows the
buffer and trashes data beyond it. Good defensive programming
would check for overflow on each character and stop accepting data
when the buffer is full up. The term is used of and by humans in a
metaphorical sense. "What time did I agree to meet you? My buffer
must have overflowed." Or "If I answer that phone my buffer is
going to overflow." See also {spam}, {overrun screw}.
bug: n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program or hardware,
esp. one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym of {feature}.
Examples: "There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out
backwards." "The system crashed because of a hardware bug."
"Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs" (i.e., Fred is a good
guy, but he has a few personality problems).
Historical note: Some have said this term came from telephone
company usage, in which "bugs in a telephone cable" were blamed
for noisy lines, but this appears to be an incorrect folk
etymology. Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better
known for inventing {COBOL}) liked to tell a story in which a
technician solved a persistent {glitch} in the Harvard Mark II
machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the
contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated
{bug} in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though,
as she was careful to admit, she was not there when it happened).
For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the
actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval
Surface Warfare Center. The entire story, with a picture of the
logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the `Annals of
the History of Computing', Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981), pp. 285--286.
The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1945), reads "1545
Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being
found". This wording seems to establish that the term was already in use
at the time in its current specific sense. Indeed, the use of
`bug' to mean an industrial defect was already established in
Thomas Edison's time, and `bug' in the sense of an disruptive event
goes back to Shakespeare! In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's
dictionary one meaning of `bug' is "A frightful object; a walking
spectre"; this is traced to `bugbear', a Welsh term for a variety
of mythological monster which (to complete the circle) has recently
been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through fantasy
role-playing games.
In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
Here is a plausible conversation that never actually happened:
"There is a bug in this ant farm!"
"What do you mean? I don't see any ants in it."
"That's the bug."
[There has been a widespread myth that the original bug was moved
to the Smithsonian, and an earlier version of this entry so
asserted. A correspondent who thought to check discovered that the
bug was not there. While investigating this, your editor
discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully
tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it --- and that the present
curator of the History of American Technology Museum didn't
know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile exhibit.
Thus, the process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug
may have fixed it in an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth
true! --- ESR]
bug-compatible: adj. Said of a design or revision that has been
badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with
{fossil}s or {misfeature}s in other programs or (esp.)
previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path
separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an
option character in 1.0."
bug-for-bug compatible: n. Same as {bug-compatible}, with the
additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring
that each (known) bug was replicated.
buglix: /buhg'liks/ n. Pejorative term referring to DEC's ULTRIX
operating system in its earlier *severely* buggy versions.
Still used to describe ULTRIX, but without venom. Compare
{HP-SUX}.
bulletproof: adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation considered
extremely {robust}; lossage-resistant; capable of correctly
recovering from any imaginable exception condition. This is a rare
and valued quality. Syn. {armor-plated}.
bum: 1. vt. To make highly efficient, either in time or space,
often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more
instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming
the interrupt code." 2. To squeeze out excess; to remove
something in order to improve whatever it was removed from (without
changing function; this distinguishes the process from a
{featurectomy}). 3. n. A small change to an algorithm, program,
or hardware device to make it more efficient. "This hardware bum
makes the jump instruction faster." Usage: now uncommon, largely
superseded by v. {tune} (and n. {tweak}, {hack}), though
none of these exactly capture sense 2. All these uses are rare in
Commonwealth hackish, because in the parent dialects of English
`bum' is a rude synonym for `buttocks'.
bump: vt. Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as
C's ++ operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers, and index
dummies in `for', `while', and `do-while' loops.
burble: [from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"] v. Like {flame},
but connotes that the source is truly clueless and ineffectual
(mere flamers can be competent). A term of deep contempt.
"There's some guy on the phone burbling about how he got a DISK
FULL error and it's all our comm software's fault."
buried treasure: n. A surprising piece of code found in some
program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from {crufty}
to {bletcherous}, and has lain undiscovered only because it was
functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used sarcastically,
because what is found is anything *but* treasure. Buried
treasure almost always needs to be dug up and removed. "I just
found that the scheduler sorts its queue using {bubble sort}!
Buried treasure!"
burn-in period: n. 1. A factory test designed to catch systems
with {marginal} components before they get out the door; the
theory is that burn-in will protect customers by outwaiting the
steepest part of the {bathtub curve} (see {infant
mortality}). 2. A period of indeterminate length in which a person
using a computer is so intensely involved in his project that he
forgets basic needs such as food, drink, sleep, etc. Warning:
Excessive burn-in can lead to burn-out. See {hack mode},
{larval stage}.
burst page: n. Syn. {banner}, sense 1.
busy-wait: vi. Used of human behavior, conveys that the subject is
busy waiting for someone or something, intends to move instantly as
soon as it shows up, and thus cannot do anything else at the
moment. "Can't talk now, I'm busy-waiting till Bill gets off the
phone."
Technically, `busy-wait' means to wait on an event by
{spin}ning through a tight or timed-delay loop that polls for
the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt
handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. This
is a wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where
a busy-waiting program may {hog} the processor.
buzz: vi. 1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress
and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; esp. said of
programs thought to be executing tight loops of code. A program
that is buzzing appears to be {catatonic}, but you never get out
of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of its own
accord. "The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying to sort
all the names into order." See {spin}; see also {grovel}.
2. [ETA Systems] To test a wire or printed circuit trace for
continuity by applying an AC rather than DC signal. Some wire
faults will pass DC tests but fail a buzz test. 3. To process an
array or list in sequence, doing the same thing to each element.
"This loop buzzes through the tz array looking for a terminator
type."
BWQ: /B-W-Q/ [IBM: acronym, `Buzz Word Quotient'] The
percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents. Usually roughly
proportional to {bogosity}. See {TLA}.
by hand: adv. Said of an operation (especially a repetitive,
trivial, and/or tedious one) that ought to be performed
automatically by the computer, but which a hacker instead has to
step tediously through. "My mailer doesn't have a command to
include the text of the message I'm replying to, so I have to do it
by hand." This does not necessarily mean the speaker has to
retype a copy of the message; it might refer to, say, dropping into
a {subshell} from the mailer, making a copy of one's mailbox file,
reading that into an editor, locating the top and bottom of the
message in question, deleting the rest of the file, inserting `>'
characters on each line, writing the file, leaving the editor,
returning to the mailer, reading the file in, and later remembering
to delete the file. Compare {eyeball search}.
byte:: /bi:t/ [techspeak] n. A unit of memory or data equal to
the amount used to represent one character; on modern architectures
this is usually 8 bits, but may be 9 on 36-bit machines. Some
older architectures used `byte' for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and
the PDP-10 supported `bytes' that were actually bitfields of
1 to 36 bits! These usages are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes
have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.
Historical note: The term originated in 1956 during the early
design phase for the IBM Stretch computer; originally it was
described as 1 to 6 bits (typical I/O equipment of the period
used 6-bit chunks of information). The move to an 8-bit byte
happened in late 1956, and this size was later adopted and
promulgated as a standard by the System/360. The term `byte' was
coined by mutating the word `bite' so it would not be accidentally
misspelled as {bit}. See also {nybble}.
bytesexual: /bi:t`sek'shu-*l/ adj. Said of hardware, denotes
willingness to compute or pass data in either {big-endian} or
{little-endian} format (depending, presumably, on a {mode bit}
somewhere). See also {NUXI problem}.
= C =
C: n. 1. The third letter of the English alphabet. 2. ASCII
1000011. 3. The name of a programming language designed by
Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to
reimplement {{UNIX}}. So called because many features derived
from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of
*its* parent, BCPL; before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the
question by designing C++, there was a humorous debate over whether
C's successor should be named `D' or `P'. C became immensely
popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the dominant
language in systems and microcomputer applications programming.
See also {languages of choice}, {indent style}.
C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain
varying according to the speaker, as "a language that combines
all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the
readability and maintainability of assembly language".
calculator: [Cambridge] n. Syn. for {bitty box}.
can: vt. To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used esp. when the
person doing the deed is an operator, as in "canned from the
{{console}}". Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "Can
that print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!" Synonymous with
{gun}. It is said that the ASCII character with mnemonic CAN
(0011000) was used as a kill-job character on some early OSes.
canonical: [historically, `according to religious law'] adj. The
usual or standard state or manner of something. This word has a
somewhat more technical meaning in mathematics. Two formulas such
as 9 + x and x + 9 are said to be equivalent because
they mean the same thing, but the second one is in `canonical
form' because it is written in the usual way, with the highest
power of x first. Usually there are fixed rules you can use
to decide whether something is in canonical form. The jargon
meaning, a relaxation of the technical meaning, acquired its
present loading in computer-science culture largely through its
prominence in Alonzo Church's work in computation theory and
mathematical logic (see {Knights of the Lambda Calculus}).
Compare {vanilla}.
This word has an interesting history. Non-technical academics do
not use the adjective `canonical' in any of the senses defined
above with any regularity; they do however use the nouns `canon' and
`canonicity' (not *canonicalness or *canonicality). The `canon' of
a given author is the complete body of authentic works by that
author (this usage is familiar to Sherlock Holmes fans as well as
to literary scholars). `*The* canon' is the body of works in
a given field (e.g., works of literature, or of art, or of music)
deemed worthwhile for students to study and for scholars to
investigate.
These non-techspeak academic usages derive ultimately from the
historical meaning, specifically the classification of the books of
the Bible into two groups by Christian theologians. The
`canonical' books were the ones widely accepted as Holy
Scripture and held to be of primary authority. The
`deuterocanonical' books (literally `secondarily canonical';
also known as the `Apochrypha') were held to be of lesser
authority --- indeed they have been held in such low esteem that to
this day they are omitted from most Protestant bibles.
Hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an ironic
contrast with its historical meaning. A true story: One Bob
Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use
of jargon. Over his loud objections, GLS and RMS made a point of
using it as much as possible in his presence, and eventually it
began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used the word
`canonical' in jargon-like fashion without thinking. Steele:
"Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman:
"What did he say?" Steele: "Bob just used `canonical' in the
canonical way."
Of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is implicitly
defined as the way *hackers* normally expect things to be.
Thus, a hacker may claim with a straight face that `according to
religious law' is *not* the canonical meaning of `canonical'.
card: n. 1. An electronic printed-circuit board (see also {tall
card}, {short card}. 2. obs. Syn. {{punched card}}.
card walloper: n. An EDP programmer who grinds out batch programs
that do stupid things like print people's paychecks. Compare
{code grinder}. See also {{punched card}}, {eighty-column
mind}.
careware: /keir'weir/ n. {Shareware} for which either the
author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity
or a levy directed to charity is included on top of the
distribution charge. Syn. {charityware}; compare
{crippleware}, sense 2.
cargo cult programming: n. A style of (incompetent) programming
dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that
serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually
explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug
encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason
the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood
(compare {shotgun debugging}, {voodoo programming}).
The term `cargo cult' is a reference to aboriginal religions that
grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of
these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and
military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of
the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the
war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's
characterization of certain practices as "cargo cult science" in
his book `Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman' (W. W. Norton
& Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).
case and paste: [from `cut and paste'] n. 1. The addition of a new
{feature} to an existing system by selecting the code from an
existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes. Common in
telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are
selected using `case' statements. Leads to {software bloat}.
In some circles of EMACS users this is called `programming by
Meta-W', because Meta-W is the EMACS command for copying a block of
text to a kill buffer in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere.
The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting
mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to
integrate the code for two similar cases.
casters-up mode: [IBM] n. Yet another synonym for `broken' or
`down'.
casting the runes: n. What a {guru} does when you ask him or her
to run a particular program and type at it because it never works
for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru
is doing different from what J. Random Luser does. Compare
{incantation}, {runes}, {examining the entrails}; also see
the AI koan about Tom Knight in appendix A.
cat: [from `catenate' via {{UNIX}} `cat(1)'] vt.
1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
output sink without pause. 2. By extension, to dump large amounts
of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it
carefully. Usage: considered silly. Rare outside UNIX sites. See
also {dd}, {BLT}.
Among UNIX fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example
of user-interface design, because it outputs the file contents
without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and
because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text,
but works with any sort of data.
Among UNIX-haters, `cat(1)' is considered the {canonical}
example of *bad* user-interface design. This because it is more
often used to {blast} a file to standard output than to
concatenate two files. The name `cat' for the former
operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's {cdr}.
Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made....
catatonic: adj. Describes a condition of suspended animation in
which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no
response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the
computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you
type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer
is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed).
"There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and it
went catatonic on me! Aaargh!" Compare {buzz}.
cdr: /ku'dr/ or /kuh'dr/ [from LISP] vt. To skip past the
first item from a list of things (generalized from the LISP
operation on binary tree structures, which returns a list
consisting of all but the first element of its argument). In the
form `cdr down', to trace down a list of elements: "Shall we
cdr down the agenda?" Usage: silly. See also {loop through}.
Historical note: The instruction format of the IBM 7090 that hosted
the original LISP implementation featured two 15-bit fields called
the `address' and `decrement' parts. The term `cdr' was originally
`Contents of Decrement part of Register'. Similarly, `car' stood
for `Contents of Address part of Register'.
The cdr and car operations have since become bases for
formation of compound metaphors in non-LISP contexts. GLS recalls,
for example, a programming project in which strings were
represented as linked lists; the get-character and skip-character
operations were of course called CHAR and CHDR.
chad: /chad/ n. 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after
they have been separated from the printed portion. Also called
{selvage} and {perf}. 2. obs. The confetti-like paper bits punched
out of cards or paper tape; this was also called `chaff', `computer
confetti', and `keypunch droppings'.
Historical note: One correspondent believes `chad' (sense 2)
derives from the Chadless keypunch (named for its inventor), which
cut little u-shaped tabs in the card to make a hole when the tab
folded back, rather than punching out a circle/rectangle; it was
clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the
stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'.
chad box: n. {Iron Age} card punches contained boxes inside them,
about the size of a lunchbox (or in some models a large
wastebasket), that held the {chad} (sense 2). You had to open
the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the chad box.
The {bit bucket} was notionally the equivalent device in the CPU
enclosure, which was typically across the room in another great
gray-and-blue box.
chain: [orig. from BASIC's `CHAIN' statement] vi. To hand off
execution to a child or successor without going through the
{OS} command interpreter that invoked it. The state of the
parent program is lost and there is no returning to it. Though
this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and is
still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage
is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most UNIX programmers will
think of this as an {exec}. Oppose the more modern {subshell}.
char: /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ n. Shorthand for
`character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is
C's typename for character data.
charityware: /char'it-ee-weir`/ n. Syn. {careware}.
chase pointers: 1. vi. To go through multiple levels of
indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.
Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very
common data type. This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when
used of human networks. "I'm chasing pointers. Bob said you
could tell me who to talk to about...." See {dangling
pointer} and {snap}. 2. [Cambridge] `pointer chase' or
`pointer hunt': The process of going through a dump
(interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hex
{runes}) following dynamic data-structures. Used only in a
debugging context.
chemist: [Cambridge] n. Someone who wastes computer time on
{number-crunching} when you'd far rather the machine were doing
something more productive, such as working out anagrams of your
name or printing Snoopy calendars or running {life} patterns.
May or may not refer to someone who actually studies chemistry.
Chernobyl chicken: n. See {laser chicken}.
Chernobyl packet: /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ n. A network packet that
induces {network meltdown} (the result of a {broadcast storm}),
in memory of the 1987 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
The typical case of this is an IP Ethernet datagram that passes
through a gateway with both source and destination Ether and IP
address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the
subnetworks being gated between. Compare {Christmas tree
packet}.
chicken head: [Commodore] n. The Commodore Business Machines logo,
which strongly resembles a poultry part. Rendered in ASCII as
`C='. With the arguable exception of the Amiga (see {amoeba}),
Commodore's machines are notoriously crocky little {bitty box}es
(see also {PETSCII}). Thus, this usage may owe something to
Philip K. Dick's novel `Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
(the basis for the movie `Blade Runner'), in which a
`chickenhead' is a mutant with below-average intelligence.
chiclet keyboard: n. A keyboard with small rectangular or
lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of
chewing gum. (Chiclets is the brand name of a variety of chewing
gum that does in fact resemble the keys of chiclet keyboards.)
Used esp. to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors
unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early
portable and laptop products got launched using them. Customers
rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not
often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.
chine nual: /sheen'yu-*l/ [MIT] n.,obs. The Lisp Machine Manual, so
called because the title was wrapped around the cover so only those
letters showed on the front.
Chinese Army technique: n. Syn. {Mongolian Hordes technique}.
choke: v. To reject input, often ungracefully. "Nuls make System
V's `lpr(1)' choke." "I tried building an {EMACS} binary to
use {X}, but `cpp(1)' choked on all those `#define's."
See {barf}, {gag}, {vi}.
chomp: vi. To {lose}; specifically, to chew on something of
which more was bitten off than one can. Probably related to
gnashing of teeth. See {bagbiter}. A hand gesture commonly
accompanies this. To perform it, hold the four fingers
together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and
close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what
Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems
to predate that). The gesture alone means `chomp chomp' (see
Verb Doubling in the "Jargon Construction" section of the
Prependices). The hand may be pointed at the object of complaint,
and for real emphasis you can use both hands at once. Doing this
to a person is equivalent to saying "You chomper!" If you point
the gesture at yourself, it is a humble but humorous admission of
some failure. You might do this if someone told you that a program
you had written had failed in some surprising way and you felt dumb
for not having anticipated it.
chomper: n. Someone or something that is chomping; a loser. See
{loser}, {bagbiter}, {chomp}.
Christmas tree: n. A kind of RS-232 line tester or breakout box
featuring rows of blinking red and green LEDs suggestive of
Christmas lights.
Christmas tree packet: n. A packet with every single option set for
whatever protocol is in use. See {kamikaze packet}, {Chernobyl
packet}. (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful image of each
little option bit being represented by a different-colored light
bulb, all turned on.)
chrome: [from automotive slang via wargaming] n. Showy features
added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to
the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome,
but they certainly are *pretty* chrome!" Distinguished from
{bells and whistles} by the fact that the latter are usually
added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness.
Often used as a term of contempt.
chug: vi. To run slowly; to {grind} or {grovel}. "The disk is
chugging like crazy."
Church of the SubGenius: n. A mutant offshoot of
{Discordianism} launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist
Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist
with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source
of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine
drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the
Stark Fist of Removal. Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the
acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of
`slack'.
Cinderella Book: [CMU] n. `Introduction to Automata Theory,
Languages, and Computation', by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman,
(Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl
(putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device
and holding a rope coming out of it. The back cover depicts the
girl with the device in shambles after she has pulled on the rope.
See also {{book titles}}.
CI$: // n. Hackerism for `CIS', CompuServe Information Service.
The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line charges. Often
used in {sig block}s just before a CompuServe address. Syn.
{Compu$erve}.
Classic C: /klas'ik C/ [a play on `Coke Classic'] n. The
C programming language as defined in the first edition of {K&R},
with some small additions. It is also known as `K&R C'. The name
came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11
committee. Also `C Classic'. This is sometimes applied
elsewhere: thus, `X Classic', where X = Star Trek (referring to the
original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines
as opposed to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially
used of product series in which the newer versions are considered
serious losers relative to the older ones.
clean: 1. adj. Used of hardware or software designs, implies
`elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that
may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is
reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the
outside. The antonym is `grungy' or {crufty}. 2. v. To remove
unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter: "I'm
cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now have
100 Meg free on that partition."
CLM: /C-L-M/ [Sun: `Career Limiting Move'] 1. n. An action
endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and
raises, and possibly one's job: "His Halloween costume was a
parody of his manager. He won the prize for `best CLM'."
2. adj. Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a
customer and obviously missed earlier because of poor testing:
"That's a CLM bug!"
clobber: vt. To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I walked off
the end of the array and clobbered the stack." Compare {mung},
{scribble}, {trash}, and {smash the stack}.
clocks: n. Processor logic cycles, so called because each
generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing.
The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are
usually discussed in clocks rather than absolute fractions of a
second; one good reason for this is that clock speeds for various
models of the machine may increase as technology improves, and it
is usually the relative times one is interested in when discussing
the instruction set. Compare {cycle}.
clone: n. 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of
their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from
documentation or by reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower
price. 2. A shoddy, spurious copy: "Their product is a
clone of our product." 3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating
copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: "Your
product is a clone of my product." This use implies legal
action is pending. 4. A `PC clone'; a PC-BUS/ISA or
EISA-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes
spelled `klone' or `PClone'). These invariably have much
more bang for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble.
5. In the construction `UNIX clone': An OS designed to deliver
a UNIX-lookalike environment without UNIX license fees, or with
additional `mission-critical' features such as support for
real-time programming. 6. v. To make an exact copy of something.
"Let me clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I
can make a photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before
you {mung} it".
clover key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.
clustergeeking: /kluh'st*r-gee`king/ [CMU] n. Spending more time
at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend
breathing.
COBOL: /koh'bol/ [COmmon Business-Oriented Language] n.
(Synonymous with {evil}.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language
used by {card walloper}s to do boring mindless things on
{dinosaur} mainframes. Hackers believe all COBOL programmers
are {suit}s or {code grinder}s, and no self-respecting hacker
will ever admit to having learned the language. Its very name is
seldom uttered without ritual expressions of disgust or horror.
See also {fear and loathing}, {software rot}.
COBOL fingers: /koh'bol fing'grz/ n. Reported from Sweden, a
(hypothetical) disease one might get from coding in COBOL. The
language requires code verbose beyond all reason; thus it is
alleged that programming too much in COBOL causes one's fingers to
wear down to stubs by the endless typing. "I refuse to type in
all that source code again; it would give me COBOL fingers!"
code grinder: n. 1. A {suit}-wearing minion of the sort hired in
legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement
payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors. In his
native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to
reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch
optional) and a tie. In times of dire stress, the sleeves (if
long) may be rolled up and the tie loosened about half an inch. It
seldom helps. The {code grinder}'s milieu is about as far from
hackerdom as you can get and still touch a computer; the term
connotes pity. See {Real World}, {suit}. 2. Used of or to a
hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creative ability;
connotes a design style characterized by primitive technique,
rule-boundedness, {brute force}, and utter lack of imagination.
Compare {card walloper}; contrast {hacker}, {real
programmer}.
code police: [by analogy with George Orwell's `thought police'] n.
A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst
into one's office and arrest one for violating programming style
rules. May be used either seriously, to underline a claim that a
particular style violation is dangerous, or ironically, to suggest
that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by
anal-retentive {weenie}s. "Dike out that goto or the code
police will get you!" The ironic usage is perhaps more common.
codewalker: n. A program component that traverses other programs for
a living. Compilers have codewalkers in their front ends; so do
cross-reference generators and some database front ends. Other
utility programs that try to do too much with source code may turn
into codewalkers. As in "This new `vgrind' feature would require a
codewalker to implement."
coefficient of X: n. Hackish speech makes rather heavy use of
pseudo-mathematical metaphors. Four particularly important ones
involve the terms `coefficient', `factor', `index', and
`quotient'. They are often loosely applied to things you
cannot really be quantitative about, but there are subtle
distinctions among them that convey information about the way the
speaker mentally models whatever he or she is describing.
`Foo factor' and `foo quotient' tend to describe something for
which the issue is one of presence or absence. The canonical
example is {fudge factor}. It's not important how much you're
fudging; the term simply acknowledges that some fudging is needed.
You might talk of liking a movie for its silliness factor.
Quotient tends to imply that the property is a ratio of two opposing
factors: "I would have won except for my luck quotient." This
could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor", but
using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck overpowering
good luck (or someone else's good luck overpowering your own).
`Foo index' and `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply
that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that
can be larger or smaller. Thus, you might refer to a paper or
person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you would be less
likely to speak of a `high bogosity factor'. `Foo index' suggests
that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane
cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a
fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of friction. The choice
between these terms is often one of personal preference; e.g., some
people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus
say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a
combination of factors and thus say `bogosity index'.
cokebottle: /kohk'bot-l/ n. Any very unusual character,
particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your
keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the
`control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complained right back about the `altmode-altmode-cokebottle'
commands at MIT. After the demise of the {space-cadet
keyboard}, `cokebottle' faded away as serious usage, but was
often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or
non-intuitive keystroke command. It may be due for a second
inning, however. The OSF/Motif window manager, `mwm(1)', has
a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of
keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or not)
`control-meta-bang' (see {bang}). Since the exclamation point
looks a lot like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have
begun referring to this keystroke as `cokebottle'. See also
{quadruple bucky}.
cold boot: n. See {boot}.
COME FROM: n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go
to'; `COME FROM' <label> would cause the referenced label to act as a
sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control
would quietly and {automagically} be transferred to the statement
following the `COME FROM'. `COME FROM' was first proposed in a
{Datamation} article of December 1973 (reprinted in the April 1984
issue of `Communications of the ACM') that parodied the
then-raging `structured programming' {holy wars} (see
{considered harmful}). Mythically, some variants are the
`assigned COME FROM' and the `computed COME FROM'
(parodying some nasty control constructs in FORTRAN and some
extended BASICs). Of course, multi-tasking (or non-determinism)
could be implemented by having more than one `COME FROM' statement
coming from the same label.
In some ways the FORTRAN `DO' looks like a `COME FROM'
statement. After the terminating statement number/`CONTINUE'
is reached, control continues at the statement following the DO.
Some generous FORTRANs would allow arbitrary statements (other than
`CONTINUE') for the statement, leading to examples like:
DO 10 I=1,LIMIT
C imagine many lines of code here, leaving the
C original DO statement lost in the spaghetti...
WRITE(6,10) I,FROB(I)
10 FORMAT(1X,I5,G10.4)
in which the trapdoor is just after the statement labeled 10.
(This is particularly surprising because the label doesn't appear
to have anything to do with the flow of control at all!)
While sufficiently astonishing to the unsuspecting reader, this
form of `COME FROM' statement isn't completely general. After all,
control will eventually pass to the following statement. The
implementation of the general form was left to Univac FORTRAN,
ca. 1975. The statement `AT 100' would perform a `COME
FROM 100'. It was intended strictly as a debugging aid, with dire
consequences promised to anyone so deranged as to use it in
production code. More horrible things had already been perpetrated
in production languages, however; doubters need only contemplate
the `ALTER' verb in {COBOL}.
`COME FROM' was supported under its own name for the first
time 15 years later, in C-INTERCAL (see {INTERCAL},
{retrocomputing}); knowledgeable observers are still reeling
from the shock.
comm mode: /kom mohd/ [ITS: from the feature supporting on-line
chat; the term may spelled with one or two m's] Syn. for {talk
mode}.
command key: [Mac users] n. The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf
graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as `flower',
`pretzel', `clover', `propeller', `beanie' (an apparent
reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie), or
{splat}. The Mac's equivalent of an {ALT} key. The
proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle
peril of iconic interfaces.
comment out: vt. To surround a section of code with comment
delimiters or to prefix every line in the section with a comment
marker; this prevents it from being compiled or interpreted. Often
done when the code is redundant or obsolete, but you want to leave
it in the source to make the intent of the active code clearer;
also when the code in that section is broken and you want to bypass
it in order to debug some other part of the code. Compare
{condition out}, usually the preferred technique in languages
(such as {C}) that make it possible.
Commonwealth Hackish:: n. Hacker jargon as spoken outside
the U.S., esp. in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that
Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like
`char' and `soc', etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as
opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in {newsgroup}
names tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot
wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix {meta} may be
pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is often
/bee't*/, zeta is often /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred
metasyntactic variables include `eek', `ook',
`frodo', and `bilbo'; `wibble', `wobble', and
in emergencies `wubble'; `banana', `wombat',
`frog', {fish}, and so on and on (see {foo}, sense 4).
Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes `-o-rama',
`frenzy' (as in feeding frenzy), and `city' (examples: "barf
city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note
that the American terms `parens', `brackets', and `braces' for (),
[], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers
`brackets', `square brackets', and `curly brackets'. Also, the
use of `pling' for {bang} is common outside the United States.
See also {attoparsec}, {calculator}, {chemist}, {console
jockey}, {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek},
{heavy metal}, {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {noddy},
{psychedelicware}, {plingnet}, {raster blaster}, {seggie},
{terminal junkie}, {tick-list features}, {weeble},
{weasel}, {YABA}, and notes or definitions under {Bad Thing},
{barf}, {bogus}, {bum}, {chase pointers}, {cosmic rays},
{crippleware}, {crunch}, {dodgy}, {gonk}, {hamster},
{hardwarily}, {mess-dos}, {nybble}, {proglet}, {root},
{SEX}, {tweak}, and {xyzzy}.
compact: adj. Of a design, describes the valuable property that it
can all be apprehended at once in one's head. This generally means
the thing created from the design can be used with greater facility
and fewer errors than an equivalent tool that is not compact.
Compactness does not imply triviality or lack of power; for
example, C is compact and FORTRAN is not, but C is more powerful
than FORTRAN. Designs become non-compact through accreting
{feature}s and {cruft} that don't merge cleanly into the
overall design scheme (thus, some fans of {Classic C} maintain
that ANSI C is no longer compact).
compiler jock: n. See {jock} (sense 2).
compress: [UNIX] vt. When used without a qualifier, generally
refers to {crunch}ing of a file using a particular
C implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et al. and
widely circulated via {USENET}. Use of {crunch} itself in this
sense is rare among UNIX hackers.
Compu$erve: n. See {CI$}.
computer confetti: n. Syn. {chad}. Though this term is common,
this use of the punched-card chad is not a good idea, as the pieces
are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes. GLS
reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and
a few other guests enthusiastically threw chad instead of rice. The
groom later grumbled that he and his bride had spent most of the
evening trying to get the stuff out of their hair.
computer geek: n. One who eats (computer) bugs for a living. One
who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers:
an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the
personality of a cheese grater. Cannot be used by outsiders
without implied insult to all hackers; compare black-on-black usage
of `nigger'. A computer geek may be either a fundamentally
clueless individual or a proto-hacker in {larval stage}. Also
called `turbo nerd', `turbo geek'. See also
{clustergeeking}, {geek out}, {wannabee}, {terminal
junkie}.
computron: /kom'pyoo-tron`/ n. 1. A notional unit of computing
power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned
roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store
times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can't run GNU
EMACS, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This usage is usually
found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible
commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See
{bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {crank}.
2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of
computation or information, in much the same way that an electron
bears one unit of electric charge (see also {bogon}). An
elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed
based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object
move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object
melts because the molecules have lost their information about where
they are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted computrons).
This explains why computers get so hot and require air
conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it should be
possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a
computron beam. It is believed that this may also explain why
machines that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the
computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware.
(This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories
by Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass
Dagger?", in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural
resource called `mana'.)
condition out: vt. To prevent a section of code from being compiled
by surrounding it with a conditional-compilation directive whose
condition is always false. The {canonical} examples are `#if
0' (or `#ifdef notdef', though some find this {bletcherous})
and `#endif' in C. Compare {comment out}.
condom: n. 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch
microfloppy diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes.
Unlike the write protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only
impedes the practice of {SEX} but has also been shown to have a high
failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk --- and
can even fatally frustrate insertion. 2. The protective cladding
on a {light pipe}.
connector conspiracy: [probably came into prominence with the
appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the {PDP-10}), none of
whose connectors matched anything else] n. The tendency of
manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of
anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together
with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or
expensive interface devices. The KL-10 Massbus connector was
actually *patented* by DEC, which reputedly refused to license
the design and thus effectively locked third parties out of
competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This is
a source of never-ending frustration for the diehards who maintain
older PDP-10 or VAX systems. Their CPUs work fine, but they are
stuck with dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives with low
capacity and high power requirements.
In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen
somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that
"Standards are great! There are so *many* of them to choose
from!" Compare {backward combatability}.
cons: /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. vt. To add a new element
to a specified list, esp. at the top. "OK, cons picking a
replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda." 2. `cons up':
vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an example".
In LISP itself, `cons' is the most fundamental operation for
building structures. It takes any two objects and returns a
`dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each
branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used
to build binary trees of any shape and complexity. Hackers think
of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the
jargon meanings spring from.
considered harmful: adj. Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the
March 1968 `Communications of the ACM', "Goto Statement
Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured
programming wars. Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting
acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer
print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding
practice. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious
papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X
considered Y". The structured-programming wars eventually blew
over with the realization that both sides were wrong, but use of
such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the
`considered silly' found at various places in this lexicon is
related).
console:: n. 1. The operator's station of a {mainframe}. In
times past, this was a privileged location that conveyed godlike
powers to anyone with fingers on its keys. Under UNIX and other
modern timesharing OSes, such privileges are guarded by passwords
instead, and the console is just the {tty} the system was booted
from. Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is traditional
for sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users from the console
(on UNIX, /dev/console). 2. On microcomputer UNIX boxes, the main
screen and keyboard (as opposed to character-only terminals talking
to a serial port). Typically only the console can do real graphics
or run {X}. See also {CTY}.
console jockey: n. See {terminal junkie}.
content-free: [by analogy with techspeak `context-free'] adj.
Used of a message that adds nothing to the recipient's knowledge.
Though this adjective is sometimes applied to {flamage}, it more
usually connotes derision for communication styles that exalt form
over substance or are centered on concerns irrelevant to the
subject ostensibly at hand. Perhaps most used with reference to
speeches by company presidents and other professional manipulators.
"Content-free? Uh...that's anything printed on glossy
paper." See also {four-color glossies}. "He gave a talk on
the implications of electronic networks for postmodernism and the
fin-de-siecle aesthetic. It was content-free."
control-C: vi. 1. "Stop whatever you are doing." From the
interrupt character used on many operating systems to abort a
running program. Considered silly. 2. interj. Among BSD UNIX
hackers, the canonical humorous response to "Give me a break!"
control-O: vi. "Stop talking." From the character used on some
operating systems to abort output but allow the program to keep on
running. Generally means that you are not interested in hearing
anything more from that person, at least on that topic; a standard
response to someone who is flaming. Considered silly.
control-Q: vi. "Resume." From the ASCII XON character used to
undo a previous control-S (in fact it is also pronounced
XON /X-on/).
control-S: vi. "Stop talking for a second." From the ASCII XOFF
character (this is also pronounced XOFF /X-of/). Control-S
differs from {control-O} in that the person is asked to stop
talking (perhaps because you are on the phone) but will be allowed
to continue when you're ready to listen to him --- as opposed to
control-O, which has more of the meaning of "Shut up." Considered
silly.
Conway's Law: prov. The rule that the organization of the software and
the organization of the software team will be congruent; originally
stated as "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll
get a 4-pass compiler".
This was originally promulgated by Melvin Conway, an early
proto-hacker who wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called
SAVE. The name `SAVE' didn't stand for anything; it was just that
you lost fewer card decks and listings because they all had SAVE
written on them.
cookbook: [from amateur electronics and radio] n. A book of small
code segments that the reader can use to do various {magic}
things in programs. One current example is the `PostScript
Language Tutorial and Cookbook' by Adobe Systems, Inc
(Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-10179-3) which has recipes for things
like wrapping text around arbitrary curves and making 3D fonts.
Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into {voodoo
programming}, but are useful for hackers trying to {monkey up}
small programs in unknown languages. This is analogous to the role
of phrasebooks in human languages.
cookie: n. A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement
between cooperating programs. "I give him a packet, he gives me
back a cookie." The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop
is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's
useful for is to relate a later transaction to this one (so you get
the same clothes back). Compare {magic cookie}; see also
{fortune cookie}.
cookie bear: n. Syn. {cookie monster}.
cookie file: n. A collection of {fortune cookie}s in a format
that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program. There are several
different ones in public distribution, and site admins often
assemble their own from various sources including this lexicon.
cookie monster: [from "Sesame Street"] n. Any of a family of
early (1970s) hacks reported on {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {{Multics}},
and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a
time-sharing machine) or the {{console}} (on a batch
{mainframe}), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The
required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through
"HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. See also {wabbit}.
copper: n. Conventional electron-carrying network cable with a
core conductor of copper --- or aluminum! Opposed to {light
pipe} or, say, a short-range microwave link.
copy protection: n. A class of clever methods for preventing
incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers
from using it. Considered silly.
copybroke: /ko'pee-brohk/ adj. [play on `copyright'] Used to
describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been
`broken'; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled.
Syn. {copywronged}.
copyleft: /kop'ee-left/ [play on `copyright'] n. 1. The
copyright notice (`General Public License') carried by {GNU}
{EMACS} and other Free Software Foundation software, granting reuse
and reproduction rights to all comers (but see also {General
Public Virus}). 2. By extension, any copyright notice intended to
achieve similar aims.
copywronged: /ko'pee-rongd/ [play on `copyright'] adj. Syn. for
{copybroke}.
core: n. Main storage or RAM. Dates from the days of ferrite-core
memory; now archaic as techspeak most places outside IBM, but also
still used in the UNIX community and by old-time hackers or those
who would sound like them. Some derived idioms are quite current;
`in core', for example, means `in memory' (as opposed to `on
disk'), and both {core dump} and the `core image' or `core
file' produced by one are terms in favor. Commonwealth hackish
prefers {store}.
core dump: n. [common {Iron Age} jargon, preserved by UNIX]
1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of {core}, produced when a
process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error. 2. By
extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering
extreme shock. "He dumped core. All over the floor. What a
mess." "He heard about X and dumped core." 3. Occasionally
used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in
apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you". 4. A recapitulation of
knowledge (compare {bits}, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one
knows about a topic, esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam
question. "Short, concise answers are better than core dumps"
(from the instructions to an exam at Columbia; syn. {brain
dump}). See {core}.
core leak: n. Syn. {memory leak}.
Core Wars: n. A game between `assembler' programs in a
simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's
program by overwriting it. Popularized by A. K. Dewdney's column
in `Scientific American' magazine, this was actually
devised by Victor Vyssotsky, Robert Morris, and Dennis Ritchie in
the early 1960s (their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on
a PDP-1 at Bell Labs). See {core}.
corge: /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another
meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated
by the {GOSMACS} documentation. See {grault}.
cosmic rays: n. Notionally, the cause of {bit rot}. However, this is
a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to
{handwave} away any minor {randomness} that doesn't seem worth the
bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric --- I just got a burst of
garbage on my {tube}, where did that come from?" "Cosmic rays, I
guess." Compare {sunspots}, {phase of the moon}. The British seem
to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also
heard, because stray alpha particles passing through a memory chip
can cause single-bit errors (this becomes increasingly more likely
as memory sizes and densities increase).
Factual note: Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not
(except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not
explain random bit drops in their early chips, and one hypothesis
was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe,
using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for
testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis
was that if cosmic rays were causing the bit drops, they should see
a statistically significant difference between the error rates on
the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further
investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due
to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser
degree uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is
impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly
distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically
insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvious that
you have to design memories to withstand these hits.
cough and die: v. Syn. {barf}. Connotes that the program is
throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or
oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was
looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."
cowboy: [Sun, from William Gibson's {cyberpunk} SF] n. Synonym
for {hacker}. It is reported that at Sun this word is often
said with reverence.
CP/M:: /C-P-M/ n. [Control Program for Microcomputers] An
early microcomputer {OS} written by hacker Gary Kildall for
8080- and Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but
virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC
in 1981. Legend has it that Kildall's company blew its chance to
write the OS for the IBM PC because Kildall decided to spend a day
IBM's reps wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying
weather in his private plane. Many of CP/M's features and conventions
strongly resemble those of early DEC operating systems such as
{{TOPS-10}}, OS/8, RSTS, and RSX-11. See {{MS-DOS}},
{operating system}.
CPU Wars: /C-P-U worz/ n. A 1979 large-format comic by Chas
Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM
(Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the
peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers). This rather
transparent allegory featured many references to {ADVENT} and
the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!"
(uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). It is alleged that
the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM
company stationery from the head of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research
Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true
hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the
IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See {eat
flaming death}.
cracker: n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985
by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker}
(q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this
sense around 1981--82 on USENET was largely a failure.
crank: [from automotive slang] vt. Verb used to describe the
performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This
box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 {megaflops}, with a burst mode
of twice that on vectorized operations."
crash: 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said
of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk
drives. "Three {luser}s lost their files in last night's disk
crash." A disk crash that involves the read/write heads dropping
onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also
be referred to as a `head crash', whereas the term `system
crash' usually, though not always, implies that the operating
system or other software was at fault. 2. v. To fail suddenly.
"Has the system just crashed?" "Something crashed the OS!" See
{down}. Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the
crash (usually a person or a program, or both). "Those idiots
playing {SPACEWAR} crashed the system." 3. vi. Sometimes said
of people hitting the sack after a long {hacking run}; see
{gronk out}.
crash and burn: vi.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the
conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and
many subsequent imitators. Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback
transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are
notable crash and burn generators. The construction
`crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer used
exclusively for alpha or {beta} testing, or reproducing bugs
(i.e., not for development). The implication is that it wouldn't
be such a disaster if that machine crashed, since only the testers
would be inconvenienced.
crawling horror: n. Ancient crufty hardware or software that is
kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers
at a site. Like {dusty deck} or {gonkulator}, but connotes
that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active
menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but
they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II application from
nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...." Compare
{WOMBAT}.
cray: /kray/ n. 1. (properly, capitalized) One of the line of
supercomputers designed by Cray Research. 2. Any supercomputer at
all. 3. The {canonical} {number-crunching} machine.
The term is actually the lowercased last name of Seymour Cray, a
noted computer architect and co-founder of the company. Numerous
vivid legends surround him, some true and some admittedly invented
by Cray Research brass to shape their corporate culture and image.
cray instability: n. A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that
manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful
machine (see {cray}). Generally more subtle than bugs that can
be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or mini.
crayola: /kray-oh'l*/ n. A super-mini or -micro computer that
provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer performance
for an unreasonably low price. Might also be a {killer micro}.
crayon: n. 1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More
specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk,
probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective of
gender). Systems types who have a UNIX background tend not to be
described as crayons. 2. A {computron} (sense 2) that
participates only in {number-crunching}. 3. A unit of
computational power equal to that of a single Cray-1. There is a
standard joke about this that derives from an old Crayola crayon
promotional gimmick: When you buy 64 crayons you get a free
sharpener.
creationism: n. The (false) belief that large, innovative designs
can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked
out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally
talented programmers. In fact, experience has shown repeatedly
that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory
interaction between one (or at most a small handful of)
exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population ---
and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong.
Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models
beloved of {management}, they are generally ignored.
creeping elegance: n. Describes a tendency for parts of a design to
become {elegant} past the point of diminishing return. This
often happens at the expense of the less interesting parts of the
design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the
{Real World}. See also {creeping featurism}, {second-system
effect}, {tense}.
creeping featurism: /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ n. 1. Describes a
systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and {feature}s onto
systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed
when originally designed. See also {feeping creaturism}. "You
know, the main problem with {BSD} UNIX has always been creeping
featurism." 2. More generally, the tendency for anything
complicated to become even more complicated because people keep
saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature
too". (See {feature}.) The result is usually a patchwork
because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being
planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one
extra little feature to help someone ... and then another ...
and another.... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's
like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer
programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the
IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes
afflicts conscious redesigns; see {second-system effect}. See
also {creeping elegance}.
creeping featuritis: /kree'ping fee'-chr-i:`t*s/ n. Variant of
{creeping featurism}, with its own spoonerization: `feeping
creaturitis'. Some people like to reserve this form for the
disease as it actually manifests in software or hardware, as
opposed to the lurking general tendency in designers' minds. (After
all, -ism means `condition' or `pursuit of', whereas -itis usually
means `inflammation of'.)
cretin: /kret'n/ or /kree'tn/ n. Congenital {loser}; an obnoxious
person; someone who can't do anything right. It has been observed
that many American hackers tend to favor the British pronunciation
/kre'tn/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is thought this may
be due to the insidious phonetic influence of Monty Python's Flying
Circus.
cretinous: /kret'n-*s/ or /kreet'n-*s/ adj. Wrong; stupid;
non-functional; very poorly designed. Also used pejoratively of
people. See {dread high-bit disease} for an example.
Approximate synonyms: {bletcherous}, `bagbiting' (see
{bagbiter}), {losing}, {brain-damaged}.
crippleware: n. 1. Software that has some important functionality
deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a
working version. 2. [Cambridge] {Guiltware} that exhorts you to
donate to some charity (compare {careware}). 3. Hardware
deliberately crippled, which can be upgraded to a more expensive
model by a trivial change (e.g., cutting a jumper).
critical mass: n. In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable
material required to sustain a chain reaction. Of a software
product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one
bug introduces one plus {epsilon} bugs. When software achieves
critical mass, it can only be discarded and rewritten.
crlf: /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often
capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR) followed by a line
feed (LF). More loosely, whatever it takes to get you from the
end of one line of text to the beginning of the next line. See
{newline}, {terpri}. Under {{UNIX}} influence this usage
has become less common (UNIX uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').
crock: [from the obvious mainstream scatologism] n. 1. An awkward
feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.
Using small integers to represent error codes without the
program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIX
`make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process that dies due
to {segfault}). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which
is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example
depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so
that you can use instructions as data words too; a tightly woven,
almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge},
{brittle}. Also in the adjectives `crockish' and
`crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude'.
cross-post: [USENET] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to
several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting the article
repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it
multiple times (this is very bad form). Gratuitous cross-posting
without a Followup-To line directing responses to a single followup
group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause {followup} articles
to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one
part of the original posting.
crudware: /kruhd'weir/ n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of
megabytes of low-quality {freeware} circulated by user's groups
and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another*
set of disk catalog utilities for {{MS-DOS}}? What crudware!"
cruft: /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. n. An
unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is
cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a
broom only produces more. 2. n. The results of shoddy
construction. 3. vt. [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft'] To
write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a
compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. n. Excess; superfluous junk.
Esp. used of redundant or superseded code.
cruft together: vt. (also `cruft up') To throw together
something ugly but temporarily workable. Like vt. {kluge up},
but more pejorative. "There isn't any program now to reverse all
the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one together in about
10 minutes." See {hack together}, {hack up}, {kluge up},
{crufty}.
cruftsmanship: /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from {cruft}] The
antithesis of craftsmanship.
crufty: /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or
`cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The
{canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty DEC
software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of `crufty'
holds that was originally a mutation of `crusty' applied to DEC
software so old that the `s' characters were tall and skinny, looking
more like `f' characters. 2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch,
often with encrusted junk. Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut
butter and catsup. 3. Generally unpleasant. 4. (sometimes spelled
`cruftie') n. A small crufty object (see {frob}); often one
that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things. "A LISP property
list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively,
{random} cruft)."
crumb: n. Two binary digits; a {quad}. Larger than a {bit},
smaller than a {nybble}. Considered silly. Syn. {tayste}.
crunch: 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or
complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is
nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000.
"FORTRAN programs do mostly {number-crunching}." 2. vt. To
reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking like a paper document
would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.) Since such
compression usually takes more computations than simpler methods
such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly appropriate. (This
meaning is usually used in the construction `file crunch(ing)' to
distinguish it from {number-crunching}.) See {compress}.
3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other
places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze program source into a
minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute.
The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the
BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order to make it run more
quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of
characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest} entries are often
crunched; see the first example under that entry.
cruncha cruncha cruncha: /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj.
An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a
serious {grovel}. Also describes a notional sound made by
groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, {grind} (sense 3).
cryppie: /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements
cryptographic software or hardware.
CTSS: /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early
(1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing
operating systems, ancestral to {{Multics}}, {{UNIX}}, and
{{ITS}}. The name {{ITS}} (Incompatible Time-sharing System)
was a hack on CTSS, meant both as a joke and to express some basic
differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be
presented to user programs.
CTY: /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [MIT] The terminal physically
associated with a computer's system {{console}}. The term is a
contraction of `Console {tty}', that is, `Console TeleTYpe'.
This {{ITS}}- and {{TOPS-10}}-associated term has become less
common, as most UNIX hackers simply refer to the CTY as `the
console'.
cube: n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan
offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in
my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).
cubing: [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel
Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing
*again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles,
either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable form of
self-torture (see sense 1 or #2).
cursor dipped in X: n. There are a couple of metaphors in English
of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common values of X
are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol'). These map over neatly to this
hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind,
when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a {nastygram}! He
must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
cuspy: /kuhs'pee/ [WPI: from the DEC acronym CUSP, for `Commonly
Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people]
adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A
program that performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.
See {rude}. 3. [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one
regarded as available. Implies a certain curvaceousness.
cut a tape: [poss. fr. mainstream `cut a check' or from the
recording industry's `cut a record'] vi. To write a software or
document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing
to do with physically cutting the medium! Though this usage is
quite widespread, one never speaks of analogously `cutting a disk'
or anything else in this sense.
cybercrud: /si:'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory
tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The computer
equivalent of bureaucratese.
cyberpunk: /si:'ber-puhnk/ [orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or
editor Gardner Dozois] n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982
by William Gibson's epoch-making novel `Neuromancer' (though
its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's `True Names' (see
the Bibliography) to John Brunner's 1975 novel `The Shockwave
Rider'). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the
present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role
of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since
found both irritatingly na"ive and tremendously stimulating.
Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See {cyberspace},
{ice}, {go flatline}.
cyberspace: /si:'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional `information-space'
loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer
interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of
{cyberpunk} SF. At the time of this writing (mid-1991),
serious efforts to construct {virtual reality} interfaces
modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are already under way,
using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular
TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the
possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of the network
(see {network, the}). 2. Occasionally, the metaphoric location
of the mind of a person in {hack mode}. Some hackers report
experiencing strong eidetic imagery when in hack mode;
interestingly, independent reports from multiple sources suggest
that there are common features to the experience. In particular,
the dominant colors of this subjective `cyberspace' are often
gray and silver, and the imagery often involves constellations of
marching dots, elaborate shifting patterns of lines and angles, or
moire patterns.
cycle: 1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker
wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a
"cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so
many `clock cycles'. Often the computer can access its
memory once on every clock cycle, and so one speaks also of
`memory cycles'. These are technical meanings of {cycle}. The
jargon meaning comes from the observation that there are only so
many cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
cycles get divided up among the users. The more cycles the
computer spends working on your program rather than someone else's,
the faster your program will run. That's why every hacker wants
more cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the computer to
respond. 2. By extension, a notional unit of *human* thought
power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical
hacker's think time. "I refused to get involved with the Rubik's
Cube back when it was big. Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if
I let myself." 3. vt. Syn. {bounce}, {120 reset}; from the
phrase `cycle power'. "Cycle the machine again, that serial port's
still hung."
cycle crunch: n. A situation where the number of people trying to
use the computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one
can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the
system has probably begun to {thrash}. This is an inevitable
result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing. Usually the only
solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this has rapidly become
easier in recent years, so much so that the very term `cycle
crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most hackers now use
workstations or personal computers as opposed to traditional
timesharing systems.
cycle drought: n. A scarcity of cycles. It may be due to a {cycle
crunch}, but it could also occur because part of the computer is
temporarily not working, leaving fewer cycles to go around.
"The {high moby} is {down}, so we're running with only
half the usual amount of memory. There will be a cycle drought
until it's fixed."
cycle of reincarnation: [coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970] n.
Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a
computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose
peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward
more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that
it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the
architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at
which point the cycle begins again. Several iterations of this
cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least
one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also
known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other
variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea.
cycle server: n. A powerful machine that exists primarily for
running large {batch} jobs. Implies that interactive tasks such as
editing are done on other machines on the network, such as
workstations.
= D =
D. C. Power Lab: n. The former site of {{SAIL}}. Hackers thought
this was very funny because the obvious connection to electrical
engineering was nonexistent --- the lab was named for a Donald C.
Power. Compare {Marginal Hacks}.
daemon: /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ [from the mythological meaning,
later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor'] n.
A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting
for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator
of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though
often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it
will implicitly invoke a daemon). For example, under {{ITS}}
writing a file on the {LPT} spooler's directory would invoke the
spooling daemon, which would then print the file. The advantage is
that programs wanting (in this example) files printed need not
compete for access to the {LPT}. They simply enter their
implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them.
Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may
either live forever or be regenerated at intervals. Daemon and
{demon} are often used interchangeably, but seem to have
distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced to
computing by {CTSS} people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and
used it to refer to what ITS called a {dragon}. Although the
meaning and the pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary
reflects current (1991) usage.
dangling pointer: n. A reference that doesn't actually lead
anywhere (in C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't
actually point at anything valid). Usually this is because it
formerly pointed to something that has moved or disappeared. Used
as jargon in a generalization of its techspeak meaning; for
example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved to the
other coast is a dangling pointer.
Datamation: /day`t*-may'sh*n/ n. A magazine that many hackers
assume all {suit}s read. Used to question an unbelieved quote,
as in "Did you read that in `Datamation?'" It used to
publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like the
original paper on {COME FROM} in 1973, but it has since become much
more exclusively {suit}-oriented and boring.
day mode: n. See {phase} (sense 1). Used of people only.
dd: /dee-dee/ [UNIX: from IBM {JCL}] vt. Equivalent to {cat}
or {BLT}. This was originally the name of a UNIX copy command
with special options suitable for block-oriented devices. Often
used in heavy-handed system maintenance, as in "Let's dd the root
partition onto a tape, then use the boot PROM to load it back on to
a new disk". The UNIX `dd(1)' was designed with a weird,
distinctly non-UNIXy keyword option syntax reminiscent of IBM
System/360 JCL (which had a similar DD command); though the command
filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank. The
jargon usage is now very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly
obsolete even there, as `dd(1)' has been {deprecated} for a
long time (though it has no exact replacement). Replaced by
{BLT} or simple English `copy'.
DDT: /D-D-T/ n. 1. Generic term for a program that assists in
debugging other programs by showing individual machine instructions
in a readable symbolic form and letting the user change them. In
this sense the term DDT is now archaic, having been widely
displaced by `debugger' or names of individual programs like
`dbx', `adb', `gdb', or `sdb'. 2. [ITS] Under
MIT's fabled {{ITS}} operating system, DDT (running under the alias
HACTRN) was also used as the {shell} or top level command
language used to execute other programs. 3. Any one of several
specific DDTs (sense 1) supported on early DEC hardware. The DEC
PDP-10 Reference Handbook (1969) contained a footnote on the first
page of the documentation for DDT which illuminates the origin of
the term:
Historical footnote: DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1
computer in 1961. At that time DDT stood for "DEC Debugging Tape".
Since then, the idea of an on-line debugging program has propagated
throughout the computer industry. DDT programs are now available
for all DEC computers. Since media other than tape are now
frequently used, the more descriptive name "Dynamic Debugging
Technique" has been adopted, retaining the DDT acronym. Confusion
between DDT-10 and another well known pesticide,
dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (C14-H9-Cl5) should be minimal
since each attacks a different, and apparently mutually exclusive,
class of bugs.
Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the
handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more
`businesslike'.
de-rezz: /dee-rez'/ [from `de-resolve' via the movie "Tron"]
(also `derez') 1. vi. To disappear or dissolve; the image that goes
with it is of an object breaking up into raster lines and static
and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a person who seems to
have suddenly `fuzzed out' mentally rather than physically.
Usage: extremely silly, also rare. This verb was actually invented
as *fictional* hacker jargon, and adopted in a spirit of irony
by real hackers years after the fact. 2. vt. On a Macintosh, many
program structures (including the code itself) are managed in small
segments of the program file known as `resources'. The standard
resource compiler is Rez. The standard resource decompiler is
DeRez. Thus, decompiling a resource is `derezzing'. Usage: very
common.
dead code: n. Routines that can never be accessed because all calls
to them have been removed, or code that cannot be reached because
it is guarded by a control structure that provably must always
transfer control somewhere else. The presence of dead code may
reveal either logical errors due to alterations in the program or
significant changes in the assumptions and environment of the
program (see also {software rot}); a good compiler should report
dead code so a maintainer can think about what it means. Syn.
{grunge}.
DEADBEEF: /ded-beef/ n. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for
freshly allocated memory (decimal -21524111) under a number of
IBM environments, including the RS/6000. As in "Your program is
DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory); if you
start from an odd half-word boundary, of course, you have
BEEFDEAD.
deadlock: n. 1. [techspeak] A situation wherein two or more
processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of
the others to do something. A common example is a program
communicating to a server, which may find itself waiting for output
from the server before sending anything more to it, while the
server is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling
program before outputting anything. (It is reported that this
particular flavor of deadlock is sometimes called a `starvation
deadlock', though the term `starvation' is more properly used for
situations where a program can never run simply because it never
gets high enough priority. Another common flavor is
`constipation', where each process is trying to send stuff to
the other but all buffers are full because nobody is reading
anything.) See {deadly embrace}. 2. Also used of
deadlock-like interactions between humans, as when two people meet
in a narrow corridor, and each tries to be polite by moving aside
to let the other pass, but they end up swaying from side to side
without making any progress because they always both move the same
way at the same time.
deadly embrace: n. Same as {deadlock}, though usually used only when
exactly 2 processes are involved. This is the more popular term in
Europe, while {deadlock} predominates in the United States.
Death Star: [from the movie "Star Wars"] 1. The AT&T corporate
logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny
resemblance to the `Death Star' in the movie. This usage is
particularly common among partisans of {BSD} UNIX, who tend to
regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy. Copies
still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape
with a space fighter labeled 4.2 BSD streaking away from a broken
AT&T logo wreathed in flames. 2. AT&T's internal magazine,
`Focus', uses `death star' for an incorrectly done AT&T logo
in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light
--- a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.
DEC Wars: n. A 1983 {USENET} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr
spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some years
later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a
great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-longer complete
rewrite called "UNIX WARS"; the two are often confused.
DEChead: /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}. Not flattering.
2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.
deckle: /dek'l/ [from dec- and {nickle}] n. Two {nickle}s;
10 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the
Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but
10-bit-wide ROM.
deep hack mode: n. See {hack mode}.
deep magic: [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An
awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one
not generally published and available to hackers at large (compare
{black art}); one that could only have been composed by a true
{wizard}. Compiler optimization techniques and many aspects of
{OS} design used to be {deep magic}; many techniques in
cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are.
Compare {heavy wizardry}. Esp. found in comments of the form
"Deep magic begins here...". Compare {voodoo programming}.
deep space: n. 1. Describes the notional location of any program
that has gone {off the trolley}. Esp. used of programs that
just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some
output is expected. "Uh oh. I should have gotten a prompt ten
seconds ago. The program's in deep space somewhere." Compare
{buzz}, {catatonic}, {hyperspace}. 2. The metaphorical
location of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some
esoteric form of {bogosity} that he or she no longer responds
coherently to normal communication. Compare {page out}.
defenestration: [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of
assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic
retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was
*awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" 2. The act of
exiting a window system in order to get better response time from a
full-screen program. This comes from the dictionary meaning of
`defenestrate', which is to throw something out a window. 3. The
act of discarding something under the assumption that it will
improve matters. "I don't have any disk space left." "Well,
why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?"
4. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface.
"It has to run on a VT100." "Curses! I've been
defenestrated!"
defined as: adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart
sense. "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer." Compare
{logical}.
dehose: /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a {hosed} condition.
delint: /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected
when {lint}ing.
delta: n. 1. [techspeak] A quantitative change, especially a small
or incremental one (this use is general in physics and
engineering). "I just doubled the speed of my program!" "What
was the delta on program size?" "About 30 percent." (He
doubled the speed of his program, but increased its size by only 30
percent.) 2. [UNIX] A {diff}, especially a {diff} stored
under the set of version-control tools called SCCS (Source Code
Control System) or RCS (Revision Control System). 3. n. A small
quantity, but not as small as {epsilon}. The jargon usage of
{delta} and {epsilon} stems from the traditional use of these
letters in mathematics for very small numerical quantities,
particularly in `epsilon-delta' proofs in limit theory (as in the
differential calculus). The term {delta} is often used, once
{epsilon} has been mentioned, to mean a quantity that is
slightly bigger than {epsilon} but still very small. "The cost
isn't epsilon, but it's delta" means that the cost isn't totally
negligible, but it is nevertheless very small. Common
constructions include `within delta of ---', `within epsilon of
---': that is, close to and even closer to.
demented: adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a
program. The connotation in this case is that the program works as
designed, but the design is bad. Said, for example, of a program
that generates large numbers of meaningless error messages,
implying that it is on the brink of imminent collapse. Compare
{wonky}, {bozotic}.
demigod: n. A hacker with years of experience, a national reputation,
and a major role in the development of at least one design, tool,
or game used by or known to more than half of the hacker community.
To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person must recognizably
identify with the hacker community and have helped shape it. Major
demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (co-inventors of
{{UNIX}} and {C}) and Richard M. Stallman (inventor of
{EMACS}). In their hearts of hearts, most hackers dream of
someday becoming demigods themselves, and more than one major
software project has been driven to completion by the author's
veiled hopes of apotheosis. See also {net.god}, {true-hacker}.
demo: /de'moh/ [short for `demonstration'] 1. v. To demonstrate a
product or prototype. A far more effective way of inducing bugs to
manifest than any number of {test} runs, especially when
important people are watching. 2. n. The act of demoing.
demo mode: [Sun] n. 1. The state of being {heads down} in order
to finish code in time for a {demo}, usually due yesterday.
2. A mode in which video games sit there by themselves running
through a portion of the game, also known as `attract mode'.
Some serious {app}s have a demo mode they use as a screen saver,
or may go through a demo mode on startup (for example, the
Microsoft Windows opening screen --- which lets you impress your
neighbors without actually having to put up with {Microsloth
Windows}).
demon: n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program that is not invoked
explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. See {daemon}. The distinction is that demons are
usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually
programs running on an operating system. Demons are particularly
common in AI programs. For example, a knowledge-manipulation
program might implement inference rules as demons. Whenever a new
piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which
demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create
additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective
inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in
turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through
chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue with
whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used
equivalently to {daemon} --- especially in the {{UNIX}} world,
where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly
archaic.
depeditate: /dee-ped'*-tayt/ [by (faulty) analogy with
`decapitate'] vt. Humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is
using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of
text blocks within a page or above a rule can result in chopped-off
letter descenders. Such letters are said to have been depeditated.
deprecated: adj. Said of a program or feature that is considered
obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in
favor of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can,
unfortunately, linger on for many years.
deserves to lose: adj. Said of someone who willfully does the
{Wrong Thing}; humorously, if one uses a feature known to be
{marginal}. What is meant is that one deserves the consequences
of one's {losing} actions. "Boy, anyone who tries to use
{mess-dos} deserves to {lose}!" ({{ITS}} fans used to say this
of {{UNIX}}; many still do.) See also {screw}, {chomp},
{bagbiter}.
desk check: n.,v. To {grovel} over hardcopy of source code,
mentally simulating the control flow; a method of catching bugs.
No longer common practice in this age of on-screen editing, fast
compiles, and sophisticated debuggers --- though some maintain
stoutly that it ought to be. Compare {eyeball search},
{vdiff}, {vgrep}.
Devil Book: n. `The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD
UNIX Operating System', by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk
McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley
Publishers, 1989) --- the standard reference book on the internals
of {BSD} UNIX. So called because the cover has a picture
depicting a little devil (a visual play on {daemon}) in
sneakers, holding a pitchfork (referring to one of the
characteristic features of UNIX, the {fork(2)} system call).
devo: /dee'voh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A person in a
development group. See also {doco} and {mango}.
dickless workstation: n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for
`diskless workstation', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50
and other machines designed exclusively to network with an
expensive central disk server. These combine all the disadvantages
of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of distributed personal
computers.
dictionary flame: [USENET] n. An attempt to sidetrack a debate
away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that
presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise.
A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to
disputes about reality.
diddle: 1. vt. To work with or modify in a not particularly
serious manner. "I diddled a copy of {ADVENT} so it didn't
double-space all the time." "Let's diddle this piece of code and
see if the problem goes away." See {tweak} and {twiddle}.
2. n. The action or result of diddling. See also {tweak},
{twiddle}, {frob}.
diff: /dif/ n. 1. A change listing, especially giving differences
between (and additions to) source code or documents (the term is
often used in the plural `diffs'). "Send me your diffs for the
Jargon File!" Compare {vdiff}. 2. Specifically, such a listing
produced by the `diff(1)' command, esp. when used as
specification input to the `patch(1)' utility (which can
actually perform the modifications; see {patch}). This is a
common method of distributing patches and source updates in the
UNIX/C world. See also {vdiff}, {mod}.
digit: n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation. See also
{VAX}, {VMS}, {PDP-10}, {{TOPS-10}}, {DEChead}, {double
DECkers}, {field circus}.
dike: vt. To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire
from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan
is "When in doubt, dike it out". (The implication is that it is
usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing
complexity than by increasing it.) The word `dikes' is widely
used among mechanics and engineers to mean `diagonal cutters',
esp. a heavy-duty metal-cutting device, but may also refer to a
kind of wire-cutters used by electronics techs. To `dike
something out' means to use such cutters to remove something.
Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with
dikes". Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended
to informational objects such as sections of code.
ding: n.,vi. 1. Synonym for {feep}. Usage: rare among hackers,
but commoner in the {Real World}. 2. `dinged': What happens
when someone in authority gives you a minor bitching about
something, esp. something trivial. "I was dinged for having a
messy desk."
dink: /dink/ n. Said of a machine that has the {bitty box}
nature; a machine too small to be worth bothering with --- sometimes
the system you're currently forced to work on. First heard from an
MIT hacker (BADOB) working on a CP/M system with 64K, in reference
to any 6502 system, then from fans of 32-bit architectures about
16-bit machines. "GNUMACS will never work on that dink machine."
Probably derived from mainstream `dinky', which isn't sufficiently
pejorative.
dinosaur: n. 1. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special
power. Used especially of old minis and mainframes, in contrast
with newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famous quote from
the 1988 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in the massive
IBM display with a grazing dinosaur "with a truck outside pumping
its bodily fluids through it". IBM was not amused. Compare
{big iron}; see also {mainframe}. 2. [IBM] A very conservative
user; a {zipperhead}.
dinosaur pen: n. A traditional {mainframe} computer room complete with
raised flooring, special power, its own ultra-heavy-duty air
conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire extinguishers. See
{boa}.
dinosaurs mating: n. Said to occur when yet another {big iron}
merger or buyout occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that
these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the
{mainframe} industry. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was
`IBM and the Seven Dwarves': Burroughs, Control Data, General
Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. RCA and GE sold out
early, and it was `IBM and the Bunch' (Burroughs, Univac, NCR,
Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out
by Bull; Burroughs merged with Univac to form Unisys (in 1984 --- this
was when the phrase `dinosaurs mating' was coined); and as this is
written AT&T is attempting to recover from a disastrously bad first
6 years in the hardware industry by absorbing NCR. More such
earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.
dirty power: n. Electrical mains voltage that is unfriendly to
the delicate innards of computers. Spikes, {drop-outs}, average
voltage significantly higher or lower than nominal, or just plain
noise can all cause problems of varying subtlety and severity.
Discordianism: /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of
{Eris}, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers.
Discordianism was popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's
`Illuminatus!' trilogy as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen
for Westerners --- it should on no account be taken seriously but
is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the
Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from `Principia
Discordia': "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he
Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate
conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the
anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent,
authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati. See
appendix B, {Church of the SubGenius}, and {ha ha only
serious}.
disk farm: n. (also {laundromat}) A large room or rooms filled
with disk drives (esp. {washing machine}s).
display hack: n. A program with the same approximate purpose as a
kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous display hacks
include {munching squares}, {smoking clover}, the BSD UNIX
`rain(6)' program, `worms(6)' on miscellaneous UNIXes,
and the {X} `kaleid(1)' program. Display hacks can also be
implemented without programming by creating text files containing
numerous escape sequences for interpretation by a video terminal;
one notable example displayed, on any VT100, a Christmas tree with
twinkling lights and a toy train circling its base. The {hack
value} of a display hack is proportional to the esthetic value of
the images times the cleverness of the algorithm divided by the
size of the code. Syn. {psychedelicware}.
Dissociated Press: [play on `Associated Press'; perhaps inspired
by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up,
Doc?"] n. An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially
humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a
{marketroid}. You start by printing any N consecutive
words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step you search for
any random occurrence in the original text of the last N
words (or letters) already printed and then print the next word or
letter. {EMACS} has a handy command for this. Here is a short
example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier
version of this Jargon File:
wart: n. A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of
an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively
benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be
not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied
to the same source:
window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer
to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a
chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech
makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual
abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!
A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press
to a random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes of finding
an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, `window
sysIWYG' and `informash' show some promise.) Iterated applications
of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar
techniques called `travesty generators' have been employed with
considerable satirical effect to the utterances of USENET flamers;
see {pseudo}.
distribution: n. 1. A software source tree packaged for
distribution; but see {kit}. 2. A vague term encompassing
mailing lists and USENET newsgroups (but not {BBS} {fora}); any
topic-oriented message channel with multiple recipients. 3. An
information-space domain (usually loosely correlated with
geography) to which propagation of a USENET message is restricted;
a much-underutilized feature.
do protocol: [from network protocol programming] vi. To perform an
interaction with somebody or something that follows a clearly
defined procedure. For example, "Let's do protocol with the
check" at a restaurant means to ask for the check, calculate the
tip and everybody's share, collect money from everybody, generate
change as necessary, and pay the bill. See {protocol}.
doc: /dok/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for
`documentation'. Often used in the plural `docs' and in the
construction `doc file' (documentation available on-line).
doco: /do'koh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A
documentation writer. See also {devo} and {mango}.
documentation:: n. The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded,
steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern
software or hardware products (see also {tree-killer}). Hackers
seldom read paper documentation and (too) often resist writing it;
they prefer theirs to be terse and on-line. A common comment on
this is "You can't {grep} dead trees". See {drool-proof
paper}, {verbiage}.
dodgy: adj. Syn. with {flaky}. Preferred outside the U.S.
dogcow: /dog'kow/ n. See {Moof}.
dogwash: /dog'wosh/ [From a quip in the `urgency' field of a very
optional software change request, ca. 1982. It was something like
"Urgency: Wash your dog first".] 1. n. A project of minimal
priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. 2. v.
To engage in such a project. Many games and much {freeware} get
written this way.
domainist: /doh-mayn'ist/ adj. 1. Said of an {{Internet
address}} (as opposed to a {bang path}) because the part to the
right of the `@' specifies a nested series of `domains';
for example, eric@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine
called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus within the
top-level domain called com. See also {big-endian}, sense 2.
2. Said of a site, mailer, or routing program which knows how to
handle domainist addresses. 3. Said of a person (esp. a site
admin) who prefers domain addressing, supports a domainist mailer,
or prosyletizes for domainist addressing and disdains {bang
path}s. This is now (1991) semi-obsolete, as most sites have
converted.
Don't do that, then!: [from an old doctor's office joke about a
patient with a trivial complaint] Stock response to a user
complaint. "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a
halt for thirty seconds." "Don't do that, then!" (or "So don't
do that!"). Compare {RTFM}.
dongle: /dong'gl/ n. 1. A security or {copy-protection} device
for commercial microcomputer programs consisting of a serialized
EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which must be
connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program is run.
Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and at
programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users
can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay
for each dongle. The idea was clever, but it was initially a failure, as
users disliked tying up a serial port this way. Most dongles on
the market today (1991) will pass data through the port and monitor
for {magic} codes (and combinations of status lines) with minimal
if any interference with devices further down the line --- this
innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained dongles for
multiple pieces of software. The devices are still not widely
used, as the industry has moved away from copy-protection schemes
in general. 2. By extension, any physical electronic key or
transferrable ID required for a program to function. See
{dongle-disk}.
dongle-disk: /don'gl disk/ n. See {dongle}; a `dongle-disk'
is a floppy disk with some coding that allows an application to
identify it uniquely. It can therefore be used as a {dongle}.
Also called a `key disk'.
donuts: n.obs. A collective noun for any set of memory bits. This is
extremely archaic and may no longer be live jargon; it dates from the
days of ferrite-{core} memories in which each bit was implemented by
a doughnut-shaped magnetic flip-flop.
doorstop: n. Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and
halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolete equipment kept
around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup. "When we
get another Wyse-50 in here, that ADM 3 will turn into a doorstop."
Compare {boat anchor}.
dot file: [UNIX] n. A file which is not visible to normal
directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named with a leading dot
are, by convention, not normally presented in directory listings).
Many programs define one or more dot files in which startup or
configuration information may be optionally recorded; a user can
customize the program's behavior by creating the appropriate file in
the current or home directory. See also {rc file}.
double bucky: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The
command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F."
This term originated on the Stanford extended-ASCII keyboard, and
was later taken up by users of the {space-cadet keyboard} at
MIT. A typical MIT comment was that the Stanford {bucky bits}
(control and meta shifting keys) were nice, but there weren't
enough of them; you could type only 512 different characters on a
Stanford keyboard. An obvious way to address this was simply to
add more shifting keys, and this was eventually done; but a
keyboard with that many shifting keys is hard on touch-typists, who
don't like to move their hands away from the home position on the
keyboard. It was half-seriously suggested that the extra shifting
keys be implemented as pedals; typing on such a keyboard would be
very much like playing a full pipe organ. This idea is mentioned
in a parody of a very fine song by Jeffrey Moss called
"Rubber Duckie", which was published in `The Sesame
Street Songbook' (Simon and Schuster 1971, ISBN 671-21036-X).
These lyrics were written on May 27, 1978, in celebration of the
Stanford keyboard:
Double Bucky
Double bucky, you're the one!
You make my keyboard lots of fun.
Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
(Vo-vo-de-o!)
Control and meta, side by side,
Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
Double bucky! Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
Oh,
I sure wish that I
Had a couple of
Bits more!
Perhaps a
Set of pedals to
Make the number of
Bits four:
Double double bucky!
Double bucky, left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
--- The Great Quux (with apologies to Jeffrey Moss)
[This, by the way, is an excellent example of computer {filk} --- ESR]
See also {meta bit}, {cokebottle}, and {quadruple bucky}.
double DECkers: n. Used to describe married couples in which both
partners work for Digital Equipment Corporation.
doubled sig: [USENET] n. A {sig block} that has been included
twice in a {USENET} article or, less commonly, in an electronic
mail message. An article or message with a doubled sig can be
caused by improperly configured software. More often, however, it
reveals the author's lack of experience in electronic
communication. See {BIFF}, {pseudo}.
down: 1. adj. Not operating. "The up escalator is down" is
considered a humorous thing to say, and "The elevator is down"
always means "The elevator isn't working" and never refers to
what floor the elevator is on. With respect to computers, this
usage has passed into the mainstream; the extension to other kinds
of machine is still hackish. 2. `go down' vi. To stop
functioning; usually said of the {system}. The message from the
{console} that every hacker hates to hear from the operator is
"The system will go down in 5 minutes". 3. `take down',
`bring down' vt. To deactivate purposely, usually for repair work
or {PM}. "I'm taking the system down to work on that bug in the
tape drive." Occasionally one hears the word `down' by itself
used as a verb in this vt. sense. See {crash}; oppose {up}.
download: vt. To transfer data or (esp.) code from a larger `host'
system (esp. a {mainframe}) over a digital comm link to a smaller
`client' system, esp. a microcomputer or specialized peripheral.
Oppose {upload}.
However, note that ground-to-space communications has its own usage
rule for this term. Space-to-earth transmission is always download
and the reverse upload regardless of the relative size of the
computers involved. So far the in-space machines have invariably
been smaller; thus the upload/download distinction has been
reversed from its usual sense.
DP: /D-P/ n. 1. Data Processing. Listed here because,
according to hackers, use of the term marks one immediately as a
{suit}. See {DPer}. 2. Common abbrev for {Dissociated
Press}.
DPB: /d*-pib'/ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] vt. To plop
something down in the middle. Usage: silly. "DPB
yourself into that couch there." The connotation would be that
the couch is full except for one slot just big enough for you to
sit in. DPB means `DePosit Byte', and was the name of a PDP-10
instruction that inserts some bits into the middle of some other
bits. This usage has been kept alive by the Common LISP function
of the same name.
DPer: /dee-pee-er/ n. Data Processor. Hackers are absolutely
amazed that {suit}s use this term self-referentially.
"*Computers* process data, not people!" See {DP}.
dragon: n. [MIT] A program similar to a {daemon}, except that it
is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to perform
various secondary tasks. A typical example would be an accounting
program, which keeps track of who is logged in, accumulates
load-average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many terminals displayed
a list of people logged in, where they were, what they were
running, etc., along with some random picture (such as a unicorn,
Snoopy, or the Enterprise), which was generated by the `name
dragon'. Usage: rare outside MIT --- under UNIX and most other OSes
this would be called a `background demon' or {daemon}. The
best-known UNIX example of a dragon is `cron(1)'. At SAIL,
they called this sort of thing a `phantom'.
Dragon Book: n. The classic text `Compilers: Principles,
Techniques and Tools', by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D.
Ullman (Addison-Wesley 1986; ISBN 0-201-10088-6), so called because
of the cover design featuring a dragon labeled `complexity of
compiler design' and a knight bearing the lance `LALR parser
generator' among his other trappings. This one is more
specifically known as the `Red Dragon Book' (1986); an earlier
edition, sans Sethi and titled `Principles Of Compiler Design'
(Alfred V. Aho and Jeffrey D. Ullman; Addison-Wesley, 1977; ISBN
0-201-00022-9), was the `Green Dragon Book' (1977). (Also `New
Dragon Book', `Old Dragon Book'.) The horsed knight and the
Green Dragon were warily eying each other at a distance; now the
knight is typing (wearing gauntlets!) at a terminal showing a
video-game representation of the Red Dragon's head while the rest
of the beast extends back in normal space. See also {{book
titles}}.
drain: [IBM] v. Syn. for {flush} (sense 2). Has a connotation
of finality about it; one speaks of draining a device before taking
it offline.
dread high-bit disease: n. A condition endemic to PRIME (a.k.a.
PR1ME) minicomputers that results in all the characters having
their high (0x80) bit ON rather than OFF. This of course makes
transporting files to other systems much more difficult, not to
mention talking to true 8-bit devices. It is reported that
PRIME adopted the reversed-8-bit convention in order to save
25 cents per serial line per machine. This probably qualifies as one
of the most {cretinous} design tradeoffs ever made. See {meta
bit}. A few other machines (including the Atari 800) have exhibited
similar brain damage.
DRECNET: /drek'net/ [from Yiddish/German `dreck', meaning
dirt] n. Deliberate distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol
used in the {VMS} community. So called because DEC helped write
the Ethernet specification and then (either stupidly or as a
malignant customer-control tactic) violated that spec in the design
of DRECNET in a way that made it incompatible. See also
{connector conspiracy}.
driver: n. 1. The {main loop} of an event-processing program;
the code that gets commands and dispatches them for execution.
2. [techspeak] In `device driver', code designed to handle a
particular peripheral device such as a magnetic disk or tape unit.
3. In the TeX general, `driver' also means a program that translates some
device-independent or other common format to something a real
device can actually understand.
droid: n. A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or
service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following
characteristics: (a) na"ive trust in the wisdom of the parent
organization or `the system'; (b) a propensity to believe
obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or computers!);
blind faith; (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable
to look beyond the `letter of the law' in exceptional
situations; and (d) no interest in fixing that which is broken; an
"It's not my job, man" attitude.
Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant and
bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government
employees. The implication is that the rules and official
procedures constitute software that the droid is executing. This
becomes a problem when the software has not been properly debugged.
The term `droid mentality' is also used to describe the mindset
behind this behavior. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}; see
{-oid}.
drool-proof paper: n. Documentation that has been obsessively {dumbed
down}, to the point where only a {cretin} could bear to read it, is
said to have succumbed to the `drool-proof paper syndrome' or to
have been `written on drool-proof paper'. For example, this is
an actual quote from Apple's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose
your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
drop on the floor: vt. To react to an error condition by silently
discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway
ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the
floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay
sites that lose messages. See also {black hole}, {bit bucket}.
drop-ins: [prob. by analogy with {drop-outs}] n. Spurious
characters appearing on a terminal or console as a result of line noise or
a system malfunction of some sort. Esp. used when these are
interspersed with one's own typed input. Compare {drop-outs}.
drop-outs: n. 1. A variety of `power glitch' (see {glitch});
momentary 0 voltage on the electrical mains. 2. Missing characters
in typed input due to software malfunction or system saturation
(this can happen under UNIX when a bad connection to a modem swamps
the processor with spurious character interrupts). 3. Mental
glitches; used as a way of describing those occasions when the mind
just seems to shut down for a couple of beats. See {glitch},
{fried}.
drugged: adj. (also `on drugs') 1. Conspicuously stupid,
heading toward {brain-damaged}. Often accompanied by a
pantomime of toking a joint (but see appendix B). 2. Of hardware,
very slow relative to normal performance.
drunk mouse syndrome: n. A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing
device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse
cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync
with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by
unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. Another
recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse pad
90 degrees.
At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier
cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. When the steel ball on
the mouse had picked up enough {cruft} to be unreliable, the mouse
was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However,
this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation
of cruft, so the dousings became more and more frequent. Finally,
the mouse was declared `alcoholic' and sent to the clinic to be
dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
dumbass attack: /duhm'as *-tak'/ [Purdue] n. Notional cause of a
novice's mistake made by the experienced, especially one made while
running as root under UNIX, e.g., typing `rm -r *' or
`mkfs' on a mounted file system. Compare {adger}.
dumbed down: adj. Simplified, with a strong connotation of
*over*simplified. Often, a {marketroid} will insist that the
interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the
designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil making it
smart. This creates friction. See {user-friendly}.
dump: n. 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a
problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the
slowest available output device (compare {core dump}), and most
especially one consisting of hex or octal {runes} describing the
byte-by-byte state of memory, mass storage, or some file. In {elder
days}, debugging was generally done by `groveling over' a dump
(see {grovel}); increasing use of high-level languages and
interactive debuggers has made this uncommon, and the term `dump'
now has a faintly archaic flavor. 2. A backup. This usage is
typical only at large timesharing installations.
dup killer: /d[y]oop kill'r/ [FidoNet] n. Software that is
supposed to detect and delete duplicates of a message that may
have reached the FidoNet system via different routes.
dup loop: /d[y]oop loop/ (also `dupe loop') [FidoNet] n. An
incorrectly configured system or network gateway may propagate
duplicate messages on one or more {echo}es, with different
identification information that renders {dup killer}s
ineffective. If such a duplicate message eventually reaches a
system through which it has already passed (with the original
identification information), all systems passed on the way back to
that system are said to be involved in a {dup loop}.
dusty deck: n. Old software (especially applications) which one is
obliged to remain compatible with (or to maintain). The term
implies that the software in question is a holdover from card-punch
days. Used esp. when referring to old scientific and
{number-crunching} software, much of which was written in FORTRAN
and very poorly documented but is believed to be too expensive to
replace. See {fossil}.
DWIM: /dwim/ [acronym, `Do What I Mean'] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes
even correctly, the result intended when bogus input was provided.
2. n.,obs. The BBNLISP/INTERLISP function that attempted to
accomplish this feat by correcting many of the more common errors.
See {hairy}. 3. Occasionally, an interjection hurled at a
balky computer, esp. when one senses one might be tripping over
legalisms (see {legalese}).
Warren Teitelman originally wrote DWIM to fix his typos and
spelling errors, so it was somewhat idiosyncratic to his style, and
would often make hash of anyone else's typos if they were
stylistically different. This led a number of victims of DWIM to
claim the acronym stood for `Damn Warren's Infernal Machine!'.
In one notorious incident, Warren added a DWIM feature to the
command interpreter used at Xerox PARC. One day another hacker
there typed `delete *$' to free up some disk space. (The editor
there named backup files by appending `$' to the original file
name, so he was trying to delete any backup files left over from
old editing sessions.) It happened that there weren't any editor
backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported `*$ not found, assuming
you meant 'delete *'.' It then started to delete all the files on
the disk! The hacker managed to stop it with a {Vulcan nerve
pinch} after only a half dozen or so files were lost.
The hacker later said he had been sorely tempted to go to Warren's
office, tie Warren down in his chair in front of his workstation,
and then type `delete *$' twice.
DWIM is often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex
program; it is also occasionally described as the single
instruction the ideal computer would have. Back when proofs of
program correctness were in vogue, there were also jokes about
`DWIMC' (Do What I Mean, Correctly). A related term, more often
seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right Thing); see {Right Thing}.
dynner: /din'r/ 32 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and
{{byte}}. Usage: rare and extremely silly. See also {playte},
{tayste}, {crumb}.
= E =
earthquake: [IBM] n. The ultimate real-world shock test for
computer hardware. Hackish sources at IBM deny the rumor that the
Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test
quality-assurance procedures at its California plants.
Easter egg: n. 1. A message hidden in the object code of a program
as a joke, intended to be found by persons disassembling or
browsing the code. 2. A message, graphic, or sound effect emitted
by a program (or, on a PC, the BIOS ROM) in response to some
undocumented set of commands or keystrokes, intended as a joke or
to display program credits. One well-known early Easter egg found
in a couple of OSes caused them to respond to the command
`make love' with `not war?'. Many personal computers
have much more elaborate eggs hidden in ROM, including lists of the
developers' names, political exhortations, snatches of music, and
(in one case) graphics images of the entire development team.
Easter egging: [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated parts more or
less at random in hopes that a malfunction will go away. Hackers
consider this the normal operating mode of {field circus} techs and
do not love them for it. Compare {shotgun debugging}.
eat flaming death: imp. A construction popularized among hackers by
the infamous {CPU Wars} comic; supposed to derive from a famously
turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran
"Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort
(however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's
1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the
phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been
an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of
hostility. "Eat flaming death, {{EBCDIC}} users!"
EBCDIC:: /eb's*-dik/, /eb'see`dik/, or /eb'k*-dik/ [acronym,
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code] n. An alleged
character set used on IBM {dinosaur}s. It exists in at least six
mutually incompatible versions, all featuring such delights as
non-contiguous letter sequences and the absence of several ASCII
punctuation characters fairly important for modern computer
languages (exactly which characters are absent varies according to
which version of EBCDIC you're looking at). IBM adapted EBCDIC
from {{punched card}} code in the early 1960s and promulgated it
as a customer-control tactic (see {connector conspiracy}),
spurning the already established ASCII standard. Today, IBM claims
to be an open-systems company, but IBM's own description of the
EBCDIC variants and how to convert between them is still internally
classified top-secret, burn-before-reading. Hackers blanch at the
very *name* of EBCDIC and consider it a manifestation of
purest {evil}. See also {fear and loathing}.
echo: [FidoNet] n. A {topic group} on {FidoNet}'s echomail
system. Compare {newsgroup}.
eighty-column mind: [IBM] n. The sort said to be possessed by
persons for whom the transition from {punched card} to tape was
traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said
that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder
of IBM, will be buried `face down, 9-edge first' (the 9-edge being
the bottom of the card). This directive is inscribed on IBM's
1422 and 1602 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of
doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which
are as follows:
He died at the console
Of hunger and thirst.
Next day he was buried,
Face down, 9-edge first.
The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's
customer base and its thinking. See {IBM}, {fear and
loathing}, {card walloper}.
El Camino Bignum: /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ n. The road
mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco
peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City
and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San
Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real,
which defines {logical} north and south even though it isn't
really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past
Stanford University and so is familiar to hackers.
The Spanish word `real' (which has two syllables: /ray-ahl'/)
means `royal'; El Camino Real is `the royal road'. In the FORTRAN
language, a `real' quantity is a number typically precise to 7
significant digits, and a `double precision' quantity is a larger
floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant
digits (other languages have similar `real' types).
When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a
long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on `real', he started
calling it `El Camino Double Precision' --- but when the hacker
was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it
`El Camino Bignum', and that name has stuck. (See {bignum}.)
elder days: n. The heroic age of hackerdom (roughly, pre-1980); the
era of the {PDP-10}, {TECO}, {{ITS}}, and the ARPANET. This
term has been rather consciously adopted from J. R. R. Tolkien's
fantasy epic `The Lord of the Rings'. Compare {Iron Age};
see also {elvish}.
elegant: [from mathematical usage] adj. Combining simplicity, power,
and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than
`clever', `winning', or even {cuspy}.
elephantine: adj. Used of programs or systems that are both
conspicuous {hog}s (owing perhaps to poor design founded on
{brute force and ignorance}) and exceedingly {hairy} in source
form. An elephantine program may be functional and even friendly,
but (as in the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's
tough to have around all the same (and, like a pachyderm, difficult
to maintain). In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make
trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the
mention of the offending program. Usage: semi-humorous. Compare
`has the elephant nature' and the somewhat more pejorative
{monstrosity}. See also {second-system effect} and
{baroque}.
elevator controller: n. Another archetypal dumb embedded-systems
application, like {toaster} (which superseded it). During one
period (1983--84) in the deliberations of ANSI X3J11 (the
C standardization committee) this was the canonical example of a
really stupid, memory-limited computation environment. "You can't
require `printf(3)' to be part of the default runtime library
--- what if you're targeting an elevator controller?" Elevator
controllers became important rhetorical weapons on both sides of
several {holy wars}.
ELIZA effect: /*-li:'z* *-fekt'/ [AI community] n. The tendency of
humans to attach associations to terms from prior experience.
For example, there is nothing magic about the symbol `+' that
makes it well-suited to indicate addition; it's just that people
associate it with addition. Using `+' or `plus' to mean addition
in a computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA effect.
This term comes from the famous ELIZA program, which simulated a
Rogerian psychoanalyst by rephrasing many of the patient's
statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It worked
by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words into
canned phrases. It was so convincing, however, that there are many
anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in
dealing with ELIZA. All this was due to people's tendency to
attach to words meanings which the computer never put there. The
ELIZA effect is a {Good Thing} when writing a programming
language, but it can blind you to serious shortcomings when
analyzing an Artificial Intelligence system. Compare
{ad-hockery}; see also {AI-complete}.
elvish: n. 1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms
resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the `Book
of Kells'. Invented and described by J. R. R. Tolkien
in `The Lord of The Rings' as an orthography for his fictional
`elvish' languages, this system (which is both visually and
phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend to be
interested by artificial languages in general). It is traditional
for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and the like to
support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items. See also
{elder days}. 2. By extension, any odd or unreadable typeface
produced by a graphics device. 3. The typeface mundanely called
`B"ocklin', an art-decoish display font.
EMACS: /ee'maks/ [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of
hacker editors, a program editor with an entire LISP system inside
it. It was originally written by Richard Stallman in {TECO}
under {{ITS}} at the MIT AI lab, but the most widely used versions
now run under UNIX. It includes facilities to run compilation
subprocesses and send and receive mail; many hackers spend up to
80% of their {tube time} inside it.
Some versions running under window managers iconify as an
overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the
editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too
heavyweight and {baroque} for their taste, and expand the name as
`Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy reliance on
keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}. Other spoof expansions
include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping', `Eventually
`malloc()'s All Computer Storage', and `EMACS Makes A Computer
Slow' (see {{recursive acronym}}). See also {vi}.
email: /ee'mayl/ 1. n. Electronic mail automatically passed
through computer networks and/or via modems over common-carrier
lines. Contrast {snail-mail}, {paper-net}, {voice-net}. See
{network address}. 2. vt. To send electronic mail.
Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it
means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work".
A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French
`emmailleure', network.
emoticon: /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an
emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but
only a few are in common use. These include:
:-)
`smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness,
occasionally sarcasm)
:-(
`frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)
;-)
`half-smiley' ({ha ha only serious});
also known as `semi-smiley' or `winkey face'.
:-/
`wry face'
(These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head
sideways, to the left.)
The first 2 listed are by far the most frequently encountered.
Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX;
see also {bixie}. On {USENET}, `smiley' is often used as a
generic term synonymous with {emoticon}, as well as specifically
for the happy-face emoticon.
It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on
the CMU {bboard} systems around 1980. He later wrote: "I wish I
had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for
posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that
would soon pollute all the world's communication channels." [GLS
confirms that he remembers this original posting].
Note for the {newbie}: Overuse of the smiley is a mark of
loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that
you've gone over the line.
empire: n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a
game written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are five or six
multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, and one
single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS; the latter is
even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive.
engine: n. 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function
but can't be used without some kind of {front end}. Today we
have, especially, `print engine': the guts of a laser printer.
2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a lot
of noisy crunching, such as a `database engine'.
The hackish senses of `engine' are actually close to its original,
pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or
instrument (the word is cognate to `ingenuity'). This sense had
not been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of
power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which
explains why he named the stored-program computer that
he designed in 1844 the `Analytical Engine'.
English: 1. n.,obs. The source code for a program, which may be in
any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary
produced from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that
to a real hacker, a program written in his favorite programming
language is at least as readable as English. Usage: used mostly by
old-time hackers, though recognizable in context. 2. The official
name of the database language used by the Pick Operating System,
actually a sort of crufty interpreted BASIC with delusions of
grandeur. The name permits {marketroid}s to say "Yes, and you
can program our computers in English!" to ignorant {suit}s
without quite running afoul of the truth-in-advertising laws.
enhancement: n. {Marketroid}-speak for a bug {fix}. This abuse
of language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence
into increased revenue. A hacker being ironic would instead call
the fix a {feature} --- or perhaps save some effort by declaring
the bug itself to be a feature.
ENQ: /enkw/ or /enk/ [from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for
0000101] An on-line convention for querying someone's availability.
After opening a {talk mode} connection to someone apparently in
heavy hack mode, one might type `SYN SYN ENQ?' (the SYNs
representing notional synchronization bytes), and expect a return
of {ACK} or {NAK} depending on whether or not the person felt
interruptible. Compare {ping}, {finger}, and the usage of
`FOO?' listed under {talk mode}.
EOF: /E-O-F/ [acronym, `End Of File'] n. 1. [techspeak] Refers
esp. to whatever {out-of-band} value is returned by
C's sequential character-input functions (and their equivalents in
other environments) when end of file has been reached. This value
is -1 under C libraries postdating V6 UNIX, but was
originally 0. 2. Used by extension in non-computer contexts when a
human is doing something that can be modeled as a sequential read
and can't go further. "Yeah, I looked for a list of 360 mnemonics
to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast; all the library had
was a {JCL} manual." See also {EOL}.
EOL: /E-O-L/ [End Of Line] n. Syn. for {newline}, derived
perhaps from the original CDC6600 Pascal. Now rare, but widely
recognized and occasionally used for brevity. Used in the
example entry under {BNF}. See also {EOF}.
EOU: /E-O-U/ n. The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control
character (End Of User) that could make an ASR-33 Teletype explode
on receipt. This parodied the numerous obscure delimiter and
control characters left in ASCII from the days when it was
associated more with wire-service teletypes than computers (e.g.,
FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and esp. EOT). It is worth
remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical beasts with a
lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might explode was
nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone sitting in
front of a {tube} or flatscreen today.
epoch: [UNIX: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] n. The time and
date corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and
timestamp values. Under most UNIX versions the epoch is 00:00:00
GMT, January 1, 1970. System time is measured in seconds or
{tick}s past the epoch. Weird problems may ensue when the clock
wraps around (see {wrap around}), which is not necessarily a
rare event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed
32-bit count of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The
1-tick-per-second clock of UNIX is good only until January 18,
2038, assuming word lengths don't increase by then. See also
{wall time}.
epsilon: [see {delta}] 1. n. A small quantity of anything. "The
cost is epsilon." 2. adj. Very small, negligible; less than
{marginal}. "We can get this feature for epsilon cost."
3. `within epsilon of': close enough to be indistinguishable for
all practical purposes. This is even closer than being `within
delta of'. "That's not what I asked for, but it's within
epsilon of what I wanted." Alternatively, it may mean not close
enough, but very little is required to get it there: "My program
is within epsilon of working."
epsilon squared: n. A quantity even smaller than {epsilon}, as
small in comparison to epsilon as epsilon is to something normal;
completely negligible. If you buy a supercomputer for a million
dollars, the cost of the thousand-dollar terminal to go with it is
{epsilon}, and the cost of the ten-dollar cable to connect them
is epsilon squared. Compare {lost in the underflow}, {lost
in the noise}.
era, the: Syn. {epoch}. Webster's Unabridged makes these words
almost synonymous, but `era' usually connotes a span of time rather
than a point in time. The {epoch} usage is recommended.
Eric Conspiracy: n. A shadowy group of mustachioed hackers named
Eric first pinpointed as a sinister conspiracy by an infamous
talk.bizarre posting ca. 1986; this was doubtless influenced by the
numerous `Eric' jokes in the Monty Python oeuvre. There do indeed
seem to be considerably more mustachioed Erics in hackerdom than
the frequency of these three traits can account for unless they are
correlated in some arcane way. Well-known examples include Eric
Allman (he of the `Allman style' described under {indent style})
and Erik Fair (co-author of NNTP); your editor has heard from about
fourteen others by email, and the organization line `Eric
Conspiracy Secret Laboratories' now emanates regularly from more
than one site.
Eris: /e'ris/ n. The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion,
and Things You Know Not Of; her name was latinized to Discordia and
she was worshiped by that name in Rome. Not a very friendly deity
in the Classical original, she was reinvented as a more benign
personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the
adherents of {Discordianism} and has since been a semi-serious
subject of veneration in several `fringe' cultures, including
hackerdom. See {Discordianism}, {Church of the SubGenius}.
erotics: /ee-ro'tiks/ n. [Helsinki University of Technology,
Finland] n. English-language university slang for electronics.
Often used by hackers in Helsinki, maybe because good electronics
excites them and makes them warm.
essentials: n. Things necessary to maintain a productive and secure
hacking environment. "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a
20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte disk
supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP
via a 'blazer to a friendly Internet site, and thou."
evil: adj. As used by hackers, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not
worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the
{cretinous}/{losing}/{brain-damaged} series, `evil' does not
imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or
design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This is
more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the
mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a {Blue Glue}
interface but decided it was too evil to deal with." "{TECO}
is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos."
Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/.
exa-: /ek's*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
examining the entrails: n. The process of {grovel}ling through a
core dump or hex image in the attempt to discover the bug that
brought a program or system down. Compare {runes},
{incantation}, {black art}, {desk check}.
EXCH: /eks'ch*/ or /eksch/ vt. To exchange two things, each for the
other; to swap places. If you point to two people sitting down and
say "Exch!", you are asking them to trade places. EXCH,
meaning EXCHange, was originally the name of a PDP-10 instruction
that exchanged the contents of a register and a memory location.
Many newer hackers tend to be thinking instead of the PostScript
exchange operator (which is usually written in lowercase).
excl: /eks'kl/ n. Abbreviation for `exclamation point'. See
{bang}, {shriek}, {{ASCII}}.
EXE: /eks'ee/ or /eek'see/ or /E-X-E/ n. An executable
binary file. Some operating systems (notably MS-DOS, VMS, and
TWENEX) use the extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage is
also occasionally found among UNIX programmers even though UNIX
executables don't have any required suffix.
exec: /eg-zek'/ vt.,n. 1. [UNIX: from `execute'] Synonym for
{chain}, derives from the `exec(2)' call. 2. [from
`executive'] obs. The command interpreter for an {OS} (see
{shell}); term esp. used around mainframes, and prob. derived from
UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC 8 operating systems. 3. At IBM,
the equivalent of a shell command file (among VM/CMS users).
The mainstream `exec' as an abbreviation for (human) executive is
*not* used. To a hacker, an `exec' is a always a program,
never a person.
exercise, left as an: [from technical books] Used to complete a
proof when one doesn't mind a {handwave}, or to avoid one
entirely. The complete phrase is: "The proof (or the rest) is left as
an exercise for the reader." This comment *has* occasionally
been attached to unsolved research problems by authors possessed of
either an evil sense of humor or a vast faith in the capabilities
of their audiences.
eyeball search: n. To look for something in a mass of code or data
with one's own native optical sensors, as opposed to using some
sort of pattern matching software like {grep} or any other
automated search tool. Also called a {vgrep}; compare
{vdiff}, {desk check}.
= F =
fab: /fab/ [from `fabricate'] v. 1. To produce chips from a
design that may have been created by someone at another company.
Fabbing chips based on the designs of others is the activity of a
{silicon foundry}. To a hacker, `fab' is practically never short
for `fabulous'. 2. `fab line': the production system
(lithography, diffusion, etching, etc.) for chips at a chip
manufacturer. Different `fab lines' are run with different
process parameters, die sizes, or technologies, or simply to
provide more manufacturing volume.
face time: n. Time spent interacting with somebody face-to-face (as
opposed to via electronic links). "Oh, yeah, I spent some face
time with him at the last Usenix."
factor: n. See {coefficient}.
fall over: [IBM] vi. Yet another synonym for {crash} or {lose}.
`Fall over hard' equates to {crash and burn}.
fall through: v. (n. `fallthrough', var. `fall-through') 1. To
exit a loop by exhaustion, i.e., by having fulfilled its exit
condition rather than via a break or exception condition that exits
from the middle of it. This usage appears to be *really* old,
dating from the 1940s and 1950s. 2. To fail a test that would have
passed control to a subroutine or some other distant portion of code.
3. In C, `fall-through' occurs when the flow of execution in a
switch statement reaches a `case' label other than by jumping
there from the switch header, passing a point where one would
normally expect to find a `break'. A trivial example:
switch (color)
{
case GREEN:
do_green();
break;
case PINK:
do_pink();
/* FALL THROUGH */
case RED:
do_red();
break;
default:
do_blue();
break;
}
The variant spelling `/* FALL THRU */' is also common.
The effect of this code is to `do_green()' when color is
`GREEN', `do_red()' when color is `RED',
`do_blue()' on any other color other than `PINK', and
(and this is the important part) `do_pink()' *and then*
`do_red()' when color is `PINK'. Fall-through is
{considered harmful} by some, though there are contexts (such as
the coding of state machines) in which it is natural; it is
generally considered good practice to include a comment
highlighting the fall-through where one would normally expect a
break.
fandango on core: [UNIX/C hackers, from the Mexican dance] n.
In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a {core
dump}, or corrupts the `malloc(3)' {arena} in such a way as
to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have
`done a fandango on core'. On low-end personal machines without an
MMU, this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage.
Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may
be substituted. See {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage},
{smash the stack}, {memory leak}, {overrun screw},
{core}.
FAQ list: /F-A-Q list/ [USENET] n. A compendium of accumulated
lore, posted periodically to high-volume newsgroups in an attempt
to forestall Frequently Asked Questions. This lexicon itself
serves as a good example of a collection of one kind of lore,
although it is far too big for a regular posting. Examples: "What
is the proper type of NULL?" and "What's that funny name for
the `#' character?" are both Frequently Asked Questions.
Several extant FAQ lists do (or should) make reference to the
Jargon File (the on-line version of this lexicon).
FAQL: /fa'kl/ n. Syn. {FAQ list}.
farming: [Adelaide University, Australia] n. What the heads of a
disk drive are said to do when they plow little furrows in the
magnetic media. Associated with a {crash}. Typically used as
follows: "Oh no, the machine has just crashed; I hope the hard
drive hasn't gone {farming} again."
fascist: adj. 1. Said of a computer system with excessive or
annoying security barriers, usage limits, or access policies. The
implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from
getting interesting work done. The variant `fascistic' seems
to have been preferred at MIT, poss. by analogy with
`touristic' (see {tourist}). 2. In the design of languages
and other software tools, `the fascist alternative' is the most
restrictive and structured way of capturing a particular function;
the implication is that this may be desirable in order to simplify
the implementation or provide tighter error checking. Compare
{bondage-and-discipline language}, but that term is global rather
than local.
faulty: adj. Non-functional; buggy. Same denotation as
{bletcherous}, {losing}, q.v., but the connotation is much
milder.
fd leak: /ef dee leek/ n. A kind of programming bug analogous to a
{core leak}, in which a program fails to close file descriptors
(`fd's) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually
runs out of them. See {leak}.
fear and loathing: [from Hunter Thompson] n. A state inspired by the
prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards
that are totally {brain-damaged} but ubiquitous --- Intel 8086s,
or {COBOL}, or {{EBCDIC}}, or any {IBM} machine except the
Rios (a.k.a. the RS/6000). "Ack! They want PCs to be able to
talk to the AI machine. Fear and loathing time!"
feature: n. 1. A good property or behavior (as of a program).
Whether it was intended or not is immaterial. 2. An intended
property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it is good or not
is immaterial (but if bad, it is also a {misfeature}). 3. A
surprising property or behavior; in particular, one that is
purposely inconsistent because it works better that way --- such an
inconsistency is therefore a {feature} and not a {bug}. This
kind of feature is sometimes called a {miswart}; see that entry
for a classic example. 4. A property or behavior that is
gratuitous or unnecessary, though perhaps also impressive or cute.
For example, one feature of Common LISP's `format' function is
the ability to print numbers in two different Roman-numeral formats
(see {bells, whistles, and gongs}). 5. A property or behavior
that was put in to help someone else but that happens to be in your
way. 6. A bug that has been documented. To call something a
feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider
the particular case, and that the program responded in a way that was
unexpected but not strictly incorrect. A standard joke is that a
bug can be turned into a {feature} simply by documenting it
(then theoretically no one can complain about it because it's in
the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good. "That's
not a bug, that's a feature!" is a common catchphrase. See also
{feetch feetch}, {creeping featurism}, {wart}, {green
lightning}.
The relationship among bugs, features, misfeatures, warts, and
miswarts might be clarified by the following hypothetical exchange
between two hackers on an airliner:
A: "This seat doesn't recline."
B: "That's not a bug, that's a feature. There is an emergency
exit door built around the window behind you, and the route has to
be kept clear."
A: "Oh. Then it's a misfeature; they should have increased the
spacing between rows here."
B: "Yes. But if they'd increased spacing in only one section it
would have been a wart --- they would've had to make
nonstandard-length ceiling panels to fit over the displaced
seats."
A: "A miswart, actually. If they increased spacing throughout
they'd lose several rows and a chunk out of the profit margin. So
unequal spacing would actually be the Right Thing."
B: "Indeed."
{Undocumented feature} is a common, allegedly humorous euphemism
for a {bug}.
feature creature: [poss. fr. slang `creature feature' for a horror
movie] n. One who loves to add features to designs or programs,
perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, or {taste}. See
also {feeping creaturism}, {creeping featurism}.
feature shock: [from Alvin Toffler's book title `Future
Shock'] n. A user's (or programmer's!) confusion when confronted
with a package that has too many features and poor introductory
material.
featurectomy: /fee`ch*r-ek't*-mee/ n. The act of removing a
feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavors, the
`righteous' and the `reluctant'. Righteous featurectomies are
performed because the remover believes the program would be more
elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and
better way to achieve the same end. (This is not quite the same
thing as removing a {misfeature}.) Reluctant featurectomies are
performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or
execution speed.
feep: /feep/ 1. n. The soft electronic `bell' sound of a
display terminal (except for a VT-52); a beep (in fact, the
microcomputer world seems to prefer {beep}). 2. vi. To cause
the display to make a feep sound. ASR-33s (the original TTYs) do
not feep; they have mechanical bells that ring. Alternate forms:
{beep}, `bleep', or just about anything suitably
onomatopoeic. (Jeff MacNelly, in his comic strip "Shoe", uses
the word `eep' for sounds made by computer terminals and video
games; this is perhaps the closest written approximation yet.) The
term `breedle' was sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal
bleepers are not particularly soft (they sound more like the
musical equivalent of a raspberry or Bronx cheer; for a close
approximation, imagine the sound of a Star Trek communicator's beep
lasting for 5 seconds). The `feeper' on a VT-52 has been
compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears. See also
{ding}.
feeper: /fee'pr/ n. The device in a terminal or workstation (usually
a loudspeaker of some kind) that makes the {feep} sound.
feeping creature: [from {feeping creaturism}] n. An unnecessary
feature; a bit of {chrome} that, in the speaker's judgment, is
the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.
feeping creaturism: /fee'ping kree`ch*r-izm/ n. A deliberate
spoonerism for {creeping featurism}, meant to imply that the
system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of
hacks. This term isn't really well defined, but it sounds so neat
that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced
by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their
customary noises.
feetch feetch: /feech feech/ interj. If someone tells you about
some new improvement to a program, you might respond: "Feetch,
feetch!" The meaning of this depends critically on vocal
inflection. With enthusiasm, it means something like "Boy, that's
great! What a great hack!" Grudgingly or with obvious doubt, it
means "I don't know; it sounds like just one more unnecessary and
complicated thing". With a tone of resignation, it means, "Well,
I'd rather keep it simple, but I suppose it has to be done".
fence: n. 1. A sequence of one or more distinguished
({out-of-band}) characters (or other data items), used to
delimit a piece of data intended to be treated as a unit (the
computer-science literature calls this a `sentinel'). The NUL
(ASCII 0000000) character that terminates strings in C is a fence.
Hex FF is probably the most common fence character after NUL. See
{zigamorph}. 2. [among users of optimizing compilers] Any
technique, usually exploiting knowledge about the compiler, that
blocks certain optimizations. Used when explicit mechanisms are
not available or are overkill. Typically a hack: "I call a dummy
procedure there to force a flush of the optimizer's
register-coloring info" can be expressed by the shorter "That's a
fence procedure".
fencepost error: n. 1. A problem with the discrete equivalent of a
boundary condition. Often exhibited in programs by iterative
loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet
long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?"
Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10. For
example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want
to process items m through n; how many items are there? The
obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right
answer is n - m + 1. A program that used the `obvious'
formula would have a fencepost error in it. See also {zeroth}
and {off-by-one error}, and note that not all off-by-one errors
are fencepost errors. The game of Musical Chairs involves a
catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in
N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error. Fencepost
errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between
them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one
should count one or both ends of a row. 2. Occasionally, an error
induced by unexpectedly regular spacing of inputs, which can (for
instance) screw up your hash table.
fepped out: /fept owt/ adj. The Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine has a
Front-End Processor called a `FEP' (compare sense 2 of {box}).
When the main processor gets {wedged}, the FEP takes control of
the keyboard and screen. Such a machine is said to have
`fepped out'.
FidoNet: n. A worldwide hobbyist network of personal computers
which exchange mail, discussion groups, and files. Founded in 1984
and originally consisting only of IBM PCs and compatibles, FidoNet
now includes such diverse machines as Apple ][s, Ataris, Amigas,
and UNIX systems. Though it is much younger than {USENET},
FidoNet is already (in early 1991) a significant fraction of
USENET's size at some 8000 systems.
field circus: [a derogatory pun on `field service'] n. The field
service organization of any hardware manufacturer, but especially
DEC. There is an entire genre of jokes about DEC field circus
engineers:
Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
with a flat tire?
A: He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.
Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
who is out of gas?
A: He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.
There is also the `Field Circus Cheer' (from the {plan file} for
DEC on MIT-AI):
Maynard! Maynard!
Don't mess with us!
We're mean and we're tough!
If you get us confused
We'll screw up your stuff.
(DEC's service HQ is located in Maynard, Massachusetts.)
field servoid: [play on `android'] /fee'ld ser'voyd/ n.
Representative of a field service organization (see {field
circus}). This has many of the implications of {droid}.
Fight-o-net: [FidoNet] n. Deliberate distortion of {FidoNet},
often applied after a flurry of {flamage} in a particular
{echo}, especially the SYSOP echo or Fidonews (see {'Snooze}).
File Attach: [FidoNet] 1. n. A file sent along with a mail message
from one BBS to another. 2. vt. Sending someone a file by using
the File Attach option in a BBS mailer.
File Request: [FidoNet] 1. n. The {FidoNet} equivalent of
{FTP}, in which one BBS system automatically dials another and
{snarf}s one or more files. Files are often announced as being
"available for {FReq}" in the same way that files are announced
as being "available for/by anonymous FTP" on the Internet.
2. vt. The act of getting a copy of a file by using the File
Request option of the BBS mailer.
filk: /filk/ [from SF fandom, where a typo for `folk' was
adopted as a new word] n.,v. A `filk' is a popular or folk song
with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous
effect when read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions.
There is a flourishing subgenre of these called `computer filks',
written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated
technical humor. See {double bucky} for an example.
film at 11: [MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] Used in conversation
to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that
these events are earth-shattering. "{{ITS}} crashes; film at 11."
"Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."
filter: [orig. {{UNIX}}, now also in {{MS-DOS}}] n. A program that
processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some
well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly
on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a
`pipeline' (see {plumbing}).
Finagle's Law: n. The generalized or `folk' version of
{Murphy's Law}, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic
Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong,
will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of
the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also {Hanlon's
Razor}). The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author
Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of
asteroid miners; this `Belter' culture professed a religion
and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle
and his mad prophet Murphy.
fine: [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be {cuspy}. The word
`fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit
comparison to the higher level implied by {cuspy}.
finger: [WAITS, via BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a
particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote
system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time,
terminal line, and terminal location (where applicable). May also
display a {plan file} left by the user. 2. vt. To apply finger
to a username. 3. vt. By extension, to check a human's current
state by any means. "Foodp?" "T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see
if she's idle." 4. Any picture (composed of ASCII characters)
depicting `the finger'. Originally a humorous component of one's
plan file to deter the curious fingerer (sense 2), it has entered
the arsenal of some {flamer}s.
finger-pointing syndrome: n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp.
in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points
a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger
at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger.
firebottle: n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical
device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass,
metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low
reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power
dissipation. Sometimes mistakenly called a `tube' in the U.S.
or a `valve' in England; another hackish term is {glassfet}.
firefighting: n. 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden
operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your
new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent
the whole afternoon fighting fires." 2. The act of throwing lots
of manpower and late nights at a project, esp. to get it out
before deadline. See also {gang bang}, {Mongolian Hordes
technique}; however, the term `firefighting' connotes that the
effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.
firewall code: n. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone
switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since
users always want to be able to do everything but never want to
suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a firewall is a
question not only of defensive coding but also of interface
presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those
corners of a system where they can burn themselves.
firewall machine: n. A dedicated gateway machine with special
security precautions on it, used to service outside network
connections and dial-in lines. The idea is to protect a cluster of
more loosely administered machines hidden behind it from
{cracker}s. The typical firewall is an inexpensive micro-based
UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and
public network ports on it but just one carefully watched
connection back to the rest of the cluster. The special
precautions may include threat monitoring, callback, and even a
complete {iron box} keyable to particular incoming IDs or
activity patterns. Syn. {flytrap}, {Venus flytrap}.
fireworks mode: n. The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when
it is performing a {crash and burn} operation.
firmy: /fer'mee/ Syn. {stiffy} (a 3.5-inch floppy disk).
fish: [Adelaide University, Australia] n. 1. Another metasyntactic
variable. See {foo}. Derived originally from the Monty Python
skit in the middle of "The Meaning of Life" entitled "Find the
Fish". 2. A pun for `microfiche'. A microfiche file cabinet may be
referred to as a `fish tank'.
FISH queue: [acronym, by analogy with FIFO (First In, First Out)]
n. `First In, Still Here'. A joking way of pointing out that
processing of a particular sequence of events or requests has
stopped dead. Also `FISH mode' and `FISHnet'; the latter
may be applied to any network that is running really slowly or
exhibiting extreme flakiness.
fix: n.,v. What one does when a problem has been reported too many
times to be ignored.
flag: n. A variable or quantity that can take on one of two
values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two
outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done.
"This flag controls whether to clear the screen before printing
the message." "The program status word contains several flag
bits." Used of humans analogously to {bit}. See also
{hidden flag}, {mode bit}.
flag day: n. A software change that is neither forward- nor
backward-compatible, and which is costly to make and costly to
reverse. "Can we install that without causing a flag day for all
users?" This term has nothing to do with the use of the word
{flag} to mean a variable that has two values. It came into use
when a massive change was made to the {{Multics}} timesharing
system to convert from the old ASCII code to the new one; this was
scheduled for Flag Day (a U.S. holiday), June 14, 1966. See also
{backward combatability}.
flaky: adj. (var sp. `flakey') Subject to frequent {lossage}.
This use is of course related to the common slang use of the word
to describe a person as eccentric, crazy, or just unreliable. A
system that is flaky is working, sort of --- enough that you are
tempted to try to use it --- but fails frequently enough that the
odds in favor of finishing what you start are low. Commonwealth
hackish prefers {dodgy} or {wonky}.
flamage: /flay'm*j/ n. Flaming verbiage, esp. high-noise,
low-signal postings to {USENET} or other electronic {fora}.
Often in the phrase `the usual flamage'. `Flaming' is the act
itself; `flamage' the content; a `flame' is a single flaming
message. See {flame}.
flame: 1. vi. To post an email message intended to insult and
provoke. 2. vi. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some
relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous
attitude. 3. vt. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with
hostility at a particular person or people. 4. n. An instance of
flaming. When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy,
one might tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or
"Stop all that flamage!" to try to get them to cool down (so to
speak).
USENETter Marc Ramsey, who was at WPI from 1972 to 1976, adds: "I
am 99% certain that the use of `flame' originated at WPI. Those
who made a nuisance of themselves insisting that they needed to use
a TTY for `real work' came to be known as `flaming asshole lusers'.
Other particularly annoying people became `flaming asshole ravers',
which shortened to `flaming ravers', and ultimately `flamers'. I
remember someone picking up on the Human Torch pun, but I don't
think `flame on/off' was ever much used at WPI." See also
{asbestos}.
The term may have been independently invented at several different
places; it is also reported that `flaming' was in use to mean
something like `interminably drawn-out semi-serious discussions'
(late-night bull sessions) at Carleton College during 1968--1971.
flame bait: n. A posting intended to trigger a {flame war}, or one
that invites flames in reply.
flame on: vi.,interj. 1. To begin to {flame}. The punning
reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer widely
recognized. 2. To continue to flame. See {rave}, {burble}.
flame war: n. (var. `flamewar') An acrimonious dispute,
especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as
{USENET}.
flamer: n. One who habitually {flame}s. Said esp. of obnoxious
{USENET} personalities.
flap: vt. 1. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap,
flap...). Old-time hackers at MIT tell of the days when the
disk was device 0 and {microtape}s were 1, 2,... and
attempting to flap device 0 would instead start a motor banging
inside a cabinet near the disk. 2. By extension, to unload any
magnetic tape. See also {macrotape}. Modern cartridge tapes no
longer actually flap, but the usage has remained.
flarp: /flarp/ [Rutgers University] n. Yet another metasyntactic
variable (see {foo}). Among those who use it, it is associated
with a legend that any program not containing the word `flarp'
somewhere will not work. The legend is discreetly silent on the
reliability of programs which *do* contain the magic word.
flat: adj. 1. Lacking any complex internal structure. "That
{bitty box} has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical
one." The verb form is {flatten}. 2. Said of a memory
architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big linear
address space (typically with each possible value of a processor
register corresponding to a unique core address), as opposed to a
`segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in which
addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair (segmented
designs are generally considered {cretinous}).
flat-ASCII: adj. Said of a text file that contains only 7-bit ASCII
characters and uses only ASCII-standard control characters (that
is, has no embedded codes specific to a particular text formatter
or markup language, and no {meta}-characters). Syn.
{plain-ASCII}. Compare {flat-file}.
flat-file: adj. A {flatten}ed representation of some database or
tree or network structure as a single file from which the
structure could implicitly be rebuilt, esp. one in {flat-ASCII}
form.
flatten: vt. To remove structural information, esp. to filter
something with an implicit tree structure into a simple sequence of
leaves; also tends to imply mapping to {flat-ASCII}. "This code
flattens an expression with parentheses into an equivalent
{canonical} form."
flavor: n. 1. Variety, type, kind. "DDT commands come in two
flavors." "These lights come in two flavors, big red ones and
small green ones." See {vanilla}. 2. The attribute that causes
something to be {flavorful}. Usually used in the phrase "yields
additional flavor". "This convention yields additional flavor by
allowing one to print text either right-side-up or upside-down."
See {vanilla}. This usage was certainly reinforced by the
terminology of quantum chromodynamics, in which quarks (the
constituents of, e.g., protons) come in six flavors (up, down,
strange, charm, top, bottom) and three colors (red, blue, green)
--- however, hackish use of `flavor' at MIT predated QCD. 3. The
term for `class' (in the object-oriented sense) in the LISP Machine
Flavors system. Though the Flavors design has been superseded
(notably by the Common LISP CLOS facility), the term `flavor' is
still used as a general synonym for `class' by some LISP hackers.
flavorful: adj. Full of {flavor}; esthetically pleasing. See
{random} and {losing} for antonyms. See also the entries for
{taste} and {elegant}.
flippy: /flip'ee/ n. A single-sided floppy disk altered for
double-sided use by addition of a second write-notch, so called
because it must be flipped over for the second side to be
accessible. No longer common.
flowchart:: [techspeak] n. An archaic form of visual control-flow
specification employing arrows and `speech balloons' of various
shapes. Hackers never use flowcharts, consider them extremely
silly, and associate them with {COBOL} programmers, {card
walloper}s, and other lower forms of life. This is because (from a
hacker's point of view) they are no easier to read than code, are
less precise, and tend to fall out of sync with the code (so that
they either obfuscate it rather than explaining it or require
extra maintenance effort that doesn't improve the code). See also
{pdl}, sense 3.
flower key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.
flush: v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous, or to abort
an operation. "All that nonsense has been flushed." 2. [UNIX/C]
To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an `fflush(3)' call.
This is *not* an abort or deletion as in sense 1, but a
demand for early completion! 3. To leave at the end of a day's
work (as opposed to leaving for a meal). "I'm going to flush
now." "Time to flush." 4. To exclude someone from an activity,
or to ignore a person.
`Flush' was standard ITS terminology for aborting an output
operation; one spoke of the text that would have been printed, but
was not, as having been flushed. It is speculated that this term
arose from a vivid image of flushing unwanted characters by hosing
down the internal output buffer, washing the characters away before
they can be printed. The UNIX/C usage, on the other hand, was
propagated by the `fflush(3)' call in C's standard I/O library
(though it is reported to have been in use among BLISS programmers
at DEC and on Honeywell and IBM machines as far back as 1965).
UNIX/C hackers find the ITS usage confusing, and vice versa.
Flyspeck 3: n. Standard name for any font that is so tiny as to be
unreadable (by analogy with such names as `Helvetica 10' for
10-point Helvetica). Legal boilerplate is usually printed in
Flyspeck 3.
flytrap: n. See {firewall machine}.
FOAF: // [USENET] n. Acronym for `Friend Of A Friend'. The
source of an unverified, possibly untrue story. This was not
originated by hackers (it is used in Jan Brunvand's books on urban
folklore), but is much better recognized on USENET and elsewhere
than in mainstream English.
FOD: /fod/ v. [Abbreviation for `Finger of Death', originally a
spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice
and with no regard for other people. From {MUD}s where the
wizard command `FOD <player>' results in the immediate and total
death of <player>, usually as punishment for obnoxious behavior.
This migrated to other circumstances, such as "I'm going to fod
the process that is burning all the cycles." Compare {gun}.
In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g., what happens
when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in
flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of
what this does to the engine.
fold case: v. See {smash case}. This term tends to be used
more by people who don't mind that their tools smash case. It also
connotes that case is ignored but case distinctions in data
processed by the tool in question aren't destroyed.
followup: n. On USENET, a {posting} generated in response to
another posting (as opposed to a {reply}, which goes by email
rather than being broadcast). Followups include the ID of the
{parent message} in their headers; smart news-readers can use
this information to present USENET news in `conversation' sequence
rather than order-of-arrival. See {thread}.
foo: /foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. Used very generally
as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files
(esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of
metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also
{bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux}, {corge}, {grault},
{garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh}, {xyzzy},
{thud}.
{foo} is the {canonical} example of a `metasyntactic
variable' --- a name used in examples and understood to stand for
whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class
of things under discussion. To avoid confusion, hackers never use
`foo' or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In
filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning
`foo' is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time.
The etymology of hackish `foo' is obscure. When used in
connection with `bar' it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army
slang acronym FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition'), later
bowdlerized to {foobar}. (See also {FUBAR}).
However, the use of the word `foo' itself has more complicated
antecedents, including a long history in comic strips and cartoons.
The old "Smokey Stover" comic strips by Bill Holman often
included the word `FOO', in particular on license plates of cars;
allegedly, `FOO' and `BAR' also occurred in Walt Kelly's
"Pogo" strips. In the 1938 cartoon "Daffy Doc", a very
early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying "SILENCE IS
FOO!"; oddly, this seems to refer to some approving or positive
affirmative use of foo. It is even possible that hacker usage
actually springs from `FOO, Lampoons and Parody', the title of
a comic book first issued in September 1958; the byline read
`C. Crumb' but this may well have been a sort-of pseudonym for
noted weird-comix artist Robert Crumb. The title FOO was featured
in large letters on the front cover.
An old-time member reports that in the 1959 `Dictionary of the
TMRC Language', compiled at {TMRC} there was an entry that went
something like this:
FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE PADME
HUM." Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning.
For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}. Almost
the entire AI staff was involved with TMRC, so it is not clear
which group introduced the other to the word FOO.
Very probably, hackish `foo' had no single origin and derives
through all these channels from Yiddish `feh' and/or English
`fooey'.
foobar: n. Another common metasyntactic variable; see {foo}.
Hackers do *not* generally use this to mean {FUBAR} in
either the slang or jargon sense.
fool: n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who
habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect
premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is
not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person
with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed,
in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too
effectively in executing their errors. See also {cretin},
{loser}, {fool file, the}.
fool file, the: [USENET] n. A notional repository of all the most
dramatically and abysmally stupid utterances ever. There is a
subgenre of {sig block}s that consists of the header "From the
fool file:" followed by some quote the poster wishes to represent
as an immortal gem of dimwittery; for this to be really effective,
the quote has to be so obviously wrong as to be laughable. More
than one USENETter has achieved an unwanted notoriety by being
quoted in this way.
Foonly: n. 1. The {PDP-10} successor that was to have been built by
the Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory along with a new operating system. The intention was to
leapfrog from the old DEC timesharing system SAIL was running to a
new generation, bypassing TENEX which at that time was the ARPANET
standard. ARPA funding for both the Super Foonly and the new
operating system was cut in 1974. Most of the design team went to
DEC and contributed greatly to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.
2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the
principal Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more
colorful personalities. Many people remember the parrot which sat
on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion. 3. Any of the
machines built by Poole's company. The first was the F-1 (a.k.a.
Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used to create
the graphics in the movie "TRON". The F-1 was the fastest
PDP-10 ever built, but only one was ever made. The effort drained
Foonly of its financial resources, and they turned towards building
smaller, slower, and much less expensive machines. Unfortunately,
these ran not the popular {TOPS-20} but a TENEX varient called
Foonex; this seriously limited their market. Also, the machines
shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering prototypes requiring
individual attention from more than usually competent site
personnel, and thus had significant reliability problems. Poole's
legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not
help matters. By the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in
1983 Foonly's proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the
{Mars}, and the company never quite recovered. See the
{Mars} entry for the continuation and moral of this story.
footprint: n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of
hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed
program (often in plural, `footprints'). See also
{toeprint}.
for free: adj. Said of a capability of a programming language or
hardware equipment that is available by its design without needing
cleverness to implement: "In APL, we get the matrix operations for
free." "And owing to the way revisions are stored in this
system, you get revision trees for free." Usually it refers to a
serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (compare
{big win}), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary
feature.
for the rest of us: [from the Mac slogan "The computer for the
rest of us"] adj. 1. Used to describe a {spiffy} product whose
affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often)
used sarcastically to describe {spiffy} but very overpriced
products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface,
deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to
compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not
`confuse' a na"ive user. This places an upper bound on how far that
user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task
instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh
software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is
thought that the poor lusers might not be able to handle them.
Becomes `the rest of *them*' when used in third-party
reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's
designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially
looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also
{WIMP environment}, {Macintrash}, {user-friendly}.
fora: pl.n. Plural of {forum}.
foreground: [UNIX] vt. To foreground a task is to bring it to
the top of one's {stack} for immediate processing, and hackers
often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your
presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground
writing up the design document."
Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in
foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to
the user; oppose {background}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears first to have been used
in this sense on OS/360. Normally, there is only one foreground
task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes
simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way to {lose}.
forked: [UNIX; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj.
Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system slowed to
incredibly bad speeds because of a process recursively spawning copies
of itself (using the UNIX system call `fork(2)') and taking up
all the process table entries.
Fortrash: /for'trash/ n. Hackerism for the FORTRAN language,
referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax,
limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled
semantics.
fortune cookie: [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or
maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at
logout time. Items from this lexicon have often been used as
fortune cookies. See {cookie file}.
forum: n. [USENET, GEnie CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums'] Any
discussion group accessible through a dial-in {BBS}, a
{mailing list}, or a {newsgroup} (see {network, the}). A
forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit
{posting}s for all to read and discussion ensues. Contrast
real-time chat via {talk mode} or point-to-point personal
{email}.
fossil: n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable
only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so
as not to break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as
default base for string escapes in {C}, in spite of the better
match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable
architectures. See {dusty deck}. 2. More restrictively, a
feature with past but no present utility. Example: the
force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and {BSD} UNIX tty driver,
designed for use with monocase terminals. In a perversion of the
usual backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually
been expanded and renamed in some later {USG UNIX} releases as
the IUCLC and OLCUC bits. 3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog
Standard Interface Level) driver specification for serial-port
access to replace the {brain-dead} routines in the IBM PC ROMs.
Fossils are used by most MS-DOS {BBS} software in lieu of
programming the {bare metal} of the serial ports, as the ROM
routines do not support interrupt-driven operation or setting
speeds above 9600. Since the FOSSIL specification allows
additional functionality to be hooked in, drivers that use the
{hook} but do not provide serial-port access themselves are named
with a modifier, as in `video fossil'.
four-color glossies: 1. Literature created by {marketroid}s
that allegedly containing technical specs but which is in fact as
superficial as possible without being totally {content-free}.
"Forget the four-color glossies, give me the tech ref manuals."
Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the
material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white.
Four-color-glossy manuals are *never* useful for finding a
problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't
contain enough information to diagnose why the program doesn't
produce the expected or desired output.
fragile: adj. Syn {brittle}.
fred: n. 1. The personal name most frequently used as a
metasyntactic variable (see {foo}). Allegedly popular because
it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard QWERTY
keyboard. Unlike {J. Random Hacker} or `J. Random Loser',
this name has no positive or negative loading (but see {Mbogo,
Dr. Fred}). 2. An acronym for `Flipping Ridiculous Electronic
Device'; other F-verbs may be substituted for `flipping'.
frednet: /fred'net/ n. Used to refer to some {random} and
uncommon protocol encountered on a network. "We're implementing
bridging in our router to solve the frednet problem."
freeware: n. Free software, often written by enthusiasts and
distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local
bulletin boards, {USENET}, or other electronic media. At one
time, `freeware' was a trademark of Andrew Fluegelman, the author
of the well-known MS-DOS comm program PC-TALK III. It wasn't
enforced after his mysterious disappearance and presumed death
in 1984. See {shareware}.
freeze: v. To lock an evolving software distribution or document
against changes so it can be released with some hope of stability.
Carries the strong implication that the item in question will
`unfreeze' at some future date. "OK, fix that bug and we'll
freeze for release."
There are more specific constructions on this. A `feature freeze',
for example, locks out modifications intended to introduce new
features; a `code freeze' connotes no more changes at all.
At Sun Microsystems and elsewhere, one may also hear references to
`code slush' --- that is, an almost-but-not-quite frozen state.
fried: adj. 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out.
Especially used of hardware brought down by a `power glitch' (see
{glitch}), {drop-outs}, a short, or some other electrical
event. (Sometimes this literally happens to electronic circuits!
In particular, resistors can burn out and transformers can melt
down, emitting noxious smoke. However, this term is also used
metaphorically.) Compare {frotzed}. 2. Of people, exhausted.
Said particularly of those who continue to work in such a state.
Often used as an explanation or excuse. "Yeah, I know that fix
destroyed the file system, but I was fried when I put it in."
Esp. common in conjunction with `brain': "My brain is fried
today, I'm very short on sleep."
friode: /fri:'ohd/ [TMRC] n. A reversible (that is, fused or
blown) diode. Compare {fried}.
fritterware: n. An excess of capability that serves no productive
end. The canonical example is font-diddling software on the Mac
(see {macdink}); the term describes anything that eats huge
amounts of time for quite marginal gains in function but seduces
people into using it anyway.
frob: /frob/ 1. n. [MIT] The {TMRC} definition was "FROB = a
protruding arm or trunnion"; by metaphoric extension, a `frob' is
any random small thing; an object that you can comfortably hold in
one hand; something you can frob. See {frobnitz}. 2. vt.
Abbreviated form of {frobnicate}. 3. [from the {MUD} world]
A command on some MUDs that changes a player's experience level
(this can be used to make wizards); also, to request {wizard}
privileges on the `professional courtesy' grounds that one is a
wizard elsewhere.
frobnicate: /frob'ni-kayt/ vt. [Poss. derived from {frobnitz}, and
usually abbreviated to {frob}, but `frobnicate' is recognized
as the official full form.] To manipulate or adjust, to tweak.
One frequently frobs bits or other 2-state devices. Thus:
"Please frob the light switch" (that is, flip it), but also
"Stop frobbing that clasp; you'll break it". One also sees the
construction `to frob a frob'. See {tweak} and {twiddle}.
Usage: frob, twiddle, and tweak sometimes connote
points along a continuum. `Frob' connotes aimless manipulation;
`twiddle' connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for
a proper setting; `tweak' connotes fine-tuning. If someone is
turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting
it, he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking
at the screen, he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing
it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. The variant
`frobnosticate' has been recently reported.
frobnitz: /frob'nits/, pl. `frobnitzem' /frob'nit-zm/ or
`frobni' /frob'ni:/ n. An unspecified physical object, a
widget. Also refers to electronic black boxes. This rare form is
usually abbreviated to `frotz', or more commonly to {frob}.
Also used are `frobnule' (/frob'n[y]ool/) and `frobule'
(/frob'yool/). Starting perhaps in 1979, `frobozz'
/fruh-boz'/ (plural: `frobbotzim' /fruh-bot'zm/) has also
become very popular, largely through its exposure as a name via
{Zork}. These can also be applied to nonphysical objects, such
as data structures.
frog: alt. `phrog' 1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have
a lot of them). 2. Used as a name for just about anything. See
{foo}. 3. n. Of things, a crock. 4. n. Of people, somewhere
in between a turkey and a toad. 5. `froggy': adj. Similar to
`bagbiting' (see {bagbiter}), but milder. "This froggy
program is taking forever to run!"
front end: n. 1. An intermediary computer that does set-up and
filtering for another (usually more powerful but less friendly)
machine (a `back end'). 2. What you're talking to when you
have a conversation with someone who is making replies without
paying attention. "Look at the dancing elephants!" "Uh-huh."
"Do you know what I just said?" "Sorry, you were talking to the
front end." See also {fepped out}. 3. Software that provides
an interface to another program `behind' it, which may not be as
user-friendly. Probably from analogy with hardware front-ends (see
sense 1) that interfaced with mainframes.
frotz: /frots/ 1. n. See {frobnitz}. 2. `mumble frotz': An
interjection of very mild disgust.
frotzed: /frotst/ adj. {down} because of hardware problems. Compare
{fried}. A machine that is merely frotzed may be fixable
without replacing parts, but a fried machine is more seriously
damaged.
frowney: n. (alt. `frowney face') See {emoticon}.
fry: 1. vi. To fail. Said especially of smoke-producing hardware
failures. More generally, to become non-working. Usage: never
said of software, only of hardware and humans. See {fried},
{magic smoke}. 2. vt. To cause to fail; to {roach}, {toast},
or {hose} a piece of hardware. Never used of software or humans,
but compare {fried}.
FTP: /F-T-P/, *not* /fit'ip/ 1. [techspeak] n. The File
Transfer Protocol for transmitting files between systems on the
Internet. 2. vt. To {beam} a file using the File Transfer
Protocol. 3. Sometimes used as a generic even for file transfers
not using {FTP}. "Lemme get a copy of `Wuthering
Heights' ftp'd from uunet."
FUBAR: n. The Failed UniBus Address Register in a VAX. A good
example of how jargon can occasionally be snuck past the {suit}s;
see {foobar}.
fuck me harder: excl. Sometimes uttered in response to egregious
misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of misbehaviors which
seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the
perverse). Often theatrically elaborated: "Aiighhh! Fuck me with
a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence
*and no lubricants*!" The phrase is sometimes heard
abbreviated `FMH' in polite company.
[This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining
elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite
self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a
running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the
hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme
frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this
case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the
most anatomically absurd mental image possible --- the short forms
implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken).
Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among
hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry
ought to be included at all. As it reflects a live usage
recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is
in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all
forms of censorship to record it here. --ESR & GLS]
FUD: /fuhd/ n. Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found
his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM
sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might
be considering [Amdahl] products." The idea, of course, was to
persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with
competitors' equipment. This was traditionally done by promising
that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but
Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or
software. See {IBM}.
FUD wars: /fuhd worz/ n. [from {FUD}] Political posturing engaged in
by hardware and software vendors ostensibly committed to
standardization but actually willing to fragment the market to
protect their own shares. The UNIX International vs. OSF conflict
is but one outstanding example.
fudge: 1. vt. To perform in an incomplete but marginally acceptable
way, particularly with respect to the writing of a program. "I
didn't feel like going through that pain and suffering, so I fudged
it --- I'll fix it later." 2. n. The resulting code.
fudge factor: n. A value or parameter that is varied in an ad hoc way
to produce the desired result. The terms `tolerance' and
{slop} are also used, though these usually indicate a one-sided
leeway, such as a buffer that is made larger than necessary
because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be, and it is
better to waste a little space than to lose completely for not
having enough. A fudge factor, on the other hand, can often be
tweaked in more than one direction. A good example is the `fuzz'
typically allowed in floating-point calculations: two numbers being
compared for equality must be allowed to differ by a small amount;
if that amount is too small, a computation may never terminate,
while if it is too large, results will be needlessly inaccurate.
Fudge factors are frequently adjusted incorrectly by programmers
who don't fully understand their import. See also {coefficient
of X}.
fuel up: vi. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back to
hacking. "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a
{great-wall}!" See also {{oriental food}}.
fuggly: /fuhg'lee/ adj. Emphatic form of {funky}; funky +
ugly). Unusually for hacker jargon, this may actually derive from
black street-jive. To say it properly, the first syllable should
be growled rather than spoken. Usage: humorous. "Man, the
{{ASCII}}-to-{{EBCDIC}} code in that printer driver is
*fuggly*." See also {wonky}.
funky: adj. Said of something that functions, but in a slightly
strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be difficult to
change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone. Often used to
describe interfaces. The more bugs something has that nobody has
bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the funkier it is.
{TECO} and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's exception handling is
extraordinarily funky. Most standards acquire funkiness as they
age. "The new mailer is installed, but is still somewhat funky;
if it bounces your mail for no reason, try resubmitting it."
"This UART is pretty funky. The data ready line is active-high in
interrupt mode and active-low in DMA mode." See {fuggly}.
funny money: n. 1. Notional `dollar' units of computing time and/or
storage handed to students at the beginning of a computer course;
also called `play money' or `purple money' (in implicit
opposition to real or `green' money). When your funny money
ran out, your account froze and you needed to go to a professor to
get more. Fortunately, the plunging cost of timesharing cycles has
made this less common. The amounts allocated were almost
invariably too small, even for the non-hackers who wanted to slide
by with minimum work. In extreme cases, the practice led to
small-scale black markets in bootlegged computer accounts. 2. By
extension, phantom money or quantity tickets of any kind used as a
resource-allocation hack within a system. Antonym: `real
money'.
fuzzball: [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a particular
suite of homebrewed software written by Dave Mills and assorted
co-conspirators, used in the early 1980s for Internet protocol
testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFnet
backbone sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few are still active
on the Internet as of early 1991, doing odd jobs such as network
time service.
= G =
G: [SI] pref.,suff. See {{quantifiers}}.
gabriel: /gay'bree-*l/ [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL LISP hacker and
volleyball fanatic] n. An unnecessary (in the opinion of the
opponent) stalling tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or combing one's hair
repeatedly, asking the time, etc. Also used to refer to the
perpetrator of such tactics. Also, `pulling a Gabriel',
`Gabriel mode'.
gag: vi. Equivalent to {choke}, but connotes more disgust. "Hey,
this is FORTRAN code. No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also
{barf}.
gang bang: n. The use of large numbers of loosely coupled
programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a
product in a short time. Though there have been memorable gang
bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in
Steven Levy's `Hackers'), most are perpetrated by large
companies trying to meet deadlines and produce enormous buggy
masses of code entirely lacking in {orthogonal}ity. When
market-driven managers make a list of all the features the
competition has and assign one programmer to implement each, they
often miss the importance of maintaining a coherent design. See
also {firefighting}, {Mongolian Hordes technique},
{Conway's Law}.
garbage collect: vi. (also `garbage collection', n.) See {GC}.
garply: /gar'plee/ [Stanford] n. Another meta-syntactic variable (see
{foo}); once popular among SAIL hackers.
gas: [as in `gas chamber'] 1. interj. A term of disgust and
hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous
quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some
loser just reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2. interj. A
suggestion that someone or something ought to be flushed out of
mercy. "The system's getting {wedged} every few minutes.
Gas!" 3. vt. To {flush} (sense 1). "You should gas that old
crufty software." 4. [IBM] n. Dead space in nonsequentially
organized files that was occupied by data that has been deleted;
the compression operation that removes it is called `degassing' (by
analogy, perhaps, with the use of the same term in vacuum
technology). 5. [IBM] n. Empty space on a disk that has been
clandestinely allocated against future need.
gaseous: adj. Deserving of being {gas}sed. Disseminated by
Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after
the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned
that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had supported
Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber under Proposition 7 if
convicted of first-degree murder (he was eventually convicted of
manslaughter).
GC: /G-C/ [from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect']
1. vt. To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll
GC the top of my desk today." When said of files, this is
equivalent to {GFR}. 2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to
another use. 3. n. An instantiation of the garbage collector
process.
`Garbage collection' is computer-science jargon for a particular
class of strategies for dynamically reallocating computer memory.
One such strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in
memory and determining what is no longer accessible; useless data
items are then discarded so that the memory they occupy can be
recycled and used for another purpose. Implementations of the LISP
language usually use garbage collection.
In jargon, the full phrase is sometimes heard but the {abbrev} is
more frequently used because it is shorter. Note that there is an
ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by context: "I'm going
to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to clean out the
drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or recycle the desk
itself.
GCOS:: /jee'kohs/ n. A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of
System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called
GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). Later
kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction processing.
After the buyout of GE's computer division by Honeywell, the name
was changed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS).
Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen
Operating System', allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's
uninformed and snotty attitude about the superiority of their
product. All this might be of zero interest, except for two facts:
(1) The GCOS people won the political war, and this led in the
orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {{Multics}}, and
(2) GECOS/GCOS left one permanent mark on UNIX. Some early UNIX
systems at Bell Labs were GCOS machines for print spooling and
various other services; the field added to `/etc/passwd' to
carry GCOS ID information was called the `GECOS field' and
survives today as the `pw_gecos' member used for the user's
full name and other human-ID information. GCOS later played a
major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe
market, and was itself ditched for UNIX in the late 1980s when
Honeywell retired its aging {big iron} designs.
GECOS:: /jee'kohs/ n. See {{GCOS}}.
gedanken: /g*-don'kn/ adj. Ungrounded; impractical; not
well-thought-out; untried; untested. `Gedanken' is a German word
for `thought'. A thought experiment is one you carry out in your
head. In physics, the term `gedanken experiment' is used to
refer to an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful
to consider because you can reason about it theoretically. (A
classic gedanken experiment of relativity theory involves thinking
about a man in an elevator accelerating through space.) Gedanken
experiments are very useful in physics, but you have to be careful.
It's too easy to idealize away some important aspect of the real world
in contructing your `apparatus'.
Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation.
It is said of a project, especially one in artificial intelligence
research, that is written up in grand detail (typically as a Ph.D.
thesis) without ever being implemented to any great extent. Such a
project is usually perpetrated by people who aren't very good
hackers or find programming distasteful or are just in a hurry. A
`gedanken thesis' is usually marked by an obvious lack of intuition
about what is programmable and what is not, and about what does and
does not constitute a clear specification of an algorithm. See
also {AI-complete}, {DWIM}.
geef: v. [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken'] vt. Syn. {mung}. See
also {blinkenlights}.
geek out: vi. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a
non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer
equipment. Especially used when you need to do something highly
technical and don't have time to explain: "Pardon me while I geek
out for a moment." See {computer geek}.
gen: /jen/ n.,v. Short for {generate}, used frequently in both spoken
and written contexts.
gender mender: n. A cable connector shell with either two male or two
female connectors on it, used to correct the mismatches that result
when some {loser} didn't understand the RS232C specification and
the distinction between DTE and DCE. Used esp. for RS-232C
parts in either the original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format.
Also called `gender bender', `gender blender', `sex
changer', and even `homosexual adapter'; however, there appears
to be some confusion as to whether a `male homosexual adapter' has
pins on both sides (is male) or sockets on both sides (connects two
males).
General Public Virus: n. Pejorative name for some versions of the
{GNU} project {copyleft} or General Public License (GPL), which
requires that any tools or {app}s incorporating copylefted code
must be source-distributed on the same counter-commercial terms as
GNU stuff. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft `infects' software
generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software
that reuses any of its code. The Free Software Foundation's
official position as of January 1991 is that copyright law limits
the scope of the GPL to "programs textually incorporating
significant amounts of GNU code", and that the `infection' is not
passed on to third parties unless actual GNU source is transmitted
(as in, for example, use of the Bison parser skeleton).
Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the {copyleft} language
is `boobytrapped' has caused many developers to avoid using GNU
tools and the GPL. Recent (July 1991) changes in the language of
the version 2.00 language may eliminate this problem.
generate: vt. To produce something according to an algorithm or
program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side effect
of the execution of an algorithm or program. The opposite of
{parse}. This term retains its mechanistic connotations (though
often humorously) when used of human behavior. "The guy is
rational most of the time, but mention nuclear energy around him
and he'll generate {infinite} flamage."
gensym: /jen'sim/ [from MacLISP for `generated symbol'] 1. v.
To invent a new name for something temporary, in such a way that
the name is almost certainly not in conflict with one already in
use. 2. n. The resulting name. The canonical form of a gensym is
`Gnnnn' where nnnn represents a number; any LISP hacker would
recognize G0093 (for example) as a gensym. 3. A freshly generated
data structure with a gensymmed name. These are useful for storing
or uniquely identifying crufties (see {cruft}).
Get a life!: imp. Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the person
to whom you are speaking has succumbed to terminal geekdom (see
{computer geek}). Often heard on {USENET}, esp. as a way of
suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue of
{theology} too seriously. This exhortation was popularized by
William Shatner on a "Saturday Night Live" episode in a speech that
ended "Get a *life*!", but some respondents believe it to
have been in use before then.
Get a real computer!: imp. Typical hacker response to news that
somebody is having trouble getting work done on a system that
(a) is single-tasking, (b) has no hard disk, or (c) has an address
space smaller than 4 megabytes. This is as of mid-1991; note that
the threshold for `real computer' rises with time, and it may well
be (for example) that machines with character-only displays will be
generally considered `unreal' in a few years (GLS points out that
they already are in some circles). See {essentials}, {bitty
box}, and {toy}.
GFR: /G-F-R/ vt. [ITS] From `Grim File Reaper', an ITS and Lisp
Machine utility. To remove a file or files according to some
program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially
one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce name-space
clutter (the original GFR actually moved files to tape). Often
generalized to pieces of data below file level. "I used to have
his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it." See also
{prowler}, {reaper}. Compare {GC}, which discards only
provably worthless stuff.
gig: /jig/ or /gig/ [SI] n. See {{quantifiers}}.
giga-: /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
GIGO: /gi:'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' ---
usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program
didn't complain about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe
failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or
imprecise data. 2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out': this more recent
expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have
to put excessive trust in `computerized' data.
gillion: /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ [formed from {giga-} by analogy
with mega/million and tera/trillion] n. 10^9. Same as an
American billion or a British `milliard'. How one pronounces
this depends on whether one speaks {giga-} with a hard or
soft `g'.
GIPS: /gips/ or /jips/ [analogy with {MIPS}] n.
Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of
Instructions per Second'; see {gillion}). In 1991, this is used
of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected
to change. Compare {KIPS}.
glark: /glark/ vt. To figure something out from context. "The
System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the
meaning from context." Interestingly, the word was originally
`glork'; the context was "This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish
English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic]
from context" (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his
"Metamagical Themas" column in the January 1981 `Scientific
American'). It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to
`glark' because {glork} was already an established jargon
term. Compare {grok}, {zen}.
glass: [IBM] n. Synonym for {silicon}.
glass tty: /glas T-T-Y/ or /glas ti'tee/ n. A terminal that
has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software
limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing
terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both: like a
printing terminal, it can't do fancy display hacks, and like a
display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy. An example is the
early `dumb' version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor
control). See {tube}, {tty}. See appendix A for an
interesting true story about a glass tty.
glassfet: /glas'fet/ [by analogy with MOSFET, the acronym for
`Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor'] n. Syn.
{firebottle}, a humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.
glitch: /glich/ [from German `glitschen' to slip, via Yiddish
`glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in
electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function.
Sometimes recoverable. An interruption in electric service is
specifically called a `power glitch'. This is of grave concern
because it usually crashes all the computers. In jargon, though, a
hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and then forgot how he
or she intended to complete it might say, "Sorry, I just
glitched". 2. vi. To commit a glitch. See {gritch}. 3. vt.
[Stanford] To scroll a display screen, esp. several lines at a
time. {{WAITS}} terminals used to do this in order to avoid
continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the eye. 4. obs.
Same as {magic cookie}, sense 2.
All these uses of `glitch' derive from the specific technical
meaning the term has to hardware people. If the inputs of a
circuit change, and the outputs change to some {random} value for
some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value,
then that is called a glitch. This may or may not be harmful,
depending on what the circuit is connected to. This term is
techspeak, found in electronics texts.
glob: /glob/, *not* /glohb/ [UNIX] vt.,n. To expand special
characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action
is also called `globbing'). The UNIX conventions for filename
wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers
use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on
technical topics. Those commonly encountered include the following:
*
wildcard for any string (see also {UN*X})
?
wildcard for any character (generally read this way only at the
beginning or in the middle of a word)
[]
delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters
{}
alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus, `foo{baz,qux}'
would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux'
Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses
ambiguity). "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the
talk.politics subgroups on {USENET}). Other examples are given
under the entry for {X}. Compare {regexp}.
Historical note: The jargon usage derives from `glob', the
name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne
versions of the UNIX shell.
glork: /glork/ 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with
outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of 2 hours of
editing and finds that the system has just crashed. 2. Used as a
name for just about anything. See {foo}. 3. vt. Similar to
{glitch}, but usually used reflexively. "My program just glorked
itself." See also {glark}.
glue: n. Generic term for any interface logic or protocol that
connects two component blocks. For example, {Blue
Glue} is IBM's SNA protocol, and hardware designers call anything
used to connect large VLSI's or circuit blocks `glue logic'.
gnarly: /nar'lee/ adj. Both {obscure} and {hairy} in the
sense of complex. "{Yow}! --- the tuned assembler
implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but
less specific usage in surfer slang.
GNU: /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym: `GNU's Not UNIX!',
see {{recursive acronym}}] A UNIX-workalike development effort of
the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman
(rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu). GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools
designed for this project, have become very popular in hackerdom
and elsewhere. The GNU project was designed partly to proselytize
for RMS's position that information is community property and all
software source should be shared. One of its slogans is "Help
stamp out software hoarding!" Though this remains controversial
(because it implicitly denies any right of designers to own,
assign, and sell the results of their labors), many hackers who
disagree with RMS have nevertheless cooperated to produce large
amounts of high-quality software for free redistribution under the
Free Software Foundation's imprimatur. See {EMACS},
{copyleft}, {General Public Virus}. 2. Noted UNIX hacker
John Gilmore (gnu@toad.com), founder of USENET's anarchic alt.*
hierarchy.
GNUMACS: /gnoo'maks/ [contraction of `GNU EMACS'] Often-heard
abbreviated name for the {GNU} project's flagship tool, {EMACS}.
Used esp. in contrast with {GOSMACS}.
go flatline: [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces
upon brain-death] vi., also adjectival `flatlined'. 1. To die,
terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance, this is
used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too
serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes. 2. To go completely
quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You
can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off before
the system has gone flatline." 3. Of a video tube, to fail by
losing vertical scan, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line
bisecting the screen.
go root: [UNIX] vi. To temporarily enter {root mode} in order
to perform a privileged operation. This use is deprecated in
Australia, where v. `root' refers to animal sex.
go-faster stripes: [UK] Syn. {chrome}.
gobble: vt. To consume or to obtain. The phrase `gobble up' tends to
imply `consume', while `gobble down' tends to imply `obtain'.
"The output spy gobbles characters out of a {tty} output buffer."
"I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow."
See also {snarf}.
Godzillagram: /god-zil'*-gram/ n. [from Japan's national hero]
1. A network packet that in theory is a broadcast to every machine
in the universe. The typical case of this is an IP datagram whose
destination IP address is [255.255.255.255]. Fortunately, few
gateways are foolish enough to attempt to implement this! 2. A
network packet of maximum size. An IP Godzillagram has
65,536 octets.
golden: adj. [prob. from folklore's `golden egg'] When used to
describe a magnetic medium (e.g., `golden disk', `golden tape'),
describes one containing a tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship
software version. Compare {platinum-iridium}.
golf-ball printer: n. The IBM 2741, a slow but letter-quality
printing device and terminal based on the IBM Selectric typewriter.
The `golf ball' was a round object bearing reversed embossed
images of 88 different characters arranged on four meridians of
latitude; one could change the font by swapping in a different golf
ball. This was the technology that enabled APL to use a
non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard
character set. This put it 10 years ahead of its time --- where it
stayed, firmly rooted, for the next 20, until character displays
gave way to programmable bit-mapped devices with the flexibility to
support other character sets.
gonk: /gonk/ vt.,n. 1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth
beyond any reasonable recognition. It is alleged that in German
the term is (mythically) `gonken'; in Spanish the verb becomes
`gonkar'. "You're gonking me. That story you just told me is a
bunch of gonk." In German, for example, "Du gonkst mir" (You're
pulling my leg). See also {gonkulator}. 2. [British] To grab some
sleep at an odd time; compare {gronk out}.
gonkulator: /gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ [from the old "Hogan's Heroes" TV
series] n. A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no
useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite
piece of computer hardware. See {gonk}.
gonzo: /gon'zoh/ [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming;
outrageous; over the top; very large, esp. used of collections of
source code, source files, or individual functions. Has some of the
connotations of {moby} and {hairy}, but without the
implication of obscurity or complexity.
Good Thing: n.,adj. Often capitalized; always pronounced as if
capitalized. 1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position
to notice: "The Trailblazer's 19.2Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly
Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good Thing for sites relaying
netnews." 2. Something that can't possibly have any ill
side-effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the
self-modifying code from that shared library would be a Good
Thing." 3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "YACC
is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has
drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Oppose {Bad
Thing}.
gorilla arm: n. The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a
mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early
1980s. It seems the designers of all those {spiffy} touch-menu
systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their
arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than
a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and
oversized; hence `gorilla arm'. This is now considered a classic
cautionary tale to human-factors designers; "Remember the gorilla
arm!" is shorthand for "How is this going to fly in *real*
use?".
gorp: /gorp/ [CMU: perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good
Old Raisins and Peanuts] Another metasyntactic variable, like
{foo} and {bar}.
GOSMACS: /goz'maks/ [contraction of `Gosling EMACS'] n. The first
{EMACS}-in-C implementation, predating but now largely eclipsed by
{GNUMACS}. Originally freeware; a commercial version is now
modestly popular as `UniPress EMACS'. The author (James Gosling)
went on to invent {NeWS}.
Gosperism: /gos'p*r-izm/ A hack, invention, or saying by
arch-hacker R. William (Bill) Gosper. This notion merits its own
term because there are so many of them. Many of the entries in
{HAKMEM} are Gosperisms; see also {life}.
gotcha: n. A {misfeature} of a system, especially a programming
language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because
it behaves in an unexpected way. For example, a classic gotcha in {C}
is the fact that `if (a=b) {code;}' is syntactically valid
and sometimes even correct. It puts the value of `b' into `a'
and then executes `code' if `a' is non-zero. What the
programmer probably meant was `if (a==b) {code;}',
which executes `code' if `a' and `b' are equal.
GPL: /G-P-L/ n. Abbrev. for `General Public License' in
widespread use; see {copyleft}.
GPV: /G-P-V/ n. Abbrev. for {General Public Virus} in
widespread use.
grault: /grawlt/ n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by
Mike Gallaher and propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation. See
{corge}.
gray goo: n. A hypothetical substance composed of {sagan}s of
sub-micron-sized self-replicating robots programmed to make copies
of themselves out of whatever is available. The image that goes
with the term is one of the entire biosphere of Earth being
eventually converted to robot goo. This is the simplest of the
{{nanotechnology}} disaster scenarios, easily refuted by arguments
from energy requirements and elemental abundances. Compare {blue
goo}.
Great Renaming: n. The {flag day} on which all of the non-local
groups on the {USENET} had their names changed from the net.-
format to the current multiple-hierarchies scheme.
Great Runes: n. Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some
archaic operating systems still emit these. See also {runes},
{smash case}, {fold case}.
Decades ago, back in the days when it was the sole supplier of
long-distance hardcopy transmittal devices, the Teletype
Corporation was faced with a major design choice. To shorten code
lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, it had been
decided that teletypes would use a monocase font, either ALL UPPER
or all lower. The question was, which one to choose. A study was
conducted on readability under various conditions of bad ribbon,
worn print hammers, etc. Lowercase won; it is less dense and has
more distinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read both
under ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled or partly
obscured. The results were filtered up through {management}.
The chairman of Teletype killed the proposal because it failed one
incredibly important criterion:
"It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly."
In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it) superstition
triumphed over utility. Teletypes were the major input devices on
most early computers, and terminal manufacturers looking for
corners to cut naturally followed suit until well into the 1970s.
Thus, that one bad call stuck us with Great Runes for thirty years.
great-wall: [from SF fandom] vi.,n. A mass expedition to an
oriental restaurant, esp. one where food is served family-style
and shared. There is a common heuristic about the amount of food
to order, expressed as "Get N - 1 entrees"; the value of N,
which is the number of people in the group, can be inferred from
context (see {N}). See {{oriental food}}, {ravs},
{stir-fried random}.
Green Book: n. 1. One of the three standard PostScript references:
`PostScript Language Program Design', bylined `Adobe Systems'
(Addison-Wesley, 1988; QA76.73.P67P66 ISBN; 0-201-14396-8); see
also {Red Book}, {Blue Book}). 2. Informal name for one of
the three standard references on SmallTalk: `Smalltalk-80:
Bits of History, Words of Advice', by Glenn Krasner
(Addison-Wesley, 1983; QA76.8.S635S58; ISBN 0-201-11669-3) (this,
too, is associated with blue and red books). 3. The `X/Open
Compatibility Guide'. Defines an international standard {{UNIX}}
environment that is a proper superset of POSIX/SVID; also includes
descriptions of a standard utility toolkit, systems administrations
features, and the like. This grimoire is taken with particular
seriousness in Europe. See {Purple Book}. 4. The IEEE 1003.1
POSIX Operating Systems Interface standard has been dubbed "The
Ugly Green Book". 5. Any of the 1992 standards which will be
issued by the CCITT's tenth plenary assembly. Until now, these
have changed color each review cycle (1984 was {Red Book}, 1988
{Blue Book}); however, it is rumored that this convention is
going to be dropped before 1992. These include, among other
things, the X.400 email standard and the Group 1 through 4 fax
standards. See also {{book titles}}.
green bytes: n. 1. Meta-information embedded in a file, such as
the length of the file or its name; as opposed to keeping such
information in a separate description file or record. The term
comes from an IBM user's group meeting (ca. 1962) at which these
two approaches were being debated and the diagram of the file on
the blackboard had the `green bytes' drawn in green. 2. By
extension, the non-data bits in any self-describing format. "A
GIF file contains, among other things, green bytes describing the
packing method for the image." Compare {out-of-band},
{zigamorph}, {fence} (sense 1).
green card: n. [after the `IBM System/360 Reference Data'
card] This is used for any summary of an assembly language, even if
the color is not green. Less frequently used now because of the
decrease in the use of assembly language. "I'll go get my green
card so I can check the addressing mode for that instruction."
Some green cards are actually booklets.
The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370
was introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM
refers to a scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room
at Yorktown in 1978. A luser overheard one of the programmers ask
another "Do you have a green card?" The other grunted and
passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point the luser
turned a delicate shade of olive and rapidly left the room, never
to return. See also {card}.
green lightning: [IBM] n. 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on
the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being
downloaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as
some genius within IBM suggested it would let the user know that
`something is happening'. That, it certainly does. Later
microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics displays were actually
*programmed* to produce green lightning! 2. [proposed] Any
bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or
marketing. "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 88000
architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green
lightning". See also {feature}.
green machine: n. A computer or peripheral device that has been
designed and built to military specifications for field equipment
(that is, to withstand mechanical shock, extremes of temperature
and humidity, and so forth). Comes from the olive-drab `uniform'
paint used for military equipment.
Green's Theorem: [TMRC] prov. For any story, in any group of people
there will be at least one person who has not heard the story.
[The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in
calculus. --- ESR]
grep: /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p , where
re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the
Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it,
via {{UNIX}} `grep(1)'] vt. To rapidly scan a file or file set
looking for a particular string or pattern. By extension, to look
for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin board for the system
backup schedule, would you?" See also {vgrep}.
grind: vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP
code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. This usage was
associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare;
{prettyprint} was and is the generic term for such
operations. 2. [UNIX] To generate the formatted version of a
document from the nroff, troff, TeX, or Scribe source. The BSD
program `vgrind(1)' grinds code for printing on a Versatec
bitmapped printer. 3. To run seemingly interminably, esp. (but
not necessarily) if performing some tedious and inherently useless
task. Similar to {crunch} or {grovel}. Grinding has a
connotation of using a lot of CPU time, but it is possible to grind
a disk, network, etc. See also {hog}. 4. To make the whole
system slow. "Troff really grinds a PDP-11." 5. `grind grind'
excl. Roughly, "Isn't the machine slow today!"
grind crank: n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the
side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and
causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not refer to a
grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriate gesture and
noise. See {grind} and {wugga wugga}.
Historical note: At least one real machine actually had a grind
crank --- the R1, a research machine built toward the end of the
days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959. R1 (also known as
`The Rice Institute Computer' (TRIC) and later as `The Rice
University Computer' (TRUC)) had a single-step/free-run switch for
use when debugging programs. Since single-stepping through a large
program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and
gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button.
This allowed one to `crank' through a lot of code, then slow down
to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke
at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep on
cranking.
gritch: /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a {glitch}).
2. vi. To complain. Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3. A
synonym for {glitch} (as verb or noun).
grok: /grok/, var. /grohk/ [from the novel `Stranger in
a Strange Land', by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word
meaning literally `to drink' and metaphorically `to be one
with'] vt. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes
intimate and exhaustive knowledge. Contrast {zen}, similar
supernal understanding as a single brief flash. See also
{glark}. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient
understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok the `void' type
these days."
gronk: /gronk/ [popularized by Johnny Hart's comic strip
"B.C." but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To
clear the state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe
than `to {frob}'. 2. [TMRC] To cut, sever, smash, or
similarly disable. 3. The sound made by many 3.5-inch diskette
drives. In particular, the microfloppies on a Commodore Amiga go
"grink, gronk".
gronk out: vi. To cease functioning. Of people, to go home and go
to sleep. "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."
gronked: adj. 1. Broken. "The teletype scanner was gronked, so
we took the system down." 2. Of people, the condition of feeling
very tired or (less commonly) sick. "I've been chasing that bug
for 17 hours now and I am thoroughly gronked!" Compare
{broken}, which means about the same as {gronk} used of
hardware, but connotes depression or mental/emotional problems in
people.
grovel: vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress.
Often used transitively with `over' or `through'. "The file
scavenger has been groveling through the file directories for 10
minutes now." Compare {grind} and {crunch}. Emphatic form:
`grovel obscenely'. 2. To examine minutely or in complete detail.
"The compiler grovels over the entire source program before
beginning to translate it." "I grovelled through all the
documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted."
grunge: /gruhnj/ n. 1. That which is grungy, or that which makes
it so. 2. [Cambridge] Code which is inaccessible due to changes in
other parts of the program. The preferred term in North America is
{dead code}.
gubbish: /guhb'*sh/ [a portmanteau of `garbage' and `rubbish'?]
n. Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?" The
opposite portmanteau `rubbage' is also reported.
guiltware: /gilt'weir/ n. 1. A piece of {freeware} decorated
with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on
it and intimating that one is a no-good freeloader if one does not
immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money.
2. {Shareware} that works.
gumby: /guhm'bee/ [from a class of Monty Python characters, poss.
themselves named after the 1960s claymation character] n. An act of
minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in `gumby maneuver' or
`pull a gumby'.
gun: [ITS: from the `:GUN' command] vt. To forcibly
terminate a program or job (computer, not career). "Some idiot
left a background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I
gunned it." Compare {can}.
gunch: /guhnch/ [TMRC] vt. To push, prod, or poke at a device
that has almost produced the desired result. Implies a threat to
{mung}.
gurfle: /ger'fl/ interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He
said we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week.
Gurfle!" Compare {weeble}.
guru: n. 1. [UNIX] An expert. Implies not only {wizard} skill
but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less
often, used (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems,
as in `VMS guru'. See {source of all good bits}. 2. Amiga
equivalent of `panic' in UNIX. When the system crashes, a
cryptic message "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" appears,
indicating what the problem was. An Amiga guru can figure things
out from the numbers. Generally a {guru} event must be followed
by a {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
= H =
h: [from SF fandom] infix. A method of `marking' common words,
i.e., calling attention to the fact that they are being used in a
nonstandard, ironic, or humorous way. Originated in the fannish
catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod!" from decades ago.
H-infix marking of `Ghod' and other words spread into the 1960s
counterculture via underground comix, and into early hackerdom
either from the counterculture or from SF fandom (the three overlapped
heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has become an
expected feature of benchmark names (Dhrystone, Rhealstone,
etc.); this is prob. patterning on the original Whetstone (the name
of a laboratory) but influenced by the fannish/counterculture
h infix.
ha ha only serious: [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK,
`Ha Ha Only Kidding'] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS)
that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse. Applied
especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both
intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of
truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody.
This lexicon contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both
form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often
perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it
either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider,
a {wannabee}, or in {larval stage}. For further
enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also
{{Humor, Hacker}}, and {AI koans}.
hack: 1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed,
but not well. 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very
time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.
3. vt. To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this
heat!" 4. vt. To work on something (typically a program). In an
immediate sense: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO."
In a general (time-extended) sense: "What do you do around here?"
"I hack TECO." More generally, "I hack `foo'" is roughly
equivalent to "`foo' is my major interest (or project)". "I
hack solid-state physics." 5. vt. To pull a prank on. See
sense 2 and {hacker} (sense 5). 6. vi. To interact with a
computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed
way. "Whatcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking." 7. n. Short for
{hacker}. 8. See {nethack}.
Constructions on this term abound. They include `happy
hacking' (a farewell), `how's hacking?' (a friendly greeting
among hackers) and `hack, hack' (a fairly content-free but
friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell). For more on
the meaning of hack see appendix A. See also {neat hack},
{real hack}.
hack attack: [poss. by analogy with `Big Mac Attack' from ads
for the McDonald's fast-food chain; the variant `big hack attack'
is reported] n. Nearly synonymous with {hacking run}, though the
latter more strongly implies an all-nighter.
hack mode: n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2. More
specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem that
may be achieved when one is hacking (this is why every good hacker
is part mystic). Ability to enter such concentration at will
correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is one of the most
important skills learned during {larval stage}. Sometimes
amplified as `deep hack mode'.
Being yanked out of hack mode (see {priority interrupt}) may be
experienced as a physical shock, and the sensation of being in it
is more than a little habituating. The intensity of this
experience is probably by itself sufficient explanation for the
existence of hackers, and explains why many resist being promoted
out of positions where they can code. See also {cyberspace}
(sense 2).
Some aspects of hackish etiquette will appear quite odd to an
observer unaware of the high value placed on hack mode. For
example, if someone appears at your door, it is perfectly okay to
hold up a hand (without turning one's eyes away from the screen) to
avoid being interrupted. One may read, type, and interact with the
computer for quite some time before further acknowledging the
other's presence (of course, he or she is reciprocally free to
leave without a word). The understanding is that you might be in
{hack mode} with a lot of delicate {state} (sense 2) in your
head, and you dare not {swap} that context out until you have
reached a good point to pause. See also {juggling eggs}.
hack on: vt. To {hack}; implies that the subject is some
pre-existing hunk of code that one is evolving, as opposed to
something one might {hack up}.
hack together: vt. To throw something together so it will work.
Unlike `kluge together' or {cruft together}, this does not
necessarily have negative connotations.
hack up: vt. To {hack}, but generally implies that the result is
a hack in sense 1 (a quick hack). Contrast this with {hack on}.
To `hack up on' implies a {quick-and-dirty} modification to an
existing system. Contrast {hacked up}; compare {kluge up},
{monkey up}, {cruft together}.
hack value: n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for
expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being
that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had
features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were
installed purely for hack value. See {display hack} for one
method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be
explained. As a great artist once said of jazz: "If you hafta ask,
you ain't never goin' to find out."
hack-and-slay: v. (also `hack-and-slash') 1. To play a {MUD}
or go mudding, especially with the intention of {berserking} for
pleasure. 2. To undertake an all-night programming/hacking
session, interspersed with stints of mudding as a change of pace.
This term arose on the British academic network amongst students
who worked nights and logged onto Essex University's MUDs during
public-access hours (2 A.M. to 7 A.M.). Usually more
mudding than work was done in these sessions.
hacked off: [analogous to `pissed off'] adj. Said of system
administrators who have become annoyed, upset, or touchy owing to
suspicions that their sites have been or are going to be victimized
by crackers, or used for inappropriate, technically illegal, or
even overtly criminal activities. For example, having unreadable
files in your home directory called `worm', `lockpick', or `goroot'
would probably be an effective (as well as impressively obvious and
stupid) way to get your sysadmin hacked off at you.
hacked up: adj. Sufficiently patched, kluged, and tweaked that the
surgical scars are beginning to crowd out normal tissue (compare
{critical mass}). Not all programs that are hacked become
`hacked up'; if modifications are done with some eye to coherence
and continued maintainability, the software may emerge better for
the experience. Contrast {hack up}.
hacker: [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n.
1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable
systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most
users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who
programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A
person capable of appreciating {hack value}. 4. A person who is
good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program,
or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX
hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit
them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One
might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the
intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing
limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to
discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password
hacker', `network hacker'. See {cracker}.
It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe
oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an
elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new
members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego
satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if
you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled
{bogus}).
hacking run: [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run'] n. A
hack session extended long outside normal working times, especially
one longer than 12 hours. May cause you to `change phase the hard
way' (see {phase}).
Hacking X for Y: [ITS] n. The information ITS made publicly
available about each user (the INQUIR record) was a sort of form in
which the user could fill out fields. On display, two of these
fields were combined into a project description of the form
"Hacking X for Y" (e.g., `"Hacking perceptrons for
Minsky"'). This form of description became traditional and has
since been carried over to other systems with more general
facilities for self-advertisement (such as UNIX {plan file}s).
Hackintosh: n. 1. An Apple Lisa that has been hacked into emulating a
Macintosh (also called a `Mac XL'). 2. A Macintosh assembled
from parts theoretically belonging to different models in the line.
hackish: /hak'ish/ adj. (also {hackishness} n.) 1. Said of
something that is or involves a hack. 2. Of or pertaining to
hackers or the hacker subculture. See also {true-hacker}.
hackishness: n. The quality of being or involving a hack. This
term is considered mildly silly. Syn. {hackitude}.
hackitude: n. Syn. {hackishness}; this word is considered sillier.
hair: [back-formation from {hairy}] n. The complications that
make something hairy. "Decoding {TECO} commands requires a
certain amount of hair." Often seen in the phrase `infinite
hair', which connotes extreme complexity. Also in `hairiferous'
(tending to promote hair growth): "GNUMACS Elisp encourages lusers
to write complex editing modes." "Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous
all right." (or just: "Hair squared!")
hairy: adj. 1. Annoyingly complicated. "{DWIM} is incredibly
hairy." 2. Incomprehensible. "{DWIM} is incredibly hairy."
3. Of people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or
incomprehensible. Hard to explain except in context: "He knows
this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about." See
also {hirsute}.
HAKMEM: /hak'mem/ n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972). A
legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks
contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere. (The title of the
memo really is "HAKMEM", which is a 6-letterism for `hacks
memo'.) Some of them are very useful techniques, powerful
theorems, or interesting unsolved problems, but most fall into the
category of mathematical and computer trivia. Here is a sampling
of the entries (with authors), slightly paraphrased:
Item 41 (Gene Salamin): There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less
than 2^18.
Item 46 (Rich Schroeppel): The most *probable* suit
distribution in bridge hands is 4-4-3-2, as compared to 4-3-3-3,
which is the most *evenly* distributed. This is because the
world likes to have unequal numbers: a thermodynamic effect saying
things will not be in the state of lowest energy, but in the state
of lowest disordered energy.
Item 81 (Rich Schroeppel): Count the magic squares of order 5
(that is, all the 5-by-5 arrangements of the numbers from 1 to 25
such that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same
number). There are about 320 million, not counting those that
differ only by rotation and reflection.
Item 154 (Bill Gosper): The myth that any given programming language is
machine independent is easily exploded by computing the sum of
powers of 2. If the result loops with period = 1 with
sign +, you are on a sign-magnitude machine. If the result
loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a
twos-complement machine. If the result loops with period greater
than 1, including the beginning, you are on a ones-complement
machine. If the result loops with period greater than 1, not
including the beginning, your machine isn't binary --- the pattern
should tell you the base. If you run out of memory, you are on a
string or bignum system. If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error,
some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine
independence. But the very ability to trap overflow is machine
dependent. By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more
precisely, algebra: Let X = the sum of many powers of 2 =
...111111. Now add X to itself:
X + X = ...111110 Thus, 2X = X - 1, so
X = -1. Therefore algebra is run on a machine (the
universe) that is two's-complement.
Item 174 (Bill Gosper and Stuart Nelson): 21963283741 is the only
number such that if you represent it on the {PDP-10} as both an
integer and a floating-point number, the bit patterns of the two
representations are identical.
Item 176 (Gosper): The "banana phenomenon" was encountered when
processing a character string by taking the last 3 letters typed
out, searching for a random occurrence of that sequence in the
text, taking the letter following that occurrence, typing it out,
and iterating. This ensures that every 4-letter string output
occurs in the original. The program typed BANANANANANANANA.... We
note an ambiguity in the phrase, "the Nth occurrence of." In one
sense, there are five 00's in 0000000000; in another, there are
nine. The editing program TECO finds five. Thus it finds only the
first ANA in BANANA, and is thus obligated to type N next. By
Murphy's Law, there is but one NAN, thus forcing A, and thus a
loop. An option to find overlapped instances would be useful,
although it would require backing up N - 1 characters before
seeking the next N-character string.
Note: This last item refers to a {Dissociated Press}
implementation. See also {banana problem}.
HAKMEM also contains some rather more complicated mathematical and
technical items, but these examples show some of its fun flavor.
hakspek: /hak'speek/ n. A shorthand method of spelling found on
many British academic bulletin boards and {talker system}s.
Syllables and whole words in a sentence are replaced by single
ASCII characters the names of which are phonetically similar or
equivalent, while multiple letters are usually dropped. Hence,
`for' becomes `4'; `two', `too', and `to' become `2'; `ck'
becomes `k'. "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c u
2moro". First appeared in London about 1986, and was probably
caused by the slowness of available talker systems, which
operated on archaic machines with outdated operating systems and
no standard methods of communication. Has become rarer since.
See also {talk mode}.
hamster: n. 1. [Fairchild] A particularly slick little piece of code
that does one thing well; a small, self-contained hack. The image
is of a hamster happily spinning its exercise wheel. 2. [UK] Any item
of hardware made by Amstrad, a company famous for its cheap
plastic PC-almost-compatibles.
hand-hacking: n. 1. The practice of translating {hot spot}s from
an {HLL} into hand-tuned assembler, as opposed to trying to
coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the term and
the practice are becoming uncommon. See {tune}, {bum}, {by
hand}; syn. with v. {cruft}. 2. More generally, manual
construction or patching of data sets that would normally be
generated by a translation utility and interpreted by another
program, and aren't really designed to be read or modified by
humans.
handshaking: n. Hardware or software activity designed to start or
keep two machines or programs in synchronization as they {do
protocol}. Often applied to human activity; thus, a hacker might
watch two people in conversation nodding their heads to indicate
that they have heard each others' points and say "Oh, they're
handshaking!". See also {protocol}.
handwave: [poss. from gestures characteristic of stage magicians]
1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to
support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty
logic. 2. n. The act of handwaving. "Boy, what a handwave!"
If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or
"Obviously..." or "It is self-evident that...", it is
a good bet he is about to handwave (alternatively, use of these
constructions in a sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone
else's argument suggests that it is a handwave). The theory behind
this term is that if you wave your hands at the right moment, the
listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you
have said is {bogus}. Failing that, if a listener does object,
you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand.
The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands
up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting
at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the
handwave); alternatively, holding the forearms in one position
while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter. In
context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark; if a speaker
makes an outrageously unsupported assumption, you might simply wave
your hands in this way, as an accusation, far more eloquent than
words could express, that his logic is faulty.
hang: v. 1. To wait for an event that will never occur. "The
system is hanging because it can't read from the crashed drive".
See {wedged}, {hung}. 2. To wait for some event to occur; to
hang around until something happens. "The program displays a menu
and then hangs until you type a character." Compare {block}.
3. To attach a peripheral device, esp. in the construction `hang
off': "We're going to hang another tape drive off the file
server." Implies a device attached with cables, rather than
something that is strictly inside the machine's chassis.
Hanlon's Razor: prov. A corollary of {Finagle's Law}, similar to
Occam's Razor, that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can
be adequately explained by stupidity." The derivation of the
common title Hanlon's Razor is unknown; a similar epigram has been
attributed to William James. Quoted here because it seems to be a
particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in {fortune
cookie} files and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial
networks. This probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of
environments created by well-intentioned but short-sighted people.
happily: adv. Of software, used to emphasize that a program is
unaware of some important fact about its environment, either
because it has been fooled into believing a lie, or because it
doesn't care. The sense of `happy' here is not that of elation,
but rather that of blissful ignorance. "The program continues to
run, happily unaware that its output is going to /dev/null."
hard boot: n. See {boot}.
hardcoded: adj. 1. Said of data inserted directly into a program,
where it cannot be easily modified, as opposed to data in some
{profile}, resource (see {de-rezz} sense 2), or environment
variable that a {user} or hacker can easily modify. 2. In C,
this is esp. applied to use of a literal instead of a
`#define' macro (see {magic number}).
hardwarily: /hard-weir'*-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to
hardware. "The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective
`hardwary' is *not* traditionally used, though it has recently
been reported from the U.K. See {softwarily}.
hardwired: adj. 1. In software, syn. for {hardcoded}. 2. By
extension, anything that is not modifiable, especially in the sense
of customizable to one's particular needs or tastes.
has the X nature: [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the
form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"] adj. Common hacker
construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis. "Anyone
who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it
truly has the {loser} nature!" See also {the X that can be Y
is not the true X}.
hash bucket: n. A notional receptacle into which more than one
thing accessed by the same key or short code might be dropped.
When you look up a name in the phone book (for example), you
typically hash it by extracting its first letter; the hash buckets
are the alphabetically ordered letter sections. This is used as
techspeak with respect to code that uses actual hash functions; in
jargon, it is used for human associative memory as well. Thus, two
things `in the same hash bucket' may be confused with each other.
"If you hash English words only by length, you get too many common
grammar words in the first couple of hash buckets." Compare {hash
collision}.
hash collision: [from the technical usage] n. (var. `hash
clash') When used of people, signifies a confusion in associative
memory or imagination, especially a persistent one (see
{thinko}). True story: One of us [ESR] was once on the phone
with a friend about to move out to Berkeley. When asked what he
expected Berkeley to be like, the friend replied: "Well, I have
this mental picture of naked women throwing Molotov cocktails, but
I think that's just a collision in my hash tables." Compare
{hash bucket}.
hat: n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`^', ASCII
1011110) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
HCF: /H-C-F/ n. Mnemonic for `Halt and Catch Fire', any of
several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with
destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on
several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360.
The MC6800 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcode
became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to
{toggle} a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it could; in
some configurations this can actually cause lines to burn
up.
heads down: [Sun] adj. Concentrating, usually so heavily and for so
long that everything outside the focus area is missed. See also
{hack mode} and {larval stage}, although it is not confined to
fledgling hackers.
heartbeat: n. 1. The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet
transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the
collision-detection circuit is still connected. 2. A periodic
synchronization signal used by software or hardware, such as a bus
clock or a periodic interrupt. 3. The `natural' oscillation
frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division
down to the machine's clock rate. 4. A signal emitted at regular
intervals by software to demonstrate that it is still alive.
Sometimes hardware is designed to reboot the machine if it stops
hearing a heartbeat. See also {breath-of-life packet}.
heavy metal: [Cambridge] n. Syn. {big iron}.
heavy wizardry: n. Code or designs that trade on a particularly
intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system
or language or complex application interface. Distinguished from
{deep magic}, which trades more on arcane *theoretical*
knowledge. Writing device drivers is heavy wizardry; so is
interfacing to {X} (sense 2) without a toolkit. Esp. found in
comments similar to "Heavy wizardry begins here ...". Compare
{voodoo programming}.
heavyweight: adj. High-overhead; {baroque}; code-intensive;
featureful, but costly. Esp. used of communication protocols,
language designs, and any sort of implementation in which maximum
generality and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at the
expense of mundane considerations such as speed, memory utilization,
and startup time. {EMACS} is a heavyweight editor; {X} is an
*extremely* heavyweight window system. This term isn't
pejorative, but one man's heavyweight is another's {elephantine}
and a third's {monstrosity}. Oppose `lightweight'.
heisenbug: /hi:'zen-buhg/ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle in quantum physics] n. A bug that disappears or alters
its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. Antonym of
{Bohr bug}; see also {mandelbug}. In C, nine out of ten heisenbugs
result from either {fandango on core} phenomena (esp. lossage
related to corruption of the malloc {arena}) or errors that
{smash the stack}.
Helen Keller mode: n. State of a hardware or software system that
is deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e., accepting no input and generating no
output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion
into {deep space}. (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose
success at learning speech was triumphant.) See also
{go flatline}, {catatonic}.
hello, sailor!: interj. Occasional West Coast equivalent of
{hello, world}; seems to have originated at SAIL, later
associated with the game {Zork} (which also included "hello,
aviator" and "hello, implementor"). Originally from the
traditional hooker's greeting to a swabbie fresh off the boat, of
course.
hello, wall!: excl. See {wall}.
hello, world: interj. 1. The canonical minimal test message in the
C/UNIX universe. 2. Any of the minimal programs that emit this
message. Traditionally, the first program a C coder is supposed to
write in a new environment is one that just prints "hello, world"
to standard output (and indeed it is the first example program
in {K&R}). Environments that generate an unreasonably large
executable for this trivial test or which require a {hairy}
compiler-linker invocation to generate it are considered to
{lose} (see {X}). 3. Greeting uttered by a hacker making an
entrance or requesting information from anyone present. "Hello,
world! Is the {VAX} back up yet?"
hex: n. 1. Short for {{hexadecimal}}, base 16. 2. A 6-pack
of anything (compare {quad}, sense 2). Neither usage has
anything to do with {magic} or {black art}, though the pun is
appreciated and occasionally used by hackers. True story: As a
joke, some hackers once offered some surplus ICs for sale to be
worn as protective amulets against hostile magic. The chips were,
of course, hex inverters.
hexadecimal:: n. Base 16. Coined in the early 1960s to replace
earlier `sexadecimal', which was too racy and amusing for stuffy
IBM, and later adopted by the rest of the industry.
Actually, neither term is etymologically pure. If we take `binary'
to be paradigmatic, the most etymologically correct term for
base 10, for example, is `denary', which
comes from `deni' (ten at a time, ten each), a Latin `distributive'
number; the corresponding term for base-16 would be something like
`sendenary'. `Decimal' is from an ordinal number; the
corresponding prefix for 6 would imply something like
`sextidecimal'. The `sexa-' prefix is Latin but incorrect in this
context, and `hexa-' is Greek. The word `octal' is similarly
incorrect; a correct form would be `octaval' (to go with decimal),
or `octonary' (to go with binary). If anyone ever implements a
base-3 computer, computer scientists will be faced with the
unprecedented dilemma of a choice between two *correct* forms;
both `ternary' and `trinary' have a claim to this throne.
hexit: /hek'sit/ n. A hexadecimal digit (0--9, and A--F or a--f).
Used by people who claim that there are only *ten* digits,
dammit; sixteen-fingered human beings are rather rare, despite what
some keyboard designs might seem to imply (see {space-cadet
keyboard}).
hidden flag: [scientific computation] n. An extra option added to a
routine without changing the calling sequence. For example,
instead of adding an explicit input variable to instruct a routine
to give extra diagnostic output, the programmer might just add a
test for some otherwise meaningless feature of the existing inputs,
such as a negative mass. Liberal use of hidden flags can make a
program very hard to debug and understand.
high bit: [from `high-order bit'] n. 1. The most significant
bit in a byte. 2. By extension, the most significant part of
something other than a data byte: "Spare me the whole {saga},
just give me the high bit." See also {meta bit}, {hobbit},
{dread high-bit disease}, and compare the mainstream slang
`bottom line'.
high moby: /hi:' mohb'ee/ n. The high half of a 512K {PDP-10}'s
physical address space; the other half was of course the low moby. This
usage has been generalized in a way that has outlasted the
{PDP-10}; for example, at the 1990 Washington D.C. Area Science
Fiction Conclave (Disclave), when a miscommunication resulted in two
separate wakes being held in commemoration of the shutdown of MIT's
last {{ITS}} machines, the one on the upper floor was dubbed the
`high moby' and the other the `low moby'. All parties involved
{grok}ked this instantly. See {moby}.
highly: [scientific computation] adv. The preferred modifier for
overstating an understatement. As in: `highly nonoptimal', the
worst possible way to do something; `highly nontrivial', either
impossible or requiring a major research project; `highly
nonlinear', completely erratic and unpredictable; `highly
nontechnical', drivel written for {luser}s, oversimplified to the
point of being misleading or incorrect (compare {drool-proof
paper}). In other computing cultures, postfixing of {in the
extreme} might be preferred.
hirsute: adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for {hairy}.
HLL: /H-L-L/ n. [High-Level Language (as opposed to assembler)]
Found primarily in email and news rather than speech. Rarely, the
variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found. VHLL stands for `Very-High-Level
Language' and is used to describe a {bondage-and-discipline
language} that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FP
are often called VHLLs. `MLL' stands for `Medium-Level Language' and is
sometimes used half-jokingly to describe {C}, alluding to its
`structured-assembler' image. See also {languages of choice}.
hobbit: n. 1. The High Order Bit of a byte; same as the {meta
bit} or {high bit}. 2. The non-ITS name of vad@ai.mit.edu
(*Hobbit*), master of lasers.
hog: n.,vt. 1. Favored term to describe programs or hardware that
seem to eat far more than their share of a system's resources,
esp. those which noticeably degrade interactive response.
*Not* used of programs that are simply extremely large or
complex or that are merely painfully slow themselves (see {pig,
run like a}). More often than not encountered in qualified forms,
e.g., `memory hog', `core hog', `hog the processor', `hog
the disk'. "A controller that never gives up the I/O bus
gets killed after the bus-hog timer expires." 2. Also said
of *people* who use more than their fair share of resources
(particularly disk, where it seems that 10% of the people use 90%
of the disk, no matter how big the disk is or how many people use
it). Of course, once disk hogs fill up one filesystem, they
typically find some other new one to infect, claiming to the
sysadmin that they have an important new project to complete.
holy wars: [from {USENET}, but may predate it] n. {flame
war}s over {religious issues}. The paper by Danny Cohen that
popularized the terms {big-endian} and {little-endian} in
connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled
"On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace". Other perennial Holy
Wars have included {EMACS} vs. {vi}, my personal computer vs.
everyone else's personal computer, {{ITS}} vs. {{UNIX}},
{{UNIX}} vs. {VMS}, {BSD} UNIX vs. {USG UNIX}, {C} vs.
{{Pascal}}, {C} vs. {LISP}, etc., ad nauseam. The
characteristic that distinguishes {holy wars} from normal
technical disputes is that in a holy wars most of the participants
spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and
cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. See also
{theology}.
home box: n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he or she
owns. "Yeah? Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2 BSD, so
there!"
hook: n. A software or hardware feature included in order to
simplify later additions or changes by a user. For example,
a simple program that prints numbers might always print them in
base 10, but a more flexible version would let a variable
determine what base to use; setting the variable to 5 would make
the program print numbers in base 5. The variable is a simple
hook. An even more flexible program might examine the variable
and treat a value of 16 or less as the base to use, but treat any
other number as the address of a user-supplied routine for printing
a number. This is a {hairy} but powerful hook; one can then write a
routine to print numbers as Roman numerals, say, or as Hebrew
characters, and plug it into the program through the hook. Often
the difference between a good program and a superb one is that the
latter has useful hooks in judiciously chosen places. Both may do
the original job about equally well, but the one with the hooks is
much more flexible for future expansion of capabilities ({EMACS},
for example, is *all* hooks). The term `user exit' is
synonymous but much more formal and less hackish.
hop: n. One file transmission in a series required to get a file
from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network. On such
networks (including {UUCPNET} and {FidoNet}), the important
inter-machine metric is the number of hops in the shortest path
between them, rather than their geographical separation. See
{bang path}.
hose: 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in
performance. "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the
system." See {hosed}. 2. n. A narrow channel through which
data flows under pressure. Generally denotes data paths that
represent performance bottlenecks. 3. n. Cabling, especially
thick Ethernet cable. This is sometimes called `bit hose' or
`hosery' (play on `hosiery') or `etherhose'. See also
{washing machine}.
hosed: adj. Same as {down}. Used primarily by UNIX hackers.
Humorous: also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to
reverse. Probably derived from the Canadian slang `hoser'
popularized by the Bob and Doug Mackenzie skits on SCTV. See
{hose}. It is also widely used of people in the mainstream sense
of `in an extremely unfortunate situation'.
Once upon a time, a Cray that had been experiencing periodic
difficulties crashed, and it was announced to have been hosed.
It was discovered that the crash was due to the disconnection of
some coolant hoses. The problem was corrected, and users were then
assured that everything was OK because the system had been rehosed.
See also {dehose}.
hot spot: n. 1. [primarily used by C/UNIX programmers, but
spreading] It is received wisdom that in most programs, less than
10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time; if one were to
graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one would typically
see a few huge spikes amidst a lot of low-level noise. Such spikes
are called `hot spots' and are good candidates for heavy
optimization or {hand-hacking}. The term is especially used of
tight loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as
opposed to (say) initial set-up costs or large but infrequent I/O
operations. See {tune}, {bum}, {hand-hacking}. 2. The
active location of a cursor on a bit-map display. "Put the
mouse's hot spot on the `ON' widget and click the left button."
3. In a massively parallel computer with shared memory, the one
location that all 10,000 processors are trying to read or
write at once (perhaps because they are all doing a {busy-wait}
on the same lock).
house wizard: [prob. from ad-agency lingo, `house freak'] n. A
hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position
at a commercial shop. A really effective house wizard can have
influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and
still not have to wear a suit. Used esp. of UNIX wizards. The
term `house guru' is equivalent.
HP-SUX: /H-P suhks/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX,
Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port. Features some truly unique bogosities
in the filesystem internals and elsewhere which occasionally create
portability problems. HP-UX is often referred to as `hockey-pux'
inside HP, and one respondent claims that the proper pronunciation
is /H-P ukkkhhhh/ as though one were about to spit. Another such
alternate spelling and pronunciation is "H-PUX" /H-puhks/.
Hackers at HP/Apollo (the former Apollo Computers which was swallowed
by HP in 1989) have been heard to complain that Mr. Packard should
have pushed to have his name first, if for no other reason than the
greater eloquence of the resulting acronym. Compare {buglix}.
See also {Telerat}, {sun-stools}, {terminak}.
huff: v. To compress data using a Huffman code. Various programs
that use such methods have been called `HUFF' or some variant
thereof. Oppose {puff}. Compare {crunch}, {compress}.
humma: // excl. A filler word used on various `chat' and
`talk' programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was
important to say something. The word apparently originated (at
least with this definition) on the MECC Timeshare System (MTS, a
now-defunct educational time-sharing system running in Minnesota
during the 1970s and the early 1980s) but was later sighted on
early UNIX systems.
Humor, Hacker:: n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor
found among hackers, having the following distinctive
characteristics:
1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}). One way
to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her
with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that
this is funny only the first time).
2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such
as specifications (see {write-only memory}), standards documents,
language descriptions (see {INTERCAL}), and even entire scientific
theories (see {quantum bogodynamics}, {computron}).
3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.
5. A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive
currents of intelligence in it --- for example, old Warner Brothers
and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early
B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humor that combines this
trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially
favored.
6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas
in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See {has the X nature},
{Discordianism}, {zen}, {ha ha only serious}, {AI koans}.
See also {filk}, {retrocomputing}, and appendix B. If you have an
itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of
one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker. These traits are
also recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout
{{science-fiction fandom}}.
hung: [from `hung up'] adj. Equivalent to {wedged}, but more
common at UNIX/C sites. Not generally used of people. Syn. with
{locked up}, {wedged}; compare {hosed}. See also {hang}.
A hung state is distinguished from {crash}ed or {down}, where the
program or system is also unusable but because it is not running
rather than because it is waiting for something. However, the
recovery from both situations is often the same.
hungry puppy: n. Syn. {slopsucker}.
hungus: /huhng'g*s/ [perhaps related to slang `humongous'] adj.
Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable. "TCP is a hungus piece of
code." "This is a hungus set of modifications."
hyperspace: /hi:'per-spays/ n. A memory location that is *far*
away from where the program counter should be pointing, often
inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. "Another core
dump --- looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace
somehow." (Compare {jump off into never-never land}.) This
usage is from the SF notion of a spaceship jumping `into
hyperspace', that is, taking a shortcut through higher-dimensional
space --- in other words, bypassing this universe. The variant
`east hyperspace' is recorded among CMU and Bliss hackers.
= I =
I didn't change anything!: interj. An aggrieved cry often heard as
bugs manifest during a regression test. The {canonical} reply to
this assertion is "Then it works just the same as it did before,
doesn't it?" See also {one-line fix}. This is also heard from
applications programmers trying to blame an obvious applications
problem on an unrelated systems software change, for example a
divide-by-0 fault after terminals were added to a network.
Usually, their statement is found to be false. Upon close
questioning, they will admit some major restructuring of the
program that shouldn't have broken anything, in their opinion,
but which actually {hosed} the code completely.
I see no X here.: Hackers (and the interactive computer games they
write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other
possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or "X is
missing." or "Where's the X?". This goes back to the original
PDP-10 {ADVENT}, which would respond in this wise if you asked
it to do something involving an object not present at your location
in the game.
i14y: // n. Abbrev. for `interoperability', with the `14'
replacing fourteen letters. Used in the {X} (windows)
community. Refers to portability and compatibility of data formats
(even binary ones) between different programs or implementations of
the same program on different machines.
i18n: // n. Abbrev. for `internationali{z,s}ation', with the 18
replacing 18 letters. Used in the {X} (windows) community.
IBM: /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually;
Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel
Movement; and a near-{infinite} number of even less complimentary
expansions, including `International Business Machines'. See
{TLA}. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable
antipathy most hackers have long felt toward the `industry leader'
(see {fear and loathing}).
What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't
so much that they are underpowered and overpriced (though that does
count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic,
{crufty}, and {elephantine} ... and you can't *fix* them
--- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are
expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found
them. With the release of the UNIX-based RIOS family this may have
begun to change --- but then, we thought that when the PC-RT came
out, too.
In the spirit of universal peace and brotherhood, this lexicon now
includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some
rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's own
beleaguered hacker underground.
IBM discount: n. A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from
the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced
(see {clone}); inside, it is said to spring from a belief that
large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause prices to
rise.
ice: [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William
Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: acronym for `Intrusion
Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels,
software that responds to intrusion by attempting to literally kill
the intruder). Also, `icebreaker': a program designed for
cracking security on a system. Neither term is in serious use yet
as of mid-1991, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and
each may develop a denotation in the future.
ifdef out: /if'def owt/ v. Syn. for {condition out}, specific
to {C}.
ill-behaved: adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or
computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated
roundoff error or poor convergence properties. 2. Software that
bypasses the defined {OS} interfaces to do things (like screen,
keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the
hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or
incompatible with other pieces of software. In the IBM PC/MS-DOS
world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that
(owing to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS
interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved. See also
{bare metal}. Oppose {well-behaved}, compare {PC-ism}. See
{mess-dos}.
IMHO: // [from SF fandom via USENET; acronym for `In My Humble
Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as
mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect
errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." Also seen in
variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO
(In My Arrogant Opinion).
in the extreme: adj. A preferred superlative suffix for many hackish
terms. See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' under {obscure},
and compare {highly}.
incantation: n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that
one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used
of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used
of tricks that are so poorly documented they must be learned from a
{wizard}. "This compiler normally locates initialized data
in the data segment, but if you {mutter} the right incantation they
will be forced into text space."
include: vt. [USENET] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of
another's message (typically with attribution to the source) in a
reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.
See the the discussion of inclusion styles under "Hacker
Writing Style". 2. [from {C}] `#include <disclaimer.h>'
has appeared in {sig block}s to refer to a notional `standard
disclaimer file'.
include war: n. Excessive multi-leveled including within a
discussion {thread}, a practice that tends to annoy readers. In
a forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as USENET, this can lead
to {flame}s and the urge to start a {kill file}.
indent style: [C programmers] n. The rules one uses to indent code
in a readable fashion; a subject of {holy wars}. There are four
major C indent styles, described below; all have the aim of
making it easier for the reader to visually track the scope of
control constructs. The significant variable is the placement of
`{' and `}' with respect to the statement(s) they
enclose and the guard or controlling statement (`if',
`else', `for', `while', or `do') on the block,
if any.
`K&R style' --- Named after Kernighan & Ritchie, because the
examples in {K&R} are formatted this way. Also called `kernel
style' because the UNIX kernel is written in it, and the `One True
Brace Style' (abbrev. 1TBS) by its partisans. The basic indent
shown here is eight spaces (or one tab) per level; four or are
occasionally seen, but are much less common.
if (cond) {
<body>
}
`Allman style' --- Named for Eric Allman, a Berkeley hacker who
wrote a lot of the BSD utilities in it (it is sometimes called
`BSD style'). Resembles normal indent style in Pascal and Algol.
Basic indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four is just
as common (esp. in C++ code).
if (cond)
{
<body>
}
`Whitesmiths style' --- popularized by the examples that came
with Whitesmiths C, an early commercial C compiler. Basic indent
per level shown here is eight spaces, but four is occasionally seen.
if (cond)
{
<body>
}
`GNU style' --- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software
Foundation code, and just about nowhere else. Indents are always
four spaces per level, with `{' and `}' halfway between the
outer and inner indent levels.
if (cond)
{
<body>
}
Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most
common, with about equal mind shares. K&R/1TBS used to be nearly
universal, but is now much less common (the opening brace tends to
get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an `if'
or `while', which is a {Bad Thing}). Defenders of 1TBS
argue that any putative gain in readability is less important than
their style's relative economy with vertical space, which enables
one to see more code on one's screen at once. Doubtless these
issues will continue to be the subject of {holy wars}.
index: n. See {coefficient}.
infant mortality: n. It is common lore among hackers that the
chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a
machine's time since power-up (that is, until the relatively
distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and
thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the
machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip and wire
failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such
failures are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems
(or, occasionally, as `sudden infant death syndrome'). See
{bathtub curve}, {burn-in period}.
infinite: adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.
Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite
garbage." "He is an infinite loser." The word most likely to
follow `infinite', though, is {hair} (it has been pointed out
that fractals are an excellent example of infinite hair). These
uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning. The term
`semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount of some
resource, is also heard. "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite
amount of time to optimize my program." See also {semi}.
infinite loop: n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine
{spin}s or {buzz}es forever; the usual symptom is
{catatonia}). There is a standard joke that has been made about
each generation's exemplar of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3
is so fast it can execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"
infinity: n. 1. The largest value that can be represented in a
particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type,
whatever). 2. `minus infinity': The smallest such value, not
necessarily or even usually the simple negation of plus infinity.
In N-bit twos-complement arithmetic, infinity is
2^{N-1} - 1 but minus infinity is - (2^{N-1}),
not -(2^{N-1} - 1). Note also that this is different from
"time T equals minus infinity", which is closer to a
mathematician's usage of infinity.
insanely great: adj. [Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD UNIX
people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly {elegant} that it is
imaginable only to someone possessing the most puissant of
{hacker}-natures.
INTERCAL: /in't*r-kal/ [said by the authors to stand for
`Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] n. A
computer language designed by Don Woods and James Lyon in 1972.
INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer
languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written language,
being totally unspeakable. An excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference
Manual will make the style of the language clear:
It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose
work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem. For example, if
one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536
in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is:
DO :1 <- #0$#256
any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd. Since this
is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look
foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to
turn up, as bosses are wont to do. The effect would be no less
devastating for the programmer having been correct.
INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even
more unspeakable. The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used
by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton. The language
has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently
enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an
alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...
appreciation of the language on USENET.
interesting: adj. In hacker parlance, this word has strong
connotations of `annoying', or `difficult', or both. Hackers
relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out
of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".
Oppose {trivial}, {uninteresting}.
Internet address:: n. 1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of
the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a
{sitename}, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including
periods itself. Contrast with {bang path}; see also {network,
the} and {network address}. All Internet machines and most UUCP
sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of
behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.
See also {bang path}, {domainist}. 2. More loosely, any
network address reachable through Internet; this includes {bang
path} addresses and some internal corporate and government
networks.
Reading Internet addresses is something of an art. Here are the
four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed
by a selection of geographical domains:
com
commercial organizations
edu
educational institutions
gov
U.S. government civilian sites
mil
U.S. military sites
Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in
the U.S. or Canada.
us
sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains
su
sites in the Soviet Union (see {kremvax}).
uk
sites in the United Kingdom
Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty
states, each generally with a name identical to the state's postal
abbreviation. Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for
academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones. Other
top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways.
interrupt: 1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event that
interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts
flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine. See also
{trap}. 2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker.
Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt --- have you seen Joe
recently?" See {priority interrupt}. 3. Under MS-DOS, the
term `interrupt' is nearly synonymous with `system call', because
the OS and BIOS routines are both called using the INT instruction
(see {{interrupt list, the}}) and because programmers so often have
to bypass the OS (going directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get
reasonable performance.
interrupt list, the:: [MS-DOS] n. The list of all known software
interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM PCs and
compatibles, maintained and made available for free redistribution
by Ralf Brown (ralf@cs.cmu.edu). As of early 1991, it had grown to
approximately a megabyte in length.
interrupts locked out: When someone is ignoring you. In a
restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's
attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have interrupts
locked out". The synonym `interrupts disabled' is also common.
Variations of this abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set"
or "interrupts masked out" is also heard. See also {spl}.
iron: n. Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of
{mainframe} class with big metal cabinets housing relatively
low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern
supercomputers). Often in the phrase {big iron}. Oppose
{silicon}. See also {dinosaur}.
Iron Age: n. In the history of computing, 1961--1971 --- the
formative era of commercial {mainframe} technology, when {big
iron} {dinosaur}s ruled the earth. These began with the delivery
of the first PDP-1, coincided with the dominance of ferrite
{core}, and ended with the introduction of the first commercial
microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971. See also {Stone Age};
compare {elder days}.
iron box: [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap
a {cracker} logging in over remote connections long enough to be
traced. May include a modified {shell} restricting the hacker's
movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed to keep him
interested and logged on. See also {back door}, {firewall
machine}, {Venus flytrap}, and Clifford Stoll's account in
`The Cuckoo's Egg' of how he made and used one (see
the Bibliography). Compare {padded cell}.
ironmonger: [IBM] n. Derogatory. A hardware specialist. Compare
{sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.
ITS:: /I-T-S/ n. 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an
influential but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for
PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab. Much
AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an
ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most
venerable sort. ITS pioneered many important innovations,
including transparent file sharing between machines and
terminal-independent I/O. After about 1982, most actual work was
shifted to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run
essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community. The
shutdown of the lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end
of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see
{high moby}). The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden is
maintaining one `live' ITS site at its computer museum (right next
to the only TOPS-10 system still on the Internet), so ITS is still
alleged to hold the record for OS in longest continuous use
(however, {{WAITS}} is a credible rival for this palm). See
appendix A. 2. A mythical image of operating-system perfection
worshiped by a bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and
ex-users (see {troglodyte}, sense 2). ITS worshipers manage
somehow to continue believing that an OS maintained by
assembly-language hand-hacking that supported only monocase
6-character filenames in one directory per account remains superior
to today's state of commercial art (their venom against UNIX is
particularly intense). See also {holy wars},
{Weenix}.
IWBNI: // [acronym] `It Would Be Nice If'. Compare {WIBNI}.
IYFEG: // [USENET] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite Ethnic
Group'. Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes on the net to
avoid offending anyone. See {JEDR}.
= J =
J. Random: /J rand'm/ n. [generalized from {J. Random Hacker}]
Arbitrary; ordinary; any one; any old. `J. Random' is often
prefixed to a noun to make a name out of it. It means roughly
`some particular' or `any specific one'. "Would you let
J. Random Loser marry your daughter?" The most common uses are
`J. Random Hacker', `J. Random Loser', and `J. Random Nerd'
("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to {gun} down other
people?"), but it can be used simply as an elaborate version of
{random} in any sense.
J. Random Hacker: [MIT] /J rand'm hak'r/ n. A mythical figure
like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd. See
{random}, {Suzie COBOL}. This may originally have been
inspired or influenced by `J. Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee
whose name was a household word back in the early days of {TMRC}.
jaggies: /jag'eez/ n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an
edge (esp. a linear edge of very shallow or steep slope) is
rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).
JCL: /J-C-L/ n. 1. IBM's supremely {rude} Job Control
Language. JCL is the script language used to control the execution
of programs in IBM's batch systems. JCL has a very {fascist}
syntax, and some versions will, for example, {barf} if two
spaces appear where it expects one. Most programmers confronted
with JCL simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the
file names. Someone who actually understands and generates unique
JCL is regarded with the mixed respect one gives to someone who
memorizes the phone book. It is reported that hackers at IBM
itself sometimes sing "Who's the breeder of the crud that mangles
you and me? I-B-M, J-C-L, M-o-u-s-e" to the tune of the
"Mickey Mouse Club" theme to express their opinion of the
beast. 2. A comparative for any very {rude} software that a
hacker is expected to use. "That's as bad as JCL." As with
{COBOL}, JCL is often used as an archetype of ugliness even by
those who haven't experienced it. See also {IBM}, {fear and
loathing}.
JEDR: // n. Synonymous with {IYFEG}. At one time, people in
the USENET newsgroup rec.humor.funny tended to use `JEDR'
instead of {IYFEG} or `<ethnic>'; this stemmed from a public
attempt to suppress the group once made by a loser with initials
JEDR after he was offended by an ethnic joke posted there. (The
practice was {retcon}ned by the expanding these initials as
`Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race'.) After much sound and fury JEDR
faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise. JEDR's only
permanent effect on the net.culture was to discredit
`sensitivity' arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more
recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate and
near-universal rejection.
JFCL: /jif'kl/, /jaf'kl/, /j*-fi'kl/ vt., obs. (alt.
`jfcl') To cancel or annul something. "Why don't you jfcl that
out?" The fastest do-nothing instruction on older models of the
PDP-10 happened to be JFCL, which stands for "Jump if Flag set and
then CLear the flag"; this does something useful, but is a very
fast no-operation if no flag is specified. Geoff Goodfellow, one
of the jargon-1 co-authors, has long had JFCL on the license plate
of his BMW. Usage: rare except among old-time PDP-10 hackers.
jiffy: n. 1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on the
computer (see {tick}). Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in
the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently
1/100 sec has become common. "The swapper runs every 6 jiffies" means
that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for
every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.
2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond
{wall time} interval. 3. Indeterminate time from a few seconds
to forever. "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and
possibly never. This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use
of the word. Oppose {nano}. See also {Real Soon Now}.
job security: n. When some piece of code is written in a
particularly {obscure} fashion, and no good reason (such as time
or space optimization) can be discovered, it is often said that the
programmer was attempting to increase his job security (i.e., by
making himself indispensable for maintenance). This sour joke
seldom has to be said in full; if two hackers are looking over some
code together and one points at a section and says "job security",
the other one may just nod.
jock: n. 1. A programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat
brute-force programs. See {brute force}. 2. When modified by
another noun, describes a specialist in some particular computing
area. The compounds `compiler jock' and `systems jock' seem to be
the best-established examples of this.
joe code: /joh' kohd`/ n. 1. Code that is overly {tense} and
unmaintainable. "{Perl} may be a handy program, but if you look
at the source, it's complete joe code." 2. Badly written,
possibly buggy code.
Correspondents wishing to remain anonymous have fingered a
particular Joe at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and observed
that usage has drifted slightly; the original sobriquet `Joe code'
was intended in sense 1.
JR[LN]: /J-R-L/, /J-R-N/ n. The names JRL and JRN
were sometimes used as example names when discussing a kind of user
ID used under {{TOPS-10}}; they were understood to be the initials
of (fictitious) programmers named `J. Random Loser' and `J. Random
Nerd' (see {J. Random}). For example, if one said "To log
in, type log one comma jay are en" (that is, "log 1,JRN"), the
listener would have understood that he should use his own computer
ID in place of `JRN'.
JRST: /jerst/ [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v.,obs. To
suddenly change subjects, with no intention of returning to the
previous topic. Usage: rather rare except among PDP-10 diehards, and
considered silly. See also {AOS}.
juggling eggs: vi. Keeping a lot of {state} in your head while
modifying a program. "Don't bother me now, I'm juggling eggs",
means that an interrupt is likely to result in the program's being
scrambled. In the classic first-contact SF novel `The Mote in
God's Eye', by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, an alien describes a
very difficult task by saying "We juggle priceless eggs in
variable gravity." That is a very hackish use of language. See
also {hack mode}.
jump off into never-never land: [from J. M. Barrie's `Peter
Pan'] v. Same as {branch to Fishkill}, but more common in
technical cultures associated with non-IBM computers that use the
term `jump' rather than `branch'. Compare {hyperspace}.
= K =
K: /K/ [from {kilo-}] n. A kilobyte. This is used both as a
spoken word and a written suffix (like {meg} and {gig} for
megabyte and gigabyte). See {{quantifiers}}.
K&R: [Kernighan and Ritchie] n. Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's
book `The C Programming Language', esp. the classic and influential
first edition (Prentice-Hall 1978; ISBN 0-113-110163-3). Syn.
{White Book}, {Old Testament}. See also {New Testament}.
kahuna: /k*-hoo'nuh/ [IBM: from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.
Synonym for {wizard}, {guru}.
kamikaze packet: n. The `official' jargon for what is more commonly
called a {Christmas tree packet}. RFC-1025, `TCP and IP Bake Off'
says:
10 points for correctly being able to process a "Kamikaze"
packet (AKA nastygram, christmas tree packet, lamp test
segment, et al.). That is, correctly handle a segment with the
maximum combination of features at once (e.g., a SYN URG PUSH
FIN segment with options and data).
See also {Chernobyl packet}.
kangaroo code: n. Syn. {spaghetti code}.
ken: /ken/ n. 1. [UNIX] Ken Thompson, principal inventor of
UNIX. In the early days he used to hand-cut distribution tapes,
often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still use
his first name (sometimes uncapitalized, because it's a login name
and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely
understood (on USENET, in particular) that without a last name
`Ken' refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last
name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr). See
also {demigod}, {{UNIX}}. 2. A flaming user. This was
originated by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the
two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken.
kgbvax: /K-G-B'vaks/ n. See {kremvax}.
kill file: [USENET] n. (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used
by some {USENET} reading programs (originally Larry Wall's
`rn(1)') to discard summarily (without presenting for reading)
articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted)
patterns of subject, author, or other header lines. Thus to add
a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for that
person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future. By extension,
it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in
other media. See also {plonk}.
killer micro: [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. A
microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or
supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will
survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the
downsizers. Used esp. of RISC architectures.
The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is
doubtless reinforced by the movie title "Attack Of The Killer
Tomatoes" (one of the {canonical} examples of
so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers). This has even more flavor
now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just
individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively
parallel computers).
killer poke: n. A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine
via insertion of invalid values (see {poke}) in a memory-mapped
control register; used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks
on {bitty box}es without hardware memory management (such as the
IBM PC and Commodore PET) that can overload and trash analog
electronics in the monitor. See also {HCF}.
kilo-: [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
KIPS: /kips/ [acronym, by analogy with {MIPS} using {K}] n.
Thousands (*not* 1024s) of Instructions Per Second. Usage:
rare.
KISS Principle: /kis' prin'si-pl/ n. "Keep It Simple, Stupid".
A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off
{creeping featurism} and control development complexity.
Possibly related to the {marketroid} maxim on sales
presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple".
kit: [USENET] n. A source software distribution that has been
packaged in such a way that it can (theoretically) be unpacked and
installed according to a series of steps using only standard UNIX
tools, and entirely documented by some reasonable chain of
references from the top-level {README file}. The more general
term {distribution} may imply that special tools or more
stringent conditions on the host environment are required.
klone: /klohn/ n. See {clone}, sense 4.
kludge: /kluhj/ n. Common (but incorrect) variant of {kluge}, q.v.
kluge: /klooj/ [from the German `klug', clever] 1. n. A Rube
Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or
software. (A long-ago `Datamation' article by Jackson Granholme
said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts,
forming a distressing whole.") 2. n. A clever programming trick
intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not
clear, manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves
{ad-hockery} and verges on being a {crock}. In fact, the
TMRC Dictionary defined `kludge' as "a crock that works". 3. n.
Something that works for the wrong reason. 4. vt. To insert a
kluge into a program. "I've kluged this routine to get around
that weird bug, but there's probably a better way." 5. [WPI] n. A
feature that is implemented in a {rude} manner.
Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling
`kludge'. Reports from {old fart}s are consistent that `kluge'
was the original spelling, and that `kludge' arose by mutation
sometime in the early 1970s. Some people who encountered the word
first in print or on-line jumped to the reasonable but incorrect
conclusion that the word should be pronounced /kluhj/ (rhyming
with `sludge'). The result of this tangled history is a mess; in
1991, many (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word correctly
as /klooj/ but spell it incorrectly as `kludge' (compare the
pronunciation drift of {mung}). Some observers consider this
appropriate in view of its meaning.
kluge around: vt. To avoid a bug or difficult condition by
inserting a {kluge}. Compare {workaround}.
kluge up: vt. To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this
is milder than {cruft together} and has some of the connotations
of {hack up} (note, however, that the construction `kluge on'
corresponding to {hack on} is never used). "I've kluged up this
routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe place."
Knights of the Lambda Calculus: n. A semi-mythical organization of
wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The name refers to a
mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which LISP is
intimately connected. There is no enrollment list and the criteria
for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known
to give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who
they are....
Knuth: [Donald E. Knuth's `The Art of Computer Programming']
n. Mythically, the reference that answers all questions about data
structures or algorithms. A safe answer when you do not know:
"I think you can find that in Knuth." Contrast {literature,
the}. See also {bible}.
kremvax: /krem-vaks/ [from the then large number of {USENET}
{VAXen} with names of the form foovax] n. Originally, a
fictitious USENET site at the Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984
in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader
Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet
Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the
hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}, which now seems to be the one by
which it is remembered. This was probably the funniest of the many
April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on USENET (which has negligible
security against them), because the notion that USENET might ever
penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time.
In fact, it was only six years later that the first genuine site in
Moscow, demos.su, joined USENET. Some readers needed
convincing that the postings from it weren't just another prank.
Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su), the major poster from there
up to at least the end of 1990, was quite aware of all this,
referred to it frequently in his own postings, and at one point
twitted some credulous readers by blandly asserting that he
*was* a hoax!
Eventually he even arranged to have the domain's gateway site
*named* kremvax, thus neatly turning fiction into truth
and demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends
cultural barriers. [Mr. Antonov also contributed the
Russian-language material for this lexicon. --- ESR]
= L =
lace card: n. obs. A {{punched card}} with all holes punched (also
called a `whoopee card'). Card readers jammed when they got to
one of these, as the resulting card had too little structural
strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches
could also jam trying to produce these things owing to power-supply
problems. When some practical joker fed a lace card through the
reader, you needed to clear the jam with a `card knife' ---
which you used on the joker first.
language lawyer: n. A person, usually an experienced or senior
software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of
the numerous restrictions and features (both useful and esoteric)
applicable to one or more computer programming languages. A
language lawyer is distinguished by the ability to show you the
five sentences scattered through a 200-plus-page manual that
together imply the answer to your question "if only you had
thought to look there". Compare {wizard}, {legal},
{legalese}.
languages of choice: n. {C} and {LISP}. Nearly every hacker
knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk
and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities.
There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with
FORTRAN, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They
often prefer to be known as {real programmer}s, and other hackers
consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer"
in appendix A). Assembler is generally no longer considered
interesting or appropriate for anything but {HLL} implementation,
{glue}, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems
programs. FORTRAN occupies a shrinking niche in scientific
programming.
Most hackers tend to frown on languages like {{Pascal}} and
{{Ada}}, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered
necessary for hacking (see {bondage-and-discipline language}), and
to regard everything that's even remotely connected with {COBOL}
or other traditional {card walloper} languages as a total
and unmitigated {loss}.
larval stage: n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration
on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers.
Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour
{hacking run} in a given week; neglect of all other activities
including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and
a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from 6 months to 2
years, the apparent median being around 18 months. A few so
afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal
seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to
merely competent) programmers. See also {wannabee}. A less
protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting
about a month) may recur when one is learning a new {OS} or
programming language.
lase: /layz/ vt. To print a given document via a laser printer.
"OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro
calls did the right things."
laser chicken: n. Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish
containing chicken, peanuts, and hot red peppers in a spicy
pepper-oil sauce. Many hackers call it `laser chicken' for
two reasons: It can {zap} you just like a laser, and the
sauce has a red color reminiscent of some laser beams.
In a variation on this theme, it is reported that some Australian
hackers have redesignated the common dish `lemon chicken' as
`Chernobyl Chicken'. The name is derived from the color of the
sauce, which is considered bright enough to glow in the dark (as,
mythically, do some of the inhabitants of Chernobyl).
laundromat: n. Syn. {disk farm}; see {washing machine}.
LDB: /l*'d*b/ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] vt. To extract
from the middle. "LDB me a slice of cake, please." This usage
has been kept alive by Common LISP's function of the same name.
Considered silly. See also {DPB}.
leaf site: n. A machine that merely originates and reads USENET
news or mail, and does not relay any third-party traffic. Often
uttered in a critical tone; when the ratio of leaf sites to
backbone, rib, and other relay sites gets too high, the network
tends to develop bottlenecks. Compare {backbone site}, {rib
site}.
leak: n. With qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs
that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations
on them are finished, so they effectively disappear (leak out).
This leads to eventual exhaustion as new allocation requests come
in. {memory leak} and {fd leak} have their own entries; one
might also refer, to, say, a `window handle leak' in a window
system.
leaky heap: [Cambridge] n. An {arena} with a {memory leak}.
legal: adj. Loosely used to mean `in accordance with all the
relevant rules', esp. in connection with some set of constraints
defined by software. "The older =+ alternate for += is no longer
legal syntax in ANSI C." "This parser processes each line of
legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed." Hackers
often model their work as a sort of game played with the
environment in which the objective is to maneuver through the
thicket of `natural laws' to achieve a desired objective. Their
use of `legal' is flavored as much by this game-playing sense as by
the more conventional one having to do with courts and lawyers.
Compare {language lawyer}, {legalese}.
legalese: n. Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language description,
product specification, or interface standard; text that seems
designed to obfuscate and requires a {language lawyer} to
{parse} it. Though hackers are not afraid of high information
density and complexity in language (indeed, they rather enjoy
both), they share a deep and abiding loathing for legalese; they
associate it with deception, {suit}s, and situations in which
hackers generally get the short end of the stick.
LER: /L-E-R/ [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode] n. A
light-emitting resistor (that is, one in the process of burning
up). Ohm's law was broken. See {SED}.
LERP: /lerp/ vi.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a
verb or noun for the operation. E.g., Bresenham's algorithm lerps
incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.
let the smoke out: v. To fry hardware (see {fried}). See
{magic smoke} for the mythology behind this.
letterbomb: n. A piece of {email} containing {live data}
intended to do nefarious things to the recipient's machine or
terminal. It is possible, for example, to send letterbombs that
will lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are viewed,
so thoroughly that the user must {cycle power} to unwedge them.
Under UNIX, a letterbomb can also try to get part of its contents
interpreted as a shell command to the mailer. The results of this
could range from silly to tragic. See also {Trojan horse};
compare {nastygram}.
lexer: /lek'sr/ n. Common hacker shorthand for `lexical
analyzer', the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language
(the part that breaks it into word-like pieces). "Some C lexers
get confused by the old-style compound ops like `=-'."
lexiphage: /lek'si-fayj`/ n. A notorious word {chomper} on
ITS. See {bagbiter}.
life: n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton
Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (`Scientific
American', October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of
fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed
heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably
Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented life in {TECO}!; see
{Gosperism}). When a hacker mentions `life', he is much more
likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal,
or the human state of existence. 2. The opposite of {USENET}.
As in {Get a life!}
light pipe: n. Fiber optic cable. Oppose {copper}.
like kicking dead whales down the beach: adj. Describes a slow,
difficult, and disgusting process. First popularized by a famous
quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of IBM's
mainframe OSes. "Well, you *could* write a C compiler in
COBOL, but it would be like kicking dead whales down the beach."
See also {fear and loathing}
like nailing jelly to a tree: adj. Used to describe a task thought
to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from
poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain.
"Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of nodes and arcs
that diagrams a given graph is like nailing jelly to a tree,
because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically."
line eater, the: [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete
versions of the netnews software that used to eat up to BUFSIZ
bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered by having the
text of the article start with a space or tab. This bug was
quickly personified as a mythical creature called the `line
eater', and postings often included a dummy line of `line eater
food'. Ironically, line eater `food' not beginning with a space or
tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if there
*was* a space or tab before it, then the line eater would eat
the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be
protecting. The practice of `sacrificing to the line eater'
continued for some time after the bug had been {nailed to the
wall}, and is still humorously referred to. The bug itself is
still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some
mail-to-netnews gateways. 2. See {NSA line eater}.
line starve: [MIT] 1. vi. To feed paper through a printer the wrong
way by one line (most printers can't do this). On a display
terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the screen.
"To print `X squared', you just output `X', line starve,
`2', line feed." (The line starve causes the `2' to appear on the
line above the `X', and the line feed gets back to the original
line.) 2. n. A character (or character sequence) that causes a
terminal to perform this action. Unlike `line feed', `line starve'
is *not* standard {{ASCII}} terminology. Even among hackers
it is considered a bit silly. 3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c
(used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) that suppresses a
{newline} or other character(s) that would normally be emitted.
link farm: [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to
files in a master directory tree of files. Link farms save space
when (for example) one is maintaining several nearly identical
copies of the same source tree, e.g., when the only difference is
architecture-dependent object files. "Let's freeze the source and
then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms." Link farms
may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of
`-I' (include-file directory) arguments on older
C preprocessors.
link-dead: [MUD] adj. Said of a {MUD} character who has frozen in
place because of a dropped Internet connection.
lint: [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named perhaps for the bits of
fluff it picks from programs] 1. vt. To examine a program closely
for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if
in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if
the UNIX utility `lint(1)' is used. This term used to be
restricted to use of `lint(1)' itself, but (judging by
references on USENET) it has become a shorthand for {desk check}
at some non-UNIX shops, even in languages other than C. Also as
v. {delint}. 2. n. Excess verbiage in a document, as in "this
draft has too much lint".
lion food: [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension,
administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two
lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their
chances but agreed to meet after 2 months. When they finally
meet, one is skinny and the other overweight. The thin one says:
"How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out
a small army to chase me --- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since
then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass." The
fat one replies: "Well, *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a
manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"
Lions Book: n. `Source Code and Commentary on UNIX level 6',
by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained (1) the entire
source listing of the UNIX Version 6 kernel, and (2) a commentary
on the source discussing the algorithms. These were circulated
internally at the University of New South Wales beginning 1976--77,
and were for years after the *only* detailed kernel
documentation available to anyone outside Bell Labs. Because
Western Electric wished to maintain trade secret status on the
kernel, the Lions book was never formally published and was only
supposed to be distributed to affiliates of source licensees. In
spite of this, it soon spread by samizdat to a good many of the
early UNIX hackers.
LISP: [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from
`Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] n. The name of AI's
mother tongue, a language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length
lists and trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the
interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Invented by John
McCarthy at MIT in the late 1950s, it is actually older than any
other {HLL} still in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly, it has
undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years; modern
variants are quite different in detail from the original LISP 1.5.
The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now
shares the throne with {C}. See {languages of choice}.
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return
values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,
gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar
Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything
and the cost of nothing".
One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example
that most newer languages, such as {COBOL} and {Ada}, are full
of unnecessary {crock}s. When the {Right Thing} has already
been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer
languages.
literature, the: n. Computer-science journals and other
publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the
speaker believes is {trivial}. Thus, one might answer an
annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose
{Knuth}, which has no connotation of triviality.
little-endian: adj. Describes a computer architecture in which,
within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have
lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The
PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and
a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian.
See {big-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}. The term
is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than
bytes; most often these are bits within a byte.
live data: n. 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes
over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such
as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For
example, some smart terminals have commands that allow one to
download strings to program keys; this can be used to write live
data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a
security-breaking {virus} that is triggered the next time a
hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some
well-known bugs in {vi} that allow certain texts to send
arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed.
2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function {hook}s
(executable code). 3. An object, such as a {trampoline}, that is
constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed as
code. 4. Actual real-world data, as opposed to `test data'.
For example, "I think I have the record deletion module
finished." "Have you tried it out on live data?" It usually
carries the connotation that live data is more fragile and must not
be corrupted, else bad things will happen. So a possible alternate
response to the above claim might be: "Well, make sure it works
perfectly before we throw live data at it." The implication here
is that record deletion is something pretty significant, and a
haywire record-deletion module running amok on live data would
cause great harm and probably require restoring from backups.
Live Free Or Die!: imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which
appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A slogan
associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX aficionados saw
themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the
windmills of industry. The "free" referred specifically to
freedom from the {fascist} design philosophies and crufty
misfeatures common on commercial operating systems. Armando
Stettner, one of the early UNIX developers, used to give out fake
license plates bearing this motto under a large UNIX, all in New
Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued
collector's items.
livelock: /li:v'lok/ n. A situation in which some critical stage
of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually
create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but
before it can clear its queue. Differs from {deadlock} in that
the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a
virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.
liveware: /li:v'weir/ n. 1. Synonym for {wetware}. Less
common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my
salad..."
lobotomy: n. 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management
training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term
is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter
doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of removing the
processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it.
Some very cheap {clone} systems are sold in `lobotomized' form
--- everything but the brain.
locked and loaded: [from military slang for an M-16 rifle with
magazine inserted and prepared for firing] adj. Said of a removable
disk volume properly prepared for use --- that is, locked into the
drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because their heads
are `loaded' whenever the power is up, this description is never
used of {{Winchester}} drives (which are named after a rifle).
locked up: adj. Syn. for {hung}, {wedged}.
logic bomb: n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or
OS that causes it to perform some destructive or
security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are
met. Compare {back door}.
logical: [from the technical term `logical device', wherein a
physical device is referred to by an arbitrary `logical' name]
adj. Having the role of. If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL)
who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the
replacement would for a while be known as the `logical' Les
Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.)
Compare {virtual}.
At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate
system in which `logical north' is toward San Francisco,
`logical west' is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical
north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and
physical west near San Jose. (The best rule of thumb here is that,
by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-and-south.)
In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco
restaurant, get onto {El Camino Bignum} going logical north."
Using the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from
worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost
directly in front of him. The concept is reinforced by North
American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently
labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar
situation exists at MIT. Route 128 (famous for the electronics
industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle
surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the
coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the
two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and
`counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and
"south", respectively. A hacker might describe these directions
as `logical north' and `logical south', to indicate that they
are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual
denotation for those words. (If you went logical south along the
entire length of route 128, you would start out going northwest,
curve around to the south, and finish headed due east!)
loop through: vt. To process each element of a list of things.
"Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail." Derives from
the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare `cdr
down' (under {cdr}), which is less common among C and UNIX
programmers. ITS hackers used to say `IRP over' after an
obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler.
lord high fixer: [primarily British, from Gilbert & Sullivan's
`lord high executioner'] n. The person in an organization who knows
the most about some aspect of a system. See {wizard}.
lose: [MIT] vi. 1. To fail. A program loses when it encounters
an exceptional condition or fails to work in the expected manner.
2. To be exceptionally unesthetic or crocky. 3. Of people, to
be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to ignorant). See
also {deserves to lose}. 4. n. Refers to something that is
{losing}, especially in the phrases "That's a lose!" and "What
a lose!"
lose lose: interj. A reply to or comment on an undesirable
situation. "I accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose,
lose."
loser: n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or
person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even winners can lose
occasionally.) Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows
not. Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total loser', and
`complete loser' (but not *`moby loser', which would be a
contradiction in terms). See {luser}.
losing: adj. Said of anything that is or causes a {lose} or
{lossage}.
loss: n. Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in which
something is losing. Emphatic forms include `moby loss', and
`total loss', `complete loss'. Common interjections are
"What a loss!" and "What a moby loss!" Note that `moby loss'
is OK even though `moby loser' is not used; applied to an abstract
noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to a person
it implies substance and has positive connotations. Compare
{lossage}.
lossage: /los'*j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction. This
is a mass or collective noun. "What a loss!" and "What
lossage!" are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more
particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter
implies a continuing {lose} of which the speaker is currently
a victim. Thus (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss,
but bugs in an important tool (like a compiler) are serious
lossage.
lost in the noise: adj. Syn. {lost in the underflow}. This term
is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude
cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system. Though
popular among hackers, it is not confined to hackerdom; physicists,
engineers, astronomers, and statisticians all use it.
lost in the underflow: adj. Too small to be worth considering;
more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or
measurement. This is a reference to `floating underflow', a
condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic processor
tries to handle quantities smaller than its limit of magnitude. It
is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that
sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers).
"Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the
path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the
underflow." See also {overflow bit}.
lots of MIPS but no I/O: adj. Used to describe a person who is
technically brilliant but can't seem to communicate with human
beings effectively. Technically it describes a machine that has
lots of processing power but is bottlenecked on input-output (in
1991, the IBM Rios, a.k.a. RS/6000, is a notorious recent
example).
low-bandwidth: [from communication theory] adj. Used to indicate a
talk that, although not {content-free}, was not terribly
informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you
expect for an audience of {suit}s!" Compare {zero-content},
{bandwidth}, {math-out}.
LPT: /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ [MIT, via DEC] n. Line
printer, of course. Rare under UNIX, commoner in hackers with
MS-DOS or CP/M background. The printer device is called
`LPT:' on those systems that, like ITS, were strongly
influenced by early DEC conventions.
lunatic fringe: [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept
release 1 versions of software.
lurker: n. One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum;
one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the
group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed
is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." Often used
in `the lurkers', the hypothetical audience for the group's
{flamage}-emitting regulars.
luser: /loo'zr/ n. A {user}; esp. one who is also a {loser}.
({luser} and {loser} are pronounced identically.) This word
was coined around 1975 at MIT. Under ITS, when you first walked up
to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's
attention, it printed out some status information, including how
many people were already using the computer; it might print
"14 users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to
patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a
great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to
be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer.
For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the
message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the
computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or
"losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it
stuck. Later one of the ITS machines supported `luser' as a
request-for-help command. ITS died the death in mid-1990, except
as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term
`luser' is often seen in program comments.
= M =
M: [SI] pref. (on units) suff. (on numbers) See {{quantifiers}}.
macdink: /mak'dink/ [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to
encourage such behavior] vt. To make many incremental and
unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Often the
subject of the macdinking would be better off without them.
"When I left at 11 P.M. last night, he was still macdinking the
slides for his presentation." See also {fritterware}.
machinable: adj. Machine-readable. Having the {softcopy} nature.
machoflops: /mach'oh-flops/ [pun on `megaflops', a coinage for
`millions of FLoating-point Operations Per Second'] n. Refers to
artificially inflated performance figures often quoted by computer
manufacturers. Real applications are lucky to get half the quoted
speed. See {Your mileage may vary}, {benchmark}.
Macintoy: /mak'in-toy/ n. The Apple Macintosh, considered as a
{toy}. Less pejorative than {Macintrash}.
Macintrash: /mak'in-trash`/ n. The Apple Macintosh, as described
by a hacker who doesn't appreciate being kept away from the
*real computer* by the interface. The term {maggotbox} has
been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of North
Carolina. Compare {Macintoy}. See also {beige toaster},
{WIMP environment}, {drool-proof paper}, {user-friendly}.
macro: /mak'roh/ [techspeak] n. A name (possibly followed by a
formal {arg} list) that is equated to a text or symbolic
expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with the
substitution of actual arguments) by a macro expander. This
definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what those
won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have
changed over time.
The term `macro' originated in early assemblers, which encouraged
the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device.
During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and
sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as {HLL}s, only to fall
from favor as improving compiler technology marginalized assembler
programming (see {languages of choice}). Nowadays the term is
most often used in connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one
of several special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion
facility (such as TeX or UNIX's [nt]roff suite).
Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective
`macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose
application control language (whether or not the language is
actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like entities
such as the `keyboard macros' supported in some text editors
(and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard enhancers).
macro-: pref. Large. Opposite of {micro-}. In the mainstream
and among other technical cultures (for example, medical people)
this competes with the prefix {mega-}, but hackers tend to
restrict the latter to quantification.
macrology: /mak-rol'*-jee/ n. 1. Set of usually complex or crufty
macros, e.g., as part of a large system written in {LISP},
{TECO}, or (less commonly) assembler. 2. The art and science
involved in comprehending a macrology in sense 1. Sometimes
studying the macrology of a system is not unlike archeology,
ecology, or {theology}, hence the sound-alike construction. See
also {boxology}.
macrotape: /ma'kroh-tayp/ n. An industry-standard reel of tape, as
opposed to a {microtape}.
maggotbox: /mag'*t-boks/ n. See {Macintrash}. This is even
more derogatory.
magic: adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain;
compare {automagically} and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic." "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic
bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit
byte in three instructions." 2. Characteristic of something that
works although no one really understands why (this is especially called
{black magic}). 3. [Stanford] A feature not generally
publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature
formerly in that category but now unveiled. Compare {black
magic}, {wizardly}, {deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}.
For more about hackish `magic', see appendix A.
magic cookie: [UNIX] n. 1. Something passed between routines or
programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation; a
capability ticket or opaque identifier. Especially used of small
data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or
intrinsically machine-dependent way. E.g., on non-UNIX OSes with a
non-byte-stream model of files, the result of `ftell(3)' may
be a magic cookie rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to
`fseek(3)', but not operated on in any meaningful way. The
phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it returns a result
whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the
same or some other program later. 2. An in-band code for
changing graphic rendition (e.g., inverse video or underlining) or
performing other control functions. Some older terminals would
leave a blank on the screen corresponding to mode-change magic
cookies; this was also called a {glitch}. See also {cookie}.
magic number: [UNIX/C] n. 1. In source code, some non-obvious
constant whose value is significant to the operation of a program
and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line ({hardcoded}),
rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a commented
`#define'. Magic numbers in this sense are bad style. 2. A
number that encodes critical information used in an algorithm in
some opaque way. The classic examples of these are the numbers
used in hash or CRC functions, or the coefficients in a linear
congruential generator for pseudo-random numbers. This sense
actually predates and was ancestral to the more common sense 1.
3. Special data located at the beginning of a binary data file to
indicate its type to a utility. Under UNIX, the system and various
applications programs (especially the linker) distinguish between
types of executable file by looking for a magic number. Once upon
a time, these magic numbers were PDP-11 branch instructions that
skipped over header data to the start of executable code; the 0407,
for example, was octal for `branch 16 bytes relative'. Nowadays
only a {wizard} knows the spells to create magic numbers. How do
you choose a fresh magic number of your own? Simple --- you pick
one at random. See? It's magic!
magic smoke: n. A substance trapped inside IC packages that enables
them to function (also called `blue smoke'; this is similar to
the archaic `phlogiston' hypothesis about combustion). Its
existence is demonstrated by what happens when a chip burns up ---
the magic smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work any more. See
{smoke test}, {let the smoke out}.
USENETter Jay Maynard tells the following story: "Once, while
hacking on a dedicated Z80 system, I was testing code by blowing
EPROMs and plugging them in the system, then seeing what happened.
One time, I plugged one in backwards. I only discovered that
*after* I realized that Intel didn't put power-on lights under
the quartz windows on the tops of their EPROMs --- the die was
glowing white-hot. Amazingly, the EPROM worked fine after I erased
it, filled it full of zeros, then erased it again. For all I know,
it's still in service. Of course, this is because the magic smoke
didn't get let out." Compare the original phrasing of {Murphy's
Law}.
mailing list: n. (often shortened in context to `list') 1. An
{email} address that is an alias (or {macro}, though that word
is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses.
Some mailing lists are simple `reflectors', redirecting mail sent
to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans
or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by
humans are said to be `moderated'. 2. The people who receive
your email when you send it to such an address.
Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction,
along with {USENET}. They predate USENET, having originated
with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used
for private information-sharing on topics that would be too
specialized for or inappropriate to public USENET groups. Though
some of these maintain purely technical content (such as the
Internet Engineering Task Force mailing list), others (like the
`sf-lovers' list maintained for many years by Saul Jaffe) are
recreational, and others are purely social. Perhaps the most
infamous of the social lists was the eccentric bandykin
distribution; its latter-day progeny, lectroids and
tanstaafl, still include a number of the oddest and most
interesting people in hackerdom.
Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike USENET) don't tie up a
significant amount of machine resources. Thus, they are often
created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can
then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet
face-to-face. Much of the material in this book was criticized and
polished on just such a mailing list (called `jargon-friends'),
which included all the co-authors of Steele-1983.
main loop: n. Software tools are often written to perform some
actions repeatedly on whatever input is handed to them, terminating
when there is no more input or they are explicitly told to go away.
In such programs, the loop that gets and processes input is called
the `main loop'. See also {driver}.
mainframe: n. This term originally referred to the cabinet
containing the central processor unit or `main frame' of a
room-filling {Stone Age} batch machine. After the emergence of
smaller `minicomputer' designs in the early 1970s, the
traditional {big iron} machines were described as `mainframe
computers' and eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the
connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than interactive
use, though possibly with an interactive timesharing operating
system retrofitted onto it; it is especially used of machines built
by IBM, Unisys, and the other great {dinosaur}s surviving from
computing's {Stone Age}.
It is common wisdom among hackers that the mainframe architectural
tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for
{number-crunching} supercomputers (see {cray})), having been
swamped by the recent huge advances in IC technology and low-cost
personal computing. As of 1991, corporate America hasn't quite
figured this out yet, though the wave of failures, takeovers, and
mergers among traditional mainframe makers are certainly straws in
the wind (see {dinosaurs mating}).
management: n. 1. Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by
their distance from actual productive work and their chronic
failure to manage (see also {suit}). Spoken derisively, as in
"*Management* decided that ...". 2. Mythically, a vast
bureaucracy responsible for all the world's minor irritations.
Hackers' satirical public notices are often signed `The Mgt'; this
derives from the `Illuminatus' novels (see the Bibliography).
mandelbug: /mon'del-buhg/ [from the Mandelbrot set] n. A bug
whose underlying causes are so complex and obscure as to make its
behavior appear chaotic or even non-deterministic. This term
implies that the speaker thinks it is a {Bohr bug}, rather than a
{heisenbug}.
manged: /monjd/ [probably from the French `manger' or Italian
`mangiare', to eat; perhaps influenced by English n. `mange',
`mangy'] adj. Refers to anything that is mangled or damaged,
usually beyond repair. "The disk was manged after the electrical
storm." Compare {mung}.
mangle: vt. Used similarly to {mung} or {scribble}, but more violent
in its connotations; something that is mangled has been
irreversibly and totally trashed.
mangler: [DEC] n. A manager. Compare {mango}; see also
{management}. Note that {system mangler} is somewhat different
in connotation.
mango: /mang'go/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A manager.
Compare {mangler}. See also {devo} and {doco}.
marbles: [from mainstream "lost all his/her marbles"] pl.n. The
minimum needed to build your way further up some hierarchy of tools
or abstractions. After a bad system crash, you need to determine
if the machine has enough marbles to come up on its own, or enough
marbles to allow a rebuild from backups, or if you need to rebuild
from scratch. "This compiler doesn't even have enough marbles to
compile `Hello World'."
marginal: adj. 1. Extremely small. "A marginal increase in
{core} can decrease {GC} time drastically." In everyday
terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if
you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort
through it. 2. Of extremely small merit. "This proposed new
feature seems rather marginal to me." 3. Of extremely small
probability of {win}ning. "The power supply was rather marginal
anyway; no wonder it fried."
Marginal Hacks: n. Margaret Jacks Hall, a building into which the
Stanford AI Lab was moved near the beginning of the 1980s (from the
{D. C. Power Lab}).
marginally: adv. Slightly. "The ravs here are only marginally
better than at Small Eating Place." See {epsilon}.
marketroid: /mar'k*-troyd/ alt. `marketing slime',
`marketing droid', `marketeer' n. A member of a company's
marketing department, esp. one who promises users that the next
version of a product will have features that are not actually
scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement,
and/or are in violation of the laws of physics; and/or one who
describes existing features (and misfeatures) in ebullient,
buzzword-laden adspeak. Derogatory. Compare {droid}.
Mars: n. A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream
Gone Wrong. Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10
compatible computers built by Systems Concepts (now, The SC Group);
the multi-processor SC-30M, the small uniprocessor SC-25M, and the
never-built superprocessor SC-40M. These machines were marvels of
engineering design; although not much slower than the unique
{Foonly} F-1, they were physically smaller and consumed less
power than the much slower DEC KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4
machines. They were slso completely compatible with the DEC KL10,
and ran all KL10 binaries, including the operating system, with no
modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a KL10.
When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, Systems Concepts
should have made a bundle selling their machine into shops with a
lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their spring
1984 announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the
PDP-10 world. TOPS-10 was running on the Mars by the summer of
1984, and TOPS-20 by early fall. Unfortunately, the hackers
running Systems Concepts were much better at designing machines
than in mass producing or selling them; the company allowed itself
to be sidetracked by a bout of perfectionism into continually
improving the design, and lost credibility as delivery dates
continued to slip. They also overpriced the product ridiculously;
they believed they were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and
failed to reckon with the likes of Sun Microsystems and other
hungry startups building workstations with power comparable to the
KL10 at a fraction of the price. By the time SC shipped the first
SC-30M to Stanford in late 1985, most customers had already made
the traumatic decision to abandon the PDP-10, usually for VMS or
UNIX boxes. Most of the Mars computers built ended up being
purchased by CompuServe.
This tale and the related saga of Foonly hold a lesson for hackers:
if you want to play in the Real World, you need to learn Real World
moves.
martian: n. A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a source
address of the test loopback interface [127.0.0.1]. This means
that it will come back at you labeled with a source address that
is clearly not of this earth. "The domain server is getting lots
of packets from Mars. Does that gateway have a martian filter?"
massage: vt. Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of
a data set into a different form, esp. transformations that do
not lose information. Connotes less pain than {munch} or {crunch}.
"He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF
format." Compare {slurp}.
math-out: [poss. from `white-out' (the blizzard variety)] n. A
paper or presentation so encrusted with mathematical or other
formal notation as to be incomprehensible. This may be a device
for concealing the fact that it is actually {content-free}. See
also {numbers}, {social science number}.
Matrix: [FidoNet] n. 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call
{FidoNet}. 2. Fanciful term for a {cyberspace} expected to
emerge from current networking experiments (see {network, the}).
Some people refer to the totality of present networks this way.
Mbogo, Dr. Fred: /*m-boh'goh, dok'tr fred/ [Stanford] n. The
archetypal man you don't want to see about a problem, esp. an
incompetent professional; a shyster. "Do you know a good eye
doctor?" "Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry
Cleaning." The name comes from synergy between {bogus} and the
original Dr. Mbogo, a witch doctor who was Gomez Addams' physician
on the old "Addams Family" TV show. See also
{fred}.
meatware: n. Synonym for {wetware}. Less common.
meeces: /mees'*z/ [TMRC] n. Occasional furry visitors who are not
{urchin}s. [That is, mice. This may no longer be in live use; it
clearly derives from the refrain of the early-1960s cartoon character
Mr. Jinx: "I hate meeces to *pieces*!" --- ESR]
meg: /meg/ n. See {{quantifiers}}.
mega-: /me'g*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
megapenny: /meg'*-pen`ee/ n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10^6).
Used semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost and
performance figures.
MEGO: /me'goh/ or /mee'goh/ [`My Eyes Glaze Over', often `Mine Eyes
Glazeth (sic) Over', attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn]
Also `MEGO factor'. 1. n. A {handwave} intended to confuse the
listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does
not want to admit to not understanding what is going on. MEGO is
usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a
high proportion of {TLA}s. 2. excl. An appropriate response to
MEGO tactics. 3. Among non-hackers this term often refers not to
behavior that causes the eyes to glaze, but to the eye-glazing
reaction itself, which may be triggered by the mere threat of
technical detail as effectively as by an actual excess of it.
meltdown, network: n. See {network meltdown}.
meme: /meem/ [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard
Dawkins] n. An idea considered as a {replicator}, esp. with
the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them
much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex'
denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an
organized belief system, such as a religion. This lexicon is an
(epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex;
each entry might be considered a meme. However, `meme' is often
misused to mean `meme complex'. Use of the term connotes
acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool-
and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of
adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of
hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably
obvious reasons.
meme plague: n. The spread of a successful but pernicious {meme},
esp. one that parasitizes the victims into giving their all to
propagate it. Astrology, BASIC, and the other guy's religion are
often considered to be examples. This usage is given point by the
historical fact that `joiner' ideologies like Naziism or various
forms of millennarian Christianity have exhibited plague-like cycles
of exponential growth followed by collapses to small reservoir
populations.
memetics: /me-met'iks/ [from {meme}] The study of memes. As of
mid-1991, this is still an extremely informal and speculative
endeavor, though the first steps towards at least statistical rigor
have been made by H. Keith Henson and others. Memetics is a
popular topic for speculation among hackers, who like to see
themselves as the architects of the new information ecologies in
which memes live and replicate.
memory leak: n. An error in a program's dynamic-store allocation
logic that causes it to fail to reclaim discarded memory, leading
to eventual collapse due to memory exhaustion. Also (esp. at
CMU) called {core leak}. See {aliasing bug}, {fandango on
core}, {smash the stack}, {precedence lossage}, {overrun
screw}, {leaky heap}, {leak}.
menuitis: /men`yoo-i:'tis/ n. Notional disease suffered by software
with an obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape.
Hackers find this intensely irritating and much prefer the
flexibility of command-line or language-style interfaces,
especially those customizable via macros or a special-purpose
language in which one can encode useful hacks. See
{user-obsequious}, {drool-proof paper}, {WIMP environment},
{for the rest of us}.
mess-dos: /mes-dos/ n. Derisory term for MS-DOS. Often followed
by the ritual banishing "Just say No!" See {{MS-DOS}}. Most
hackers (even many MS-DOS hackers) loathe MS-DOS for its
single-tasking nature, its limits on application size, its nasty
primitive interface, and its ties to IBMness (see {fear and
loathing}). Also `mess-loss', `messy-dos', `mess-dog',
`mess-dross', `mush-dos', and various combinations thereof. In
Ireland and the U.K. it is even sometimes called `Domestos' after a
brand of toilet cleanser.
meta: /me't*/ or /may't*/ or (Commonwealth) /mee't*/ [from
analytic philosophy] adj.,pref. One level of description up.
A meta-syntactic variable is a variable in notation used to describe
syntax, and meta-language is language used to describe language.
This is difficult to explain briefly, but much hacker humor turns
on deliberate confusion between meta-levels. See {{Humor,
Hacker}}.
meta bit: n. The top bit of an 8-bit character, which is on in
character values 128--255. Also called {high bit}, {alt bit},
or {hobbit}. Some terminals and consoles (see {space-cadet
keyboard}) have a META shift key. Others (including,
*mirabile dictu*, keyboards on IBM PC-class machines) have an
ALT key. See also {bucky bits}.
MFTL: /M-F-T-L/ [acronym: `My Favorite Toy Language'] 1. adj.
Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on
the syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics
(e.g., type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see
{content-free}). More broadly applied to talks --- even when
the topic is not a programming language --- in which the subject
matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous detail at the
sacrifice of any conceptual content. "Well, it was a typical MFTL
talk". 2. n. Describes a language about which the developers are
passionate (often to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else
cares about. Applied to the language by those outside the
originating group. "He cornered me about type resolution in his
MFTL."
The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is
usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away
from contamination by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it
in itself. Thus, the standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is
"Has it been used for anything besides its own compiler?". On
the other hand, a language that *cannot* be used to write
its own compiler is beneath contempt...
mickey: n. The resolution unit of mouse movement. It has been
suggested that the `disney' will become a benchmark unit for
animation graphics performance.
mickey mouse program: n. North American equivalent of a {noddy}
(that is, trivial) program. Doesn't necessarily have the
belittling connotations of mainstream slang "Oh, that's just
mickey mouse stuff!"; sometimes trivial programs can be very
useful.
micro-: pref. 1. Very small; this is the root of its use as a
quantifier prefix. 2. A quantifier prefix, calling for
multiplication by 10^{-6} (see {{quantifiers}}). Neither
of these uses is peculiar to hackers, but hackers tend to fling
them both around rather more freely than is countenanced in
standard English. It is recorded, for example, that one
CS professor used to characterize the standard length of his
lectures as a microcentury --- that is, about 52.6 minutes (see
also {attoparsec}, {nanoacre}, and especially
{microfortnight}). 3. Personal or human-scale --- that is,
capable of being maintained or comprehended or manipulated by one
human being. This sense is generalized from `microcomputer',
and is esp. used in contrast with `macro-' (the corresponding
Greek prefix meaning `large'). 4. Local as opposed to global (or
{macro-}). Thus a hacker might say that buying a smaller car to
reduce pollution only solves a microproblem; the macroproblem of
getting to work might be better solved by using mass transit,
moving to within walking distance, or (best of all) telecommuting.
microfloppies: n. 3.5-inch floppies, as opposed to 5.25-inch
{vanilla} or mini-floppies and the now-obsolete 8-inch variety.
This term may be headed for obsolescence as 5.25-inchers pass out
of use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy
standard. See {stiffy}, {minifloppies}.
microfortnight: n. About 1.2 sec. The VMS operating system has a
lot of tuning parameters that you can set with the SYSGEN utility,
and one of these is TIMEPROMPTWAIT, the time the system will wait
for an operator to set the correct date and time at boot if it
realizes that the current value is bogus. This time is specified
in microfortnights!
Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and
{nanofortnight} have also been reported.
microLenat: /mi:-kroh-len'-*t/ n. See {bogosity}.
microReid: /mi:'kroh-reed/ n. See {bogosity}.
Microsloth Windows: /mi:'kroh-sloth` win'dohz/ n. Hackerism for
`Microsoft Windows', a windowing system for the IBM-PC which is so
limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with {mess-dos} that it is
agonizingly slow on anything less than a fast 386. Compare {X},
{sun-stools}.
microtape: /mi:'kroh-tayp/ n. Occasionally used to mean a
DECtape, as opposed to a {macrotape}. A DECtape is a small
reel, about 4 inches in diameter, of magnetic tape about an inch
wide. Unlike drivers for today's {macrotape}s, microtape
drivers allow random access to the data, and therefore could be
used to support file systems and even for swapping (this was
generally done purely for {hack value}, as they were far too
slow for practical use). In their heyday they were used in pretty
much the same ways one would now use a floppy disk: as a small,
portable way to save and transport files and programs. Apparently
the term `microtape' was actually the official term used within
DEC for these tapes until someone coined the word `DECtape',
which, of course, sounded sexier to the {marketroid}s.
middle-endian: adj. Not {big-endian} or {little-endian}.
Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2 or 2-1-4-3,
occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of minicomputer
manufacturers who shall remain nameless. See {NUXI problem}.
milliLampson: /mil'*-lamp`sn/ n. A unit of talking speed,
abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200 milliLampsons. Butler
Lampson (a CS theorist and systems implementor highly regarded
among hackers) goes at 1000. A few people speak faster. This unit
is sometimes used to compare the (sometimes widely disparate) rates
at which people can generate ideas and actually emit them in
speech. For example, noted computer architect C. Gordon Bell
(designer of the PDP-11) is said, with some awe, to think at about
1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is frequently reduced to
fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to keep up with his
speeding brain.
minifloppies: n. 5.25-inch {vanilla} floppy disks, as opposed to
3.5-inch or {microfloppies} and the now-obsolescent 8-inch
variety. At one time, this term was a trademark of Shugart
Associates for their SA-400 minifloppy drive. Nobody paid any
attention. See {stiffy}.
MIPS: /mips/ [acronym] n. 1. A measure of computing speed;
formally, `Million Instructions Per Second' (that's 10^6
per second, not 2^{20}!); often rendered by hackers as
`Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed' or in other
unflattering ways. This joke expresses a nearly universal attitude
about the value of most {benchmark} claims, said attitude being
one of the great cultural divides between hackers and
{marketroid}s. The singular is sometimes `1 MIP' even though
this is clearly etymologically wrong. See also {KIPS} and
{GIPS}. 2. Computers, especially large computers, considered
abstractly as sources of {computron}s. "This is just a
workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement." 3. The
corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company; among other
things, they designed the processor chips used in DEC's 3100
workstation series. 4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per
Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).
misbug: /mis-buhg/ [MIT] n. An unintended property of a program
that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a
{bug} but turns out to be a {feature}. Usage: rare. Compare
{green lightning}. See {miswart}.
misfeature: /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ n. A feature that
eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate for
a new situation which has evolved. It is not the same as a bug,
because fixing it involves a substantial philosophical change to
the structure of the system involved. A misfeature is different
from a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies that the
misfeature was actually carefully planned to be that way, but
its future consequences or circumstances just weren't predicted
accurately. This is different from just not having thought ahead
about it at all. Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface
design) arise because the designers/implementors mistook their
personal tastes for laws of nature. Often a former feature becomes
a misfeature because a tradeoff was made whose parameters
subsequently changed (possibly only in the judgment of the
implementors). "Well, yeah, it is kind of a misfeature that file
names are limited to 6 characters, but the original implementors
wanted to save directory space and we're stuck with it for now."
Missed'em-five: n. Pejorative hackerism for AT&T System V UNIX,
generally used by {BSD} partisans in a bigoted mood. (The
synonym `SysVile' is also encountered.) See {software bloat},
{Berzerkeley}.
miswart: /mis-wort/ [from {wart} by analogy with {misbug}] n.
A {feature} that superficially appears to be a {wart} but has been
determined to be the {Right Thing}. For example, in some versions
of the {EMACS} text editor, the `transpose characters' command
exchanges the two characters on either side of the cursor on the
screen, *except* when the cursor is at the end of a line, in
which case the two characters before the cursor are exchanged.
While this behavior is perhaps surprising, and certainly
inconsistent, it has been found through extensive experimentation
to be what most users want. This feature is a miswart.
moby: /moh'bee/ [MIT: seems to have been in use among model
railroad fans years ago. Derived from Melville's `Moby Dick' (some
say from `Moby Pickle').] 1. adj. Large, immense, complex,
impressive. "A Saturn V rocket is a truly moby frob." "Some
MIT undergrads pulled off a moby hack at the Harvard-Yale game."
(See appendix A). 2. n. obs. The maximum address space of a
machine (see below). For a 680[234]0 or VAX or most modern 32-bit
architectures, it is 4,294,967,296 8-bit bytes (4 gigabytes). 3. A
title of address (never of third-person reference), usually used to
show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to a competent
hacker. "Greetings, moby Dave. How's that address-book thing for
the Mac going?" 4. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in
`moby sixes', `moby ones', etc. Compare this with
{bignum} (sense 2): double sixes are both bignums and moby
sixes, but moby ones are not bignums (the use of `moby' to
describe double ones is sarcastic). Standard emphatic forms:
`Moby foo', `moby win', `moby loss'. `Foby moo': a
spoonerism due to Richard Greenblatt.
This term entered hackerdom with the Fabritek 256K memory added to
the MIT AI PDP-6 machine, which was considered unimaginably huge
when it was installed in the 1960s (at a time when a more typical
memory size for a timesharing system was 72 kilobytes). Thus, a
moby is classically 256K 36-bit words, the size of a PDP-6 or
PDP-10 moby. Back when address registers were narrow the term was
more generally useful, because when a computer had virtual memory
mapping, it might actually have more physical memory attached to it
than any one program could access directly. One could then say
"This computer has 6 mobies" meaning that the ratio of physical
memory to address space is 6, without having to say specifically
how much memory there actually is. That in turn implied that the
computer could timeshare six `full-sized' programs without having to
swap programs between memory and disk.
Nowadays the low cost of processor logic means that address spaces
are usually larger than the most physical memory you can cram onto
a machine, so most systems have much *less* than one theoretical
`native' moby of core. Also, more modern memory-management
techniques (esp. paging) make the `moby count' less significant.
However, there is one series of popular chips for which the term
could stand to be revived --- the Intel 8088 and 80286 with their
incredibly {brain-damaged} segmented-memory designs. On these, a
`moby' would be the 1-megabyte address span of a segment/offset
pair (by coincidence, a PDP-10 moby was exactly 1 megabyte of 9-bit
bytes).
mod: vt.,n. 1. Short for `modify' or `modification'. Very
commonly used --- in fact the full terms are considered markers
that one is being formal. The plural `mods' is used esp. with
reference to bug fixes or minor design changes in hardware or
software, most esp. with respect to {patch} sets or a {diff}.
2. Short for {modulo} but used *only* for its techspeak sense.
mode: n. A general state, usually used with an adjective
describing the state. Use of the word `mode' rather than
`state' implies that the state is extended over time, and
probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is
being carried out. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode." In its
jargon sense, `mode' is most often attributed to people, though it is
sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In particular,
see {hack mode}, {day mode}, {night mode}, {demo mode},
{fireworks mode}, and {yoyo mode}; also {talk
mode}.
One also often hears the verbs `enable' and `disable' used in
connection with jargon modes. Thus, for example, a sillier way of
saying "I'm going to crash" is "I'm going to enable crash mode
now". One might also hear a request to "disable flame mode,
please".
mode bit: n. A {flag}, usually in hardware, that selects between
two (usually quite different) modes of operation. The connotations
are different from {flag} bit in that mode bits are mainly
written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom explicitly read,
and seldom change over the lifetime of an ordinary program. The
classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (#12) of the Program
Status Word of the IBM 360. Another was the bit on a PDP-12 that
controlled whether it ran the PDP-8 or the LINC instruction set.
modulo: /mo'dyu-loh/ prep. Except for. From mathematical
terminology; one can consider saying that 4 = 22 except for
the 9s (4 = 22 mod 9). "Well, LISP seems to work okay now,
modulo that {GC} bug." "I feel fine today modulo a slight
headache."
molly-guard: /mol'ee-gard/ [University of Illinois] n. A shield
to prevent tripping of some {Big Red Switch} by clumsy or
ignorant hands. Originally used of some plexiglass covers
improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer's toddler
daughter (named Molly) frobbed it twice in one day. Later
generalized to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and
networking equipment.
Mongolian Hordes technique: n. Development by {gang bang}
(poss. from the Sixties counterculture expression `Mongolian
clusterfuck' for a public orgy). Implies that large numbers of
inexperienced programmers are being put on a job better performed
by a few skilled ones. Also called `Chinese Army technique';
see also {Brooks's Law}.
monkey up: vt. To hack together hardware for a particular task,
especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely {crufty} and
consciously temporary solution. Compare {hack up}, {kluge up},
{cruft together}, {cruft together}.
monkey, scratch: n. See {scratch monkey}.
monstrosity: 1. n. A ridiculously {elephantine} program or system,
esp. one that is buggy or only marginally functional. 2. The
quality of being monstrous (see `Overgeneralization' in the discussion
of jargonification). See also {baroque}.
Moof: /moof/ [MAC users] n. The Moof or `dogcow' is a
semi-legendary creature that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh
Technical Notes Hypercard stack V3.1; specifically, the full story
of the dogcow is told in technical note #31 (the particular Moof
illustrated is properly named `Clarus'). Option-shift-click will
cause it to emit a characteristic `Moof!' or `!fooM' sound.
*Getting* to tech note 31 is the hard part; to discover how
to do that, one must needs examine the stack script with a hackerly
eye. Clue: {rot13} is involved. A dogcow also appears if you
choose `Page Setup...' with a LaserWriter selected and click on
the `Options' button.
Moore's Law: /morz law/ prov. The observation that the logic
density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed the
curve (bits per square inch) = 2^{(n - 1962)}; that is, the
amount of information storable in one square inch of silicon has
roughly doubled yearly every year since the technology was
invented. See also {Parkinson's Law of Data}.
moria: /mor'ee-*/ n. Like {nethack} and {rogue}, one of the
large PD Dungeons-and-Dragons-like simulation games, available for
a wide range of machines and operating systems. Extremely
addictive and a major consumer of time better used for hacking.
MOTAS: /moh-toz/ [USENET: Member Of The Appropriate Sex, after
{MOTOS} and {MOTSS}] n. A potential or (less often) actual sex
partner. See also {SO}.
MOTOS: /moh-tohs/ [acronym from the 1970 U.S. census forms via
USENET: Member Of The Opposite Sex] n. A potential or (less often)
actual sex partner. See {MOTAS}, {MOTSS}, {SO}. Less
common than MOTSS or {MOTAS}, which have largely displaced it.
MOTSS: /mots/ or /M-O-T-S-S/ [from the 1970 U.S. census forms
via USENET, Member Of The Same Sex] n. Esp. one considered as a
possible sexual partner. The gay-issues newsgroup on USENET is
called soc.motss. See {MOTOS} and {MOTAS}, which derive
from it. Also see {SO}.
mouse ahead: vi. Point-and-click analog of `type ahead'. To
manipulate a computer's pointing device (almost always a mouse in
this usage, but not necessarily) and its selection or command
buttons before a computer program is ready to accept such input, in
anticipation of the program accepting the input. Handling this
properly is rare, but it can help make a {WIMP environment} much
more usable, assuming the users are familiar with the behavior of the
user interface.
mouse around: vi. To explore public portions of a large system, esp.
a network such as Internet via {FTP} or {TELNET}, looking for
interesting stuff to {snarf}.
mouse belt: n. See {rat belt}.
mouse droppings: [MS-DOS] n. Pixels (usually single) that are not
properly restored when the mouse pointer moves away from a
particular location on the screen, producing the appearance that
the mouse pointer has left droppings behind. The major causes for
this problem are programs that write to the screen memory
corresponding to the mouse pointer's current location without
hiding the mouse pointer first, and mouse drivers that do not quite
support the graphics mode in use.
mouse elbow: n. A tennis-elbow-like fatigue syndrome resulting from
excessive use of a {WIMP environment}. Similarly, `mouse
shoulder'; GLS reports that he used to get this a lot before he
taught himself to be ambimoustrous.
mouso: /mow'soh/ n. [by analogy with `typo'] An error in mouse usage
resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic garbage on the
screen. Compare {thinko}, {braino}.
MS-DOS:: /M-S-dos/ [MicroSoft Disk Operating System] n. A
{clone} of {{CP/M}} for the 8088 crufted together in 6 weeks by
hacker Tim Paterson, who is said to have regretted it ever since.
Numerous features, including vaguely UNIX-like but rather broken
support for subdirectories, I/O redirection, and pipelines, were
hacked into 2.0 and subsequent versions; as a result, there are two
or more incompatible versions of many system calls, and MS-DOS
programmers can never agree on basic things like what character to
use as an option switch or whether to be case-sensitive. The
resulting mess is now the highest-unit-volume OS in history. Often
known simply as DOS, which annoys people familiar with other
similarly abbreviated operating systems (the name goes back to the
mid-1960s, when it was attached to IBM's first disk operating
system for the 360). Some people like to pronounce DOS like
"dose", as in "I don't work on dose, man!", or to compare it
to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button in wide
circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say No!"). See
{mess-dos}, {ill-behaved}.
mu: /moo/ The correct answer to the classic trick question
"Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". Assuming that you
have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes"
is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and
then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you
have one and are still beating her. According to various
Discordians and Douglas Hofstadter (see the Bibliography), the
correct answer is usually "mu", a Japanese word alleged to mean
"Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect
assumptions". Hackers tend to be sensitive to logical
inadequacies in language, and many have adopted this suggestion
with enthusiasm. The word `mu' is actually from Chinese, meaning
`nothing'; it is used in mainstream Japanese in that sense, but
native speakers do not recognize the Discordian question-denying
use. It almost certainly derives from overgeneralization of the
answer in the following well-known Rinzei Zen teaching riddle:
A monk asked Joshu, "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?"
Joshu retorted, "Mu!"
See also {has the X nature}, {AI Koans}, and Douglas
Hofstadter's `G"odel, Escher, Bach' (pointer in the
Bibliography).
MUD: /muhd/ [acronym, Multi-User Dungeon; alt. Multi-User
Dimension] 1. n. A class of {virtual reality} experiments
accessible via the Internet. These are real-time chat forums with
structure; they have multiple `locations' like an adventure game,
and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic, a simple economic
system, and the capability for characters to build more structure
onto the database that represents the existing world. 2. vi. To
play a MUD (see {hack-and-slay}). The acronym MUD is often
lowercased and/or verbed; thus, one may speak of `going
mudding', etc.
Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU-
form) derive from an AI experiment by Richard Bartle and Roy
Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in the early 1980s;
descendants of that game still exist today (see {BartleMUD}).
The title `MUD' is still trademarked to the commercial MUD run by
Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived*
'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this did not stop
students on the European academic networks from copying and improving
on the MUD concept, from which sprung several new MUDs (VAXMUD,
AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board
systems for social interaction. Because USENET feeds have been
spotty and difficult to get in the U.K. and the British JANET
network doesn't support {FTP} or remote login via telnet, the
MUDs became major foci of hackish social interaction there.
AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and
quickly gained popularity in the U.S.; they became nuclei for large
hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom
(some observers see parallels with the growth of USENET in the
early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants)
tended to emphasize social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative
world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over
50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which
synthesizes the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems
with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater
programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.
The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly,
with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month.
There is now (early 1991) a move afoot to deprecate the term
{MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of
names corresponding to the different simulation styles being
explored. See also {BartleMUD}, {berserking}, {bonk/oif},
{brand brand brand}, {FOD}, {hack-and-slay}, {link-dead},
{mudhead}, {posing}, {talk mode}, {tinycrud}.
mudhead: n. Commonly used to refer to a {MUD} player who
sleeps, breathes, and eats MUD. Mudheads have been known to fail
their degrees, drop out, etc., with the consolation, however, that
they made wizard level. When encountered in person, all a mudhead
will talk about is two topics: the tactic, character, or wizard
that is supposedly always unfairly stopping him/her from becoming a
wizard or beating a favorite MUD, and the MUD he or she is writing
or going to write because all existing MUDs are so dreadful! See
also {wannabee}.
multician: /muhl-ti'shn/ [coined at Honeywell, ca. 1970] n.
Competent user of {{Multics}}. Perhaps oddly, no one has ever
promoted the analogous `Unician'.
Multics:: /muhl'tiks/ n. [from "MULTiplexed Information and
Computing Service"] An early (late 1960s) timesharing operating
system co-designed by a consortium including MIT, GE, and Bell
Laboratories. Very innovative for its time --- among other things,
it introduced the idea of treating all devices uniformly as special
files. All the members but GE eventually pulled out after
determining that {second-system effect} had bloated Multics to
the point of practical unusability (the `lean' predecessor in
question was {CTSS}). Honeywell commercialized Multics after
buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful
(among other things, on some versions one was commonly required to
enter a password to log out). One of the developers left in the
lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstance
which led directly to the birth of {{UNIX}}. For this and other
reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional
debate among hackers. See also {brain-damaged} and {GCOS}.
multitask: n. Often used of humans in the same meaning it has for
computers, to describe a person doing several things at once (but
see {thrash}). The term `multiplex', from communications
technology (meaning to handle more than one channel at the same
time), is used similarly.
mumblage: /muhm'bl*j/ n. The topic of one's mumbling (see {mumble}).
"All that mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is
not quite clear how the subject of discussion works, or like "all that
crap" when `mumble' is being used as an implicit replacement for
pejoratives.
mumble: interj. 1. Said when the correct response is too
complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out.
Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance
to get into a long discussion. "Don't you think that we could
improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count
transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there
are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well,
mumble ... I'll have to think about it." 2. Sometimes used as
an expression of disagreement. "I think we should buy a
{VAX}." "Mumble!" Common variant: `mumble frotz' (see
{frotz}; interestingly, one does not say `mumble frobnitz'
even though `frotz' is short for `frobnitz'). 3. Yet another
metasyntactic variable, like {foo}. 4. When used as a question
("Mumble?") means "I didn't understand you". 5. Sometimes used
in `public' contexts on-line as a placefiller for things one is
barred from giving details about. For example, a poster with
pre-released hardware in his machine might say "Yup, my machine
now has an extra 16M of memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for
Mumbleco."
munch: [often confused with {mung}, q.v.] vt. To transform
information in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of
computation. To trace down a data structure. Related to {crunch}
and nearly synonymous with {grovel}, but connotes less pain.
munching: n. Exploration of security holes of someone else's
computer for thrills, notoriety, or to annoy the system manager.
Compare {cracker}. See also {hacked off}.
munching squares: n. A {display hack} dating back to the PDP-1
(ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a
trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for
successive values of T --- see {HAKMEM} items 146--148) to produce
an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the
screen. The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which,
when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects. Some of these,
later (re)discovered on the LISP machine, have been christened
`munching triangles' (try AND for XOR and toggling points
instead of plotting them), `munching w's', and `munching
mazes'. More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an
impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, foo, on a
display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program;
then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be
referred to as `munching foos' (this is a good example of the use
of the word {foo} as a metasyntactic variable).
munchkin: /muhnch'kin/ [from the squeaky-voiced little people in
L. Frank Baum's `The Wizard of Oz'] n. A teenage-or-younger micro
enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else equally constricted. A
term of mild derision --- munchkins are annoying but some grow up
to be hackers after passing through a {larval stage}. The term
{urchin} is also used. See also {wannabee}, {bitty box}.
mundane: [from SF fandom] n. 1. A person who is not in science
fiction fandom. 2. A person who is not in the computer industry.
In this sense, most often an adjectival modifier as in "in my
mundane life...." See also {Real World}.
mung: /muhng/ alt. `munge' /muhnj/ [in 1960 at MIT, `Mash
Until No Good'; sometime after that the derivation from the
{{recursive acronym}} `Mung Until No Good' became standard] vt.
1. To make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable
changes. See {BLT}. 2. To destroy, usually accidentally,
occasionally maliciously. The system only mungs things
maliciously; this is a consequence of {Finagle's Law}. See
{scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {nuke}. Reports from
{USENET} suggest that the pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual
in speech, but the spelling `mung' is still common in program
comments (compare the widespread confusion over the proper spelling
of {kluge}). 3. The kind of beans of which the sprouts are used
in Chinese food. (That's their real name! Mung beans! Really!)
Murphy's Law: prov. The correct, *original* Murphy's Law
reads: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of
those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it."
This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because it is
usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the challenges of
design for lusers. For example, you don't make a two-pin plug
symmetrical and then label it `THIS WAY UP'; if it matters which
way it is plugged in, then you make the design asymmetrical (see
also the anecdote under {magic smoke}).
Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled
experiments that were done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949 to test
human acceleration tolerances. One experiment involved a set of
16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject's body.
There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount, and
somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong way around.
Murphy then made the original form of his pronouncement, which the
test subject (Major John Paul Stapp) quoted at a news conference a
few days later.
Within months `Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical
cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too many years
had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination,
changing as they went. Most of these are variants on "Anything
that can go wrong, will"; this is sometimes referred to as
{Finagle's Law}. The memetic drift apparent in these mutants
clearly demonstrates Murphy's Law acting on itself!
Music:: n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers (compare
{{science-fiction fandom}}, {{oriental food}}; see also
{filk}). Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and
programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at
least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.
Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical
appreciation in unusual and interesting directions. Folk music is
very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of
elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called
`progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. The hacker's
musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal
appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Spirogyra,
Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, King Sunny Ade, The Pretenders, or
Bach's Brandenburg Concerti. It is also apparently true that
hackerdom includes a much higher concentration of talented amateur
musicians than one would expect from a similar-sized control group
of {mundane} types.
mutter: vt. To quietly enter a command not meant for the ears, eyes,
or fingers of ordinary mortals. Often used in `mutter an
{incantation}'. See also {wizard}.
= N =
N: /N/ quant. 1. A large and indeterminate number of objects:
"There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in its
original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N bugs,
as N goes to infinity." (The true number of bugs is always
at least N + 1.) 2. A variable whose value is inherited
from the current context. For example, when a meal is being
ordered at a restaurant, N may be understood to mean however
many people there are at the table. From the remark "We'd like to
order N wonton soups and a family dinner
for N - 1" you can deduce that one person at the table
wants to eat only soup, even though you don't know how many people
there are (see {great-wall}). 3. `Nth': adj. The
ordinal counterpart of N, senses #1 and #2. "Now for the
Nth and last time..." In the specific context
"Nth-year grad student", N is generally assumed to
be at least 4, and is usually 5 or more (see {tenured graduate
student}). See also {{random numbers}}, {two-to-the-n}.
nailed to the wall: [like a trophy] adj. Said of a bug finally
eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
nailing jelly: vi. See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.
na"ive: adj. Untutored in the perversities of some particular
program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive
way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these
coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the
appropriate sense). This is completely unrelated to general
maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific
program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of
computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed
to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical
user'.
na"ive user: n. A {luser}. Tends to imply someone who is
ignorant mainly owing to inexperience. When this is applied to
someone who *has* experience, there is a definite implication
of stupidity.
NAK: /nak/ [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0010101] interj.
1. On-line joke answer to {ACK}?: "I'm not here."
2. On-line answer to a request for chat: "I'm not available."
3. Used to politely interrupt someone to tell them you don't
understand their point or that they have suddenly stopped making
sense. See {ACK}, sense 3. "And then, after we recode the
project in COBOL...." "Nak, Nak, Nak! I thought I heard you
say COBOL!"
nano: /nan'oh/ [CMU: from `nanosecond'] n. A brief period of
time. "Be with you in a nano" means you really will be free
shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by "in a
jiffy" (whereas the hackish use of `jiffy' is quite different ---
see {jiffy}).
nano-: [SI: the next quantifier below {micro-}; meaning *
10^{-9}] pref. Smaller than {micro-}, and used in the same rather
loose and connotative way. Thus, one has {{nanotechnology}}
(coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy with
`microtechnology'; and a few machine architectures have a
`nanocode' level below `microcode'. Tom Duff at Bell Labs has
also pointed out that "Pi seconds is a nanocentury".
See also {{quantifiers}}, {pico-}, {nanoacre}, {nanobot},
{nanocomputer}, {nanofortnight}.
nanoacre: /nan'oh-ay`kr/ n. A unit (about 2 mm square) of real
estate on a VLSI chip. The term gets its giggle value from the
fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real acres
once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.
nanobot: /nan'oh-bot/ n. A robot of microscopic proportions,
presumably built by means of {{nanotechnology}}. As yet, only
used informally (and speculatively!). Also called a `nanoagent'.
nanocomputer: /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ n. A computer whose switching
elements are molecular in size. Designs for mechanical
nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their
logic have been proposed. The controller for a {nanobot} would be
a nanocomputer.
nanofortnight: [Adelaide University] n. 1 fortnight * 10^-9,
or about 1.2 msec. This unit was used largely by students doing
undergraduate practicals. See {microfortnight}, {attoparsec},
and {micro-}.
nanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-jee/ n. A hypothetical
fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with
the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.
The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments are taking place
now (1990), for example with the deposition of individual xenon
atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very
large computer company. Nanotechnology has been a hot topic in the
hacker subculture ever since the term was coined by K. Eric Drexler
in his book `Engines of Creation', where he predicted that
nanotechnology could give rise to replicating assemblers,
permitting an exponential growth of productivity and personal
wealth. See also {blue goo}, {gray goo}, {nanobot}.
nastygram: /nas'tee-gram/ n. 1. A protocol packet or item of email
(the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes advantage
of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do
untoward things. 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a {net.god},
pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a complaint about
failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem. Compare
{shitogram}. 3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably
picky, customer. "What'd Corporate say in today's nastygram?"
4. [deprecated] An error reply by mail from a {daemon}; in
particular, a {bounce message}.
Nathan Hale: n. An asterisk (see also {splat}, {{ASCII}}). Oh,
you want an etymology? Notionally, from "I regret that I have only
one asterisk for my country!", a misquote of the famous remark
uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was hanged. Hale was a
(failed) spy for the rebels in the American War of Independence.
nature: n. See {has the X nature}.
neat hack: n. 1. A clever technique. 2. A brilliant practical
joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness, harmlessness,
and surprise value. Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display
switch (see appendix A). See {hack}.
neep-neep: /neep neep/ [onomatopoeic, from New York SF fandom] n.
One who is fascinated by computers. More general than {hacker},
as it need not imply more skill than is required to boot games on a
PC. The derived noun `neep-neeping' applies specifically to
the long conversations about computers that tend to develop in the
corners at most SF-convention parties. Fandom has a related
proverb to the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black
hole!".
neophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-*/ n. The trait of being excited and
pleased by novelty. Common trait of most hackers, SF fans, and
members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures,
including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of the ecology
movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the
Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap heavily
and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic
hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{Music}}, and {{oriental
food}}.
net.-: /net dot/ pref. [USENET] Prefix used to describe people and
events related to USENET. From the time before the {Great
Renaming}, when most non-local newsgroups had names beginning
`net.'. Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses' (various
charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),
`net.lurkers' (see {lurker}), `net.person',
`net.parties' (a synonym for {boink}, sense 2), and
many similar constructs. See also {net.police}.
net.god: /net god/ n. Used to refer to anyone who satisfies some
combination of the following conditions: has been visible on USENET
for more than 5 years, ran one of the original backbone sites,
moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows
Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally. See
{demigod}. Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the Slime Sisters have
(so far) been distinguished more by personality than by authority.
net.personality: /net per`sn-al'-*-tee/ n. Someone who has made a name
for him or herself on {USENET}, through either longevity or
attention-getting posts, but doesn't meet the other requirements of
{net.god}hood.
net.police: /net-p*-lees'/ n. (var. `net.cops') Those USENET
readers who feel it is their responsibility to pounce on and
{flame} any posting which they regard as offensive or in
violation of their understanding of {netiquette}. Generally
used sarcastically or pejoratively. Also spelled `net police'.
See also {net.-}, {code police}.
nethack: /net'hak/ [UNIX] n. A dungeon game similar to
{rogue} but more elaborate, distributed in C source over
{USENET} and very popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines
(nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware
dungeon games). The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and later
considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called
`hack'. The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a
group of hackers originally organized by Mike Stephenson; the
current contact address (as of mid-1991) is
nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu.
netiquette: /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ [portmanteau from "network
etiquette"] n. Conventions of politeness recognized on {USENET},
such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups or
refraining from commercial pluggery on the net.
netnews: /net'n[y]ooz/ n. 1. The software that makes {USENET}
run. 2. The content of USENET. "I read netnews right after my
mail most mornings."
netrock: /net'rok/ [IBM] n. A {flame}; used esp. on VNET,
IBM's internal corporate network.
network address: n. (also `net address') As used by hackers,
means an address on `the' network (see {network, the}; this is
almost always a {bang path} or {{Internet address}}). Such an
address is essential if one wants to be to be taken seriously by
hackers; in particular, persons or organizations that claim to
understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among hackers but
*don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed to be
clueless poseurs and mentally flushed (see {flush}, sense 4).
Hackers often put their net addresses on their business cards and
wear them prominently in contexts where they expect to meet other
hackers face-to-face (see also {{science-fiction fandom}}). This
is mostly functional, but is also a signal that one identifies with
hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed T-shirts among
Grateful Dead fans). Net addresses are often used in email text as
a more concise substitute for personal names; indeed, hackers may
come to know each other quite well by network names without ever
learning each others' `legal' monikers. See also {sitename},
{domainist}.
network meltdown: n. A state of complete network overload; the
network equivalent of {thrash}ing. This may be induced by a
{Chernobyl packet}. See also {broadcast storm}, {kamikaze
packet}.
network, the: n. 1. The union of all the major noncommercial,
academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the old
ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the virtual UUCP and {USENET}
`networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
time-sharing services (such as CompuServe) that gateway to them. A
site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached
through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
(bang-path) addresses. See {bang path}, {{Internet address}},
{network address}. 2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian
hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described
in Robert Anton Wilson's novel `Schr"odinger's Cat', to which
many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an
example of {ha ha only serious}).
In sense 1, `network' is often abbreviated to `net'. "Are
you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet
face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.
New Jersey: [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley] adj. Brain-damaged
or of poor design. This refers to the allegedly wretched quality
of such software as C, C++, and UNIX (which originated at Bell Labs
in Murray Hill, New Jersey). "This compiler bites the bag, but
what can you expect from a compiler designed in New Jersey?"
Compare {Berkeley Quality Software}. See also {UNIX
conspiracy}.
New Testament: n. [C programmers] The second edition of K&R's
`The C Programming Language' (Prentice-Hall, 1988; ISBN
0-13-110362-8), describing ANSI Standard C. See {K&R}.
newbie: /n[y]oo'bee/ n. [orig. from British public-school and
military slang variant of `new boy'] A USENET neophyte.
This term surfaced in the {newsgroup} talk.bizarre but is
now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary
wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while
remaining a respected regular in another. The label `newbie'
is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been
around USENET for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence
of having a clue. See {BIFF}.
newgroup wars: /n[y]oo'groop wohrz/ [USENET] n. The salvos of dueling
`newgroup' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes exchanged by
persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a {newsgroup}
should be created net-wide. These usually settle out within a week
or two as it becomes clear whether the group has a natural
constituency (usually, it doesn't). At times, especially in the
completely anarchic alt hierarchy, the names of newsgroups
themselves become a form of comment or humor; e.g., the spinoff of
alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from alt.tv.muppets in
early 1990, or any number of specialized abuse groups named after
particularly notorious {flamer}s, e.g., alt.weemba.
newline: /n[y]oo'li:n/ n. 1. [techspeak, primarily UNIX] The
ASCII LF character (0001010), used under {{UNIX}} as a text line
terminator. A Bell-Labs-ism rather than a Berkeleyism;
interestingly (and unusually for UNIX jargon), it is said to have
originally been an IBM usage. (Though the term `newline' appears
in ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general computing
world before UNIX). 2. More generally, any magic character,
character sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln procedure)
required to terminate a text record or separate lines. See
{crlf}, {terpri}.
NeWS: /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ [acronym; the
`Network Window System'] n. The road not taken in window systems, an
elegant PostScript-based environment that would almost certainly
have won the standards war with {X} if it hadn't been
{proprietary} to Sun Microsystems. There is a lesson here that
too many software vendors haven't yet heeded. Many hackers insist
on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing
NeWS from {news} (the {netnews} software).
news: n. See {netnews}.
newsfroup: // [USENET] n. Silly synonym for {newsgroup},
originally a typo but now in regular use on USENET's talk.bizarre
and other lunatic-fringe groups.
newsgroup: [USENET] n. One of {USENET}'s huge collection of
topic groups or {fora}. Usenet groups can be `unmoderated'
(anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically
directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the
results). Some newsgroups have parallel {mailing list}s for
Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group
automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some
moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed
Internet mailing lists) are distributed as `digests', with groups
of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with
an index.
Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum),
comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.unix.wizards
(for UNIX wizards), rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction
fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political
discussions and {flamage}).
nickle: /ni'kl/ [from `nickel', common name for the U.S.
5-cent coin] n. A {nybble} + 1; 5 bits. Reported among
developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games
processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. See
also {deckle}.
night mode: n. See {phase} (of people).
Nightmare File System: n. Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network
File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there
is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others
often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and
(getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to
appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that
it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a
higher {spl} level). Then another machine tries to reach either
the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes
pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now
trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down
one, so it is even harder to reach. This snowballs very fast, and
soon the entire network of machines is frozen --- the user can't
even abort the file access that started the problem! (ITS
partisans are apt to cite this as proof of UNIX's alleged bogosity;
ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these
problems in the early 1970s.) See also {broadcast storm}.
NIL: /nil/ [from LISP terminology for `false'] No. Used
in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the
`-P' convention. See {T}.
NMI: /N-M-I/ n. Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11
or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80{88,[1234]}86. In contrast
with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although
that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
no-op: /noh'op/ alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] n. 1. (also v.)
A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in
assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or
to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). See also {JFCL}.
2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
going on upstairs, or both. As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any
operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting
money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into
the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to
go away. "Oh, well, that was a no-op." Hot-and-sour soup (see
{great-wall}) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup';
so is wonton soup if everybody else is having hot-and-sour.
noddy: /nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] adj.
1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs
are often written by people learning a new language or system. The
archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}. Noddy code may be
used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of
real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using.
"This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less
instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily
connote uselessness, but describes a {hack} sufficiently trivial
that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during
the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a
noddy {awk} script to dump all the first fields." In North
America this might be called a {mickey mouse program}. See
{toy program}.
NOMEX underwear: /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ [USENET] n. Syn.
{asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists
and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on
the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance measure and
required in some racing series.
non-optimal solution: n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An
astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally
used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person
speaking looks completely serious. Compare {stunning}. See also
{Bad Thing}.
nonlinear: adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic and
unpredictable fashion. When used to describe the behavior of a
machine or program, it suggests that said machine or program is
being forced to run far outside of design specifications. This
behavior may be induced by unreasonable inputs, or may be triggered
when a more mundane bug sends the computation far off from its
expected course. 2. When describing the behavior of a person,
suggests a tantrum or a {flame}. "When you talk to Bob, don't
mention the drug problem or he'll go nonlinear for hours." In
this context, `go nonlinear' connotes `blow up out of proportion'
(proportion connotes linearity).
nontrivial: adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing
power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem
is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable
("Proving P=NP is nontrivial"). The preferred emphatic form is
`decidedly nontrivial'. See {trivial}, {uninteresting},
{interesting}.
notwork: /not'werk/ n. A network, when it is acting {flaky} or is
{down}. Compare {nyetwork}. Said at IBM to have orig.
referred to a particular period of flakiness on IBM's VNET
corporate network, ca. 1988; but there are independent reports of
the term from elsewhere.
NP-: /N-P/ pref. Extremely. Used to modify adjectives
describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is
often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem to
be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a priori reason
that they should be.) "Getting this algorithm to perform
correctly in every case is NP-annoying." This is generalized from
the computer-science terms `NP-hard' and `NP-complete'. NP is
the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those that can
be completed by a nondeterministic Turing machine in an amount of
time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input; a
solution for one NP-complete problem would solve all the others.
NSA line eater: n. The National Security Agency trawling
program sometimes assumed to be reading {USENET} for the
U.S. Government's spooks. Most hackers describe it as a mythical
beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and
many believe in acting as though it exists just in case. Some
netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear materials',
`Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in their {sig block}s
in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and overload the
creature. The {GNU} version of {EMACS} actually has a command
that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious anarcho-verbiage into
your edited text.
There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line
Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words
from telephone trunks. This one was making the rounds in the
late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current
technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition
needs of such a project. On the basis of mass-storage costs alone
it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just
let them listen in. Speech-recognition technology can't do this
job even now (1991), and almost certainly won't in this millennium,
either. The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative
paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this
Big Brotherly affair. The letter writer then revealed his actual
agenda by offering --- at an amazing low price, just this once, we
take VISA and MasterCard --- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the
Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof
gangs of the world to get on with their business.
nuke: vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a
given directory or storage volume. "On UNIX, `rm -r /usr'
will nuke everything in the usr filesystem." Never used for
accidental deletion. Oppose {blow away}. 2. Syn. for
{dike}, applied to smaller things such as files, features, or
code sections. Often used to express a final verdict. "What do
you want me to do with that 80-meg {wallpaper} file?" "Nuke
it." 3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a frequent
verbal alias for `kill -9' on UNIX. 4. On IBM PCs, a bug
that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating
system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block
chaining information). This can utterly scramble attached disks,
which are then said to have been `nuked'. This term is also
used of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other micros without
memory protection.
number-crunching: n. Computations of a numerical nature, esp.
those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers. The only
thing {Fortrash} is good for. This term is in widespread
informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream slang, but
has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the computations
are mindless and involve massive use of {brute force}. This is
not always {evil}, esp. if it involves ray tracing or fractals
or some other use that makes {pretty pictures}, esp. if such
pictures can be used as {wallpaper}. See also {crunch}.
numbers: [scientific computation] n. Output of a computation that
may not be significant results but at least indicate that the
program is running. May be used to placate management, grant
sponsors, etc. `Making numbers' means running a program
because output --- any output, not necessarily meaningful output
--- is needed as a demonstration of progress. See {pretty
pictures}, {math-out}, {social science number}.
NUXI problem: /nuk'see pro'bl*m/ n. This refers to the problem of
transferring data between machines with differing byte-order. The
string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a
different `byte sex' (e.g., when transferring data from a
{little-endian} to a {big-endian}, or vice-versa). See also
{middle-endian}, {swab}, and {bytesexual}.
nybble: /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') [from v. `nibble' by analogy
with `bite' => `byte'] n. Four bits; one {hex} digit;
a half-byte. Though `byte' is now techspeak, this useful relative
is still jargon. Compare {{byte}}, {crumb}, {tayste},
{dynner}; see also {bit}, {nickle}, {deckle}. Apparently
this spelling is uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British
orthography suggests the pronunciation /ni:'bl/.
nyetwork: /nyet'werk/ [from Russian `nyet' = no] n. A network,
when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}. Compare {notwork}.
= O =
Ob-: /ob/ pref. Obligatory. A piece of {netiquette}
acknowledging that the author has been straying from the newsgroup's
charter topic. For example, if a posting in alt.sex is a response
to a part of someone else's posting that has nothing particularly
to do with sex, the author may append `ObSex' (or `Obsex') and toss
off a question or vignette about some unusual erotic act. It is
considered a sign of great {winnitude} when your Obs are more
interesting than other people's whole postings.
Obfuscated C Contest: n. An annual contest run since 1984 over
USENET by Landon Curt Noll and friends. The overall winner is
whoever produces the most unreadable, creative, and bizarre (but
working) C program; various other prizes are awarded at the judges'
whim. C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor facilities give
contestants a lot of maneuvering room. The winning programs often
manage to be simultaneously (a) funny, (b) breathtaking works of
art, and (c) horrible examples of how *not* to code in C.
This relatively short and sweet entry might help convey the flavor
of obfuscated C:
/*
* HELLO WORLD program
* by Jack Applin and Robert Heckendorn, 1985
*/
main(v,c)char**c;{for(v[c++]="Hello, world!\n)";
(!!c)[*c]&&(v--||--c&&execlp(*c,*c,c[!!c]+!!c,!c));
**c=!c)write(!!*c,*c,!!**c);}
Here's another good one:
/*
* Program to compute an approximation of pi
* by Brian Westley, 1988
*/
#define _ -F<00||--F-OO--;
int F=00,OO=00;
main(){F_OO();printf("%1.3f\n",4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
{
_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_
}
See also {hello, world}.
obi-wan error: /oh'bee-won` er'*r/ [RPI, from `off-by-one' and
the Obi-Wan Kenobi character in "Star Wars"] n. A loop of
some sort in which the index is off by 1. Common when the index
should have started from 0 but instead started from 1. A kind of
{off-by-one error}. See also {zeroth}.
Objectionable-C: n. Hackish take on "Objective-C", the name of an
object-oriented dialect of C in competition with the
better-known C++ (it is used to write native applications on the NeXT
machine). Objectionable-C uses a Smalltalk-like syntax, but lacks
the flexibility of Smalltalk method calls, and (like many such
efforts) comes frustratingly close to attaining the {Right Thing}
without actually doing so.
obscure: adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning, to
imply total incomprehensibility. "The reason for that last crash
is obscure." "The `find(1)' command's syntax is obscure!"
The phrase `moderately obscure' implies that it could be
figured out but probably isn't worth the trouble. The construction
`obscure in the extreme' is the preferred emphatic form.
octal forty: /ok'tl for'tee/ n. Hackish way of saying "I'm
drawing a blank." Octal 40 is the {{ASCII}} space character,
0100000; by an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (01000000) is the
{{EBCDIC}} space character. See {wall}.
off the trolley: adj. Describes the behavior of a program that
malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually {crash} or
abort. See {glitch}, {bug}, {deep space}.
off-by-one error: n. Exceedingly common error induced in many
ways, such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at 1 or
vice versa, or by writing `< N' instead of `<= N' or
vice-versa. Also applied to giving something to the person next to
the one who should have gotten it. Often confounded with
{fencepost error}, which is properly a particular subtype of it.
offline: adv. Not now or not here. "Let's take this
discussion offline." Specifically used on {USENET} to suggest
that a discussion be taken off a public newsgroup to email.
old fart: n. Tribal elder. A title self-assumed with remarkable
frequency by (esp.) USENETters who have been programming for more
than about 25 years; often appears in {sig block}s attached to
Jargon File contributions of great archeological significance.
This is a term of insult in the second or third person but one of
pride in first person.
Old Testament: n. [C programmers] The first edition of {K&R}, the
sacred text describing {Classic C}.
one-line fix: n. Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a
program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to
the moment it crashes the system. Usually `cured' by another
one-line fix. See also {I didn't change anything!}
one-liner wars: n. A game popular among hackers who code in the
language APL (see {write-only language}). The objective is to
see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one
line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly {hairy} primitive
set. A similar amusement was practiced among {TECO} hackers.
Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with a
one-liner that, given a number N, produces a list of the
prime numbers from 1 to N inclusive. It looks like this:
(2 = 0 +.= T o.| T) / T <- iN
where `o' is the APL null character, the assignment arrow is a
single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.
ooblick: /oo'blik/ [from Dr. Seuss's `Bartholomew and the
Oobleck'] n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and
water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at
parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; it
pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will
even crack when hit by a hammer. Often found near lasers.
Here is a field-tested ooblick recipe contributed by GLS:
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup baking soda
3/4 cup water
N drops of food coloring
This recipe isn't quite as non-Newtonian as a pure cornstarch
ooblick, but has an appropriately slimy feel.
Some, however, insist that the notion of an ooblick *recipe*
is far too mechanical, and that it is best to add the water in
small increments so that the various mixed states the cornstarch
goes through as it *becomes* ooblick can be grokked in
fullness by many hands. For optional ingredients of this
experience, see the "Ceremonial Chemicals" section of
appendix B.
open: n. Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' --- used when
necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. To read aloud the LISP form
(DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open defun foo, open
eks close, open, plus eks one, close close."
open switch: [IBM: prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved
question, issue, or problem.
operating system:: [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The
foundation software of a machine, of course; that which schedules
tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the
user between applications. The facilities an operating system
provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely
strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures
that grow up around its host machines. Hacker folklore has been
shaped primarily by the {{UNIX}}, {{ITS}}, {{TOPS-10}},
{{TOPS-20}}/{{TWENEX}}, {{WAITS}}, {{CP/M}}, {{MS-DOS}}, and
{{Multics}} operating systems (most importantly by ITS and
UNIX).
Orange Book: n. The U.S. Government's standards document
`Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard
5200.28-STD, December, 1985' which characterize secure computing
architectures and defines levels A1 (most secure) through D (least).
Stock UNIXes are roughly C2, and can be upgraded to about C1
without excessive pain. See also {{book titles}}.
oriental food:: n. Hackers display an intense tropism towards
oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier
varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan. This phenomenon (which has
also been observed in subcultures that overlap heavily with
hackerdom, most notably science-fiction fandom) has never been
satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can
assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best
local Chinese place and be right at least three times out of four.
See also {ravs}, {great-wall}, {stir-fried random},
{laser chicken}, {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}. Thai, Indian,
Korean, and Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.
orphan: [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by
`init(1)'. Compare {zombie}.
orphaned i-node: /or'f*nd i:'nohd/ [UNIX] n. 1. [techspeak] A
file that retains storage but no longer appears in the directories
of a filesystem. 2. By extension, a pejorative for any person
serving no useful function within some organization, esp.
{lion food} without subordinates.
orthogonal: [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent; well
separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of
its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or
capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the
entire `capability space' of the system and are in some sense
non-overlapping or mutually independent. For example, in
architectures such as the PDP-11 or VAX where all or nearly all
registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respect to
any instruction, the register set is said to be orthogonal. Or, in
logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal,
but the set `nand', `or', and `not' is not (because any
one of these can be expressed in terms of the others). Also used
in comments on human discourse: "This may be orthogonal to the
discussion, but...."
OS: /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An acronym heavily used in email,
occasionally in speech. 2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy. See
appendix A.
OS/2: /O S too/ n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel
286- and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it
right the second time, either. Mentioning it is usually good for a
cheap laugh among hackers --- the design was so {baroque}, and
the implementation of 1.x so bad, that 3 years after introduction
you could still count the major {app}s shipping for it on the
fingers of two hands --- in unary. Often called `Half-an-OS'. On
January 28, 1991, Microsoft announced that it was dropping its OS/2
development to concentrate on Windows, leaving the OS entirely in
the hands of IBM; on January 29 they claimed the media had got the
story wrong, but were vague about how. It looks as though OS/2 is
moribund. See {vaporware}, {monstrosity}, {cretinous},
{second-system effect}.
out-of-band: [from telecommunications and network theory] adj.
1. In software, describes values of a function which are not in its
`natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that
some kind of exception has occurred. Many C functions, for
example, return either a nonnegative integral value, or indicate
failure with an out-of-band return value of -1. Compare
{hidden flag}, {green bytes}. 2. Also sometimes used to
describe what communications people call `shift characters',
like the ESC that leads control sequences for many terminals, or
the level shift indicators in the old 5-bit Baudot codes. 3. In
personal communication, using methods other than email, such as
telephones or {snail-mail}.
overflow bit: n. 1. [techspeak] On some processors, an attempt to
calculate a result too large for a register to hold causes a
particular {flag} called an {overflow bit} to be set.
2. Hackers use the term of human thought too. "Well, the {{Ada}}
description was {baroque} all right, but I could hack it OK until
they got to the exception handling ... that set my overflow bit."
3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to
make a trip to the Room of Porcelain Fixtures: "I'd better process
an internal interrupt before the overflow bit gets set".
overrun: n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data
arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line
communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly
one character per millisecond, so if your {silo} can hold only
two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 msec to get to
service the interrupt, at least one character will be lost. 2. Also
applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay my
electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I got four phone
calls in 3 minutes last night and lost your message to
overrun." When {thrash}ing at tasks, the next person to make a
request might be told "Overrun!" 3. More loosely, may refer to a
{buffer overflow} not necessarily related to processing time (as
in {overrun screw}).
overrun screw: [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on core}
produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks
for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array
is static; if it is auto, the result may be to {smash the stack}
--- often resulting in {heisenbug}s of the most diabolical
subtlety. The term `overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles
beyond the end of arrays allocated with `malloc(3)'; this
typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the
{arena}, producing massive lossage within malloc and often
a core dump on the next operation to use `stdio(3)' or
`malloc(3)' itself. See {spam}, {overrun}; see also
{memory leak}, {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage},
{fandango on core}, {secondary damage}.
= P =
P.O.D.: /P-O-D/ Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a
code section). Usage: pedantic and rare. See also {pod}.
padded cell: n. Where you put {luser}s so they can't hurt
anything. A program that limits a luser to a carefully restricted
subset of the capabilities of the host system (for example, the
`rsh(1)' utility on USG UNIX). Note that this is different
from an {iron box} because it is overt and not aimed at
enforcing security so much as protecting others (and the luser)
from the consequences of the luser's boundless na"ivet'e (see
{na"ive}). Also `padded cell environment'.
page in: [MIT] vi. 1. To become aware of one's surroundings again after
having paged out (see {page out}). Usually confined to the sarcastic
comment: "Eric pages in. Film at 11." See {film at 11}.
2. Syn. `swap in'; see {swap}.
page out: [MIT] vi. 1. To become unaware of one's surroundings
temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation. "Can you repeat
that? I paged out for a minute." See {page in}. Compare
{glitch}, {thinko}. 2. Syn. `swap out'; see {swap}.
pain in the net: n. A {flamer}.
paper-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service,
analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network. USENET
{sig block}s not uncommonly include a "Paper-Net:" header just
before the sender's postal address; common variants of this are
"Papernet" and "P-Net". Compare {voice-net}, {snail-mail}.
param: /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'. See also
{parm}; Compare {arg}, {var}.
parent message: n. See {followup}.
parity errors: pl.n. Little lapses of attention or (in more severe
cases) consciousness, usually brought on by having spent all night
and most of the next day hacking. "I need to go home and crash;
I'm starting to get a lot of parity errors." Derives from a
relatively common but nearly always correctable transient error in
RAM hardware.
Parkinson's Law of Data: prov. "Data expands to fill the space
available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of
more memory-intensive techniques. It has been observed over the
last 10 years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to
double roughly once every 18 months. Fortunately, memory density
available for constant dollars tends to double about once every
12 months (see {Moore's Law}); unfortunately, the laws of
physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely.
parm: /parm/ n. Further-compressed form of {param}. This term
is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown outside IBM
shops; spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but the synonym
{arg} is favored among hackers. Compare {arg}, {var}.
parse: [from linguistic terminology] vt. 1. To determine the
syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the
standard English meaning). "That was the one I saw you." "I
can't parse that." 2. More generally, to understand or
comprehend. "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and then
aos the zotz." "I can't parse that." 3. Of fish, to have to
remove the bones yourself. "I object to parsing fish", means "I
don't want to get a whole fish, but a sliced one is okay". A
`parsed fish' has been deboned. There is some controversy over
whether `unparsed' should mean `bony', or also mean
`deboned'.
Pascal:: n. An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth
on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for
elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep
students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely
restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was
later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the
ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and
{{Ada}} (see also {bondage-and-discipline language}). The
hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a
devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper
by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is
Not My Favorite Programming Language", which was never formally
published but has circulated widely via photocopies. Part of his
discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are
still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and
could also stand as an indictment of many other
bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the
case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote:
9. There is no escape
This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is
inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its
limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when
necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time
environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that
defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed.
People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap.
Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group
extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever
language they really want. Extensions for separate compilation,
FORTRAN-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables,
initialization, octal numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the
utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to
others.
I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its
original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable
for teaching but not for real programming.
Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the
niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems
programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in
the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds.
patch: 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a
{quick-and-dirty} remedy to an existing bug or misfeature. A
patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be
incorporated permanently into the program. Distinguished from a
{diff} or {mod} by the fact that a patch is generated by more
primitive means than the rest of the program; the classical
examples are instructions modified by using the front panel
switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable of a
program originally written in an {HLL}. Compare {one-line
fix}. 2. vt. To insert a patch into a piece of code. 3. [in the
UNIX world] n. A {diff} (sense 2). 4. A set of modifications to
binaries to be applied by a patching program. IBM operating
systems often receive updates to the operating system in the form
of absolute hexadecimal patches. If you have modified your OS, you
have to disassemble these back to the source. The patches might
later be corrected by other patches on top of them (patches were
said to "grow scar tissue"). The result was often a convoluted
{patch space} and headaches galore.
There is a classic story of a {tiger team} penetrating a secure
military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary
patches (or, indeed, any that you can't --- or don't --- inspect
and examine before installing). They couldn't find any {trap
door}s or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so they made a
site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were official military
types who were purportedly on official business), swiped some IBM
stationery, and created a fake patch. The patch was actually the
trapdoor they needed. The patch was distributed at about the right
time for an IBM patch, had official stationery and all accompanying
documentation, and was dutifully installed. The installation
manager very shortly thereafter learned something about proper
procedures.
patch space: n. An unused block of bits left in a binary so that
it can later be modified by insertion of machine-language
instructions there (typically, the patch space is modified to
contain new code, and the superseded code is patched to contain a
jump or call to the patch space). The widening use of HLLs has
made this term rare; it is now primarily historical outside IBM
shops. See {patch} (sense 4), {zap} (sense 4), {hook}.
path: n. 1. A {bang path} or explicitly routed {{Internet
address}}; a node-by-node specification of a link between two
machines. 2. [UNIX] A filename, fully specified relative to the
root directory (as opposed to relative to the current directory;
the latter is sometimes called a `relative path'). This is also
called a `pathname'. 3. [UNIX and MS-DOS] The `search
path', an environment variable specifying the directories in which
the {shell} (COMMAND.COM, under MS-DOS) should look for commands.
Other, similar constructs abound under UNIX (for example, the
C preprocessor has a `search path' it uses in looking for
`#include' files).
pathological: adj. 1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set
that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, esp. one that
exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using. An
algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may still be
useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in practice.
2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
engineered as a worst case. The implication in both senses is that
the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone had to
explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order to come up with
such a crazy example. 3. Also said of an unlikely collection of
circumstances. "If the network is down and comes up halfway
through the execution of that command by root, the system may
just crash." "Yes, but that's a pathological case." Often used
to dismiss the case from discussion, with the implication that the
consequences are acceptable since that they will happen so
infrequently (if at all) that there is no justification for
going to extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).
payware: /pay'weir/ n. Commercial software. Oppose {shareware}
or {freeware}.
PBD: /P-B-D/ [abbrev. of `Programmer Brain Damage'] n. Applied
to bug reports revealing places where the program was obviously
broken by an incompetent or short-sighted programmer. Compare
{UBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.
PC-ism: /P-C-izm/ n. A piece of code or coding technique that
takes advantage of the unprotected single-tasking environment in
IBM PCs and the like, e.g., by busy-waiting on a hardware register,
direct diddling of screen memory, or using hard timing loops.
Compare {ill-behaved}, {vaxism}, {unixism}. Also,
`PC-ware' n., a program full of PC-isms on a machine with a more
capable operating system. Pejorative.
PD: /P-D/ adj. Common abbreviation for `public domain', applied
to software distributed over {USENET} and from Internet archive
sites. Much of this software is not in fact public domain in
the legal sense but travels under various copyrights granting
reproduction and use rights to anyone who can {snarf} a copy. See
{copyleft}.
pdl: /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ [acronym for `Push Down List'] 1. In
ITS days, the preferred MITism for {stack}. 2. Dave Lebling, one
of the co-authors of {Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS
machines was at one time pdl@dms). 3. `Program Design Language'.
Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless
pseudo-languages in which {management} forces one to design
programs. {Management} often expects it to be maintained in
parallel with the code. See also {{flowchart}}. 4. To design
using a program design language. "I've been pdling so long my
eyes won't focus beyond 2 feet."
PDP-10: [Programmed Data Processor model 10] n. The machine that
made timesharing real. It looms large in hacker folklore because
of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing
facilities and research labs, including the MIT AI Lab, Stanford,
and CMU. Some aspects of the instruction set (most notably the
bit-field instructions) are still considered unsurpassed. The 10
was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines (descendants of the
PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10 and VAX product lines were
competing with each other and decided to concentrate its software
development effort on the more profitable VAX. The machine was
finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of
the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some
attempts by other companies to market clones came to nothing; see
{Foonly}) This event spelled the doom of {{ITS}} and the
technical cultures that had spawned the original Jargon File, but
by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of honorable
old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10.
See {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT}, {DPB},
{EXCH}, {HAKMEM}, {JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop}, {push},
appendix A.
PDP-20: n. The most famous computer that never was. {PDP-10}
computers running the {{TOPS-10}} operating system were labeled
`DECsystem-10' as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11.
Later on, those systems running {TOPS-20} were labeled
`DECSYSTEM-20' (the block capitals being the result of a lawsuit
brought against DEC by Singer, which once made a computer called
`system-10'), but contrary to popular lore there was never a
`PDP-20'; the only difference between a 10 and a 20 was the
operating system and the color of the paint. Most (but not all)
machines sold to run TOPS-10 were painted `Basil Blue', whereas
most TOPS-20 machines were painted `Chinese Red' (often mistakenly
called orange).
peek: n.,vt. (and {poke}) The commands in most microcomputer
BASICs for directly accessing memory contents at an absolute
address; often extended to mean the corresponding constructs in any
{HLL} (peek reads memory, poke modifies it). Much hacking on
small, non-MMU micros consists of {peek}ing around memory, more
or less at random, to find the location where the system keeps
interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate) lists of such
addresses for various computers circulate (see {{interrupt list,
the}}). The results of {poke}s at these addresses may be highly
useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or (most likely) total
{lossage} (see {killer poke}).
pencil and paper: n. An archaic information storage and
transmission device that works by depositing smears of graphite on
bleached wood pulp. More recent developments in paper-based
technology include improved `write-once' update devices which use
tiny rolling heads similar to mouse balls to deposit colored
pigment. All these devices require an operator skilled at
so-called `handwriting' technique. These technologies are
ubiquitous outside hackerdom, but nearly forgotten inside it. Most
hackers had terrible handwriting to begin with, and years of
keyboarding tend to have encouraged it to degrade further. Perhaps
for this reason, hackers deprecate pencil-and-paper technology and
often resist using it in any but the most trivial contexts. See
also appendix B.
peon: n. A person with no special ({root} or {wheel})
privileges on a computer system. "I can't create an account on
*foovax* for you; I'm only a peon there."
percent-S: /per-sent' es'/ [From the code in C's `printf(3)'
library function used to insert an arbitrary string argument] n. An
unspecified person or object. "I was just talking to some
percent-s in administration." Compare {random}.
perf: /perf/ n. See {chad} (sense 1). The term `perfory'
/per'f*-ree/ is also heard.
perfect programmer syndrome: n. Arrogance; the egotistical
conviction that one is above normal human error. Most frequently
found among programmers of some native ability but relatively
little experience (especially new graduates; their perceptions may
be distorted by a history of excellent performance at solving {toy
problem}s). "Of course my program is correct, there is no need to
test it." "Yes, I can see there may be a problem here, but
*I'll* never type `rm -r /' while in {root}."
Perl: /perl/ [Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a
Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister] n. An interpreted language
developed by Larry Wall (lwall@jpl.nasa.gov, author of
`patch(1)' and `rn(1)') and distributed over USENET.
Superficially resembles `awk(1)', but is much hairier (see
{awk}). UNIX sysadmins, who are almost always incorrigible
hackers, increasingly consider it one of the {languages of
choice}. Perl has been described, in a parody of a famous remark
about `lex(1)', as the "Swiss-Army chainsaw" of UNIX
programming.
pessimal: /pes'im-l/ [Latin-based antonym for `optimal'] adj.
Maximally bad. "This is a pessimal situation." Also `pessimize'
vt. To make as bad as possible. These words are the obvious
Latin-based antonyms for `optimal' and `optimize', but for some
reason they do not appear in most English dictionaries, although
`pessimize' is listed in the OED.
pessimizing compiler: /pes'*-mi:z`ing k*m-pi:l'r/ [antonym of
`optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that
is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The
implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimize the
program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A
few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as
pranks or burlesques.
peta-: /pe't*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
PETSCII: /pet'skee/ [abbreviation of PET ASCII] n. The variation
(many would say perversion) of the {{ASCII}} character set used by
the Commodore Business Machines PET series of personal computers
and the later Commodore C64, C16, and C128 machines. The PETSCII
set used left-arrow and up-arrow (as in old-style ASCII) instead of
underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at positions
65--90, put the shifted alphabet at positions 193--218, and added
graphics characters.
phase: 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule with
respect to the standard 24-hour cycle. This is a useful concept
among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed
schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6
hours per day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've
been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to {wrap
around} to the day schedule by Friday." A person who is roughly
12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'.
(The term `day mode' is also (but less frequently) used, meaning
you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).) The act of
altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase
shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech.
2. `change phase the hard way': To stay awake for a very long
time in order to get into a different phase. 3. `change phase
the easy way': To stay asleep, etc. However, some claim that
either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it
is *shortening* your day or night that's hard (see {wrap
around}). The `jet lag' that afflicts travelers who cross many
time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct causes: the
strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing phase. Hackers
who suddenly find that they must change phase drastically in a
short period of time, particularly the hard way, experience
something very like jet lag without traveling.
phase of the moon: n. Used humorously as a random parameter on which
something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of
whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on
conditions nobody has been able to determine. "This feature
depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo
switch set, and on the phase of the moon."
True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend
on the phase of the moon. There is a little subroutine that had
traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an
approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this
routine into a LISP program that, when it wrote out a file, would
print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very
occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and
would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read
back in the program would {barf}. The length of the first line
depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the
phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug
literally depended on the phase of the moon!
The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included
an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but
the typesetter `corrected' it. This has since been described as
the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
phreaking: [from `phone phreak'] n. 1. The art and science of
cracking the phone network (so as, for example, to make free
long-distance calls). 2. By extension, security-cracking in any
other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communications
networks).
At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among
hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an
intellectual game and a form of exploration was OK, but serious
theft of services was taboo. There was significant crossover
between the hacker community and the hard-core phone phreaks who
ran semi-underground networks of their own through such media as
the legendary `TAP Newsletter'. This ethos began to break
down in the mid-1980s as wider dissemination of the techniques put
them in the hands of less responsible phreaks. Around the same
time, changes in the phone network made old-style technical
ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came
to depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card
numbers. The crimes and punishments of gangs like the `414 group'
turned that game very ugly. A few old-time hackers still phreak
casually just to keep their hand in, but most these days have
hardly even heard of `blue boxes' or any of the other
paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.
pico-: [SI: a quantifier
meaning * 10^-12]
pref. Smaller than {nano-}; used in the same rather loose
connotative way as {nano-} and {micro-}. This usage is not yet
common in the way {nano-} and {micro-} are, but should be
instantly recognizable to any hacker. See also {{quantifiers}},
{micro-}.
pig, run like a: v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of
software. Distinct from {hog}.
pilot error: [Sun: from aviation] n. A user's misconfiguration or
misuse of a piece of software, producing apparently buglike results
(compare {UBD}). "Joe Luser reported a bug in sendmail that
causes it to generate bogus headers." "That's not a bug, that's
pilot error. His `sendmail.cf' is hosed."
ping: [from the TCP/IP acronym `Packet INternet Groper', prob.
originally contrived to match the submariners' term for a sonar
pulse] 1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO)
sent by a computer to check for the presence and aliveness of
another. Occasionally used as a phone greeting. See {ACK},
also {ENQ}. 2. vt. To verify the presence of. 3. vt. To get
the attention of. From the UNIX command `ping(1)' that sends
an ICMP ECHO packet to another host. 4. vt. To send a message to
all members of a {mailing list} requesting an {ACK} (in order
to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't
heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK
both times I pinged jargon-friends."
The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by
Steve Hayman on the USENET group comp.sys.next. He was trying
to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to
a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console
after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting
through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then
wrote a script that repeatedly invoked `ping(8)', listened for
an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet.
Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and
over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the
network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through
the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector
in no time.
Pink-Shirt Book: `The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM
PC'. The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a
silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in
recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different
picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. See also {{book titles}}.
PIP: /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from
the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, and OS/8 (derived from a
utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8
and RT-11 for just about every other file operation you might want
to do). It is said that when the program was originated, during the
development of the PDP-6 in 1963, it was called ATLATL (`Anything,
Lord, to Anything, Lord').
pistol: [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to
shoot yourself in the foot. "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice
pistol!"
pizza box: [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics
in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its
size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes.
Two meg single-platter removable disk packs used to be called pizzas,
and the huge drive they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza
oven. It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk
was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
pizza, ANSI standard: /an'see stan'd*rd peet'z*/ [CMU] Pepperoni
and mushroom pizza. Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered
by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of
that flavor. See also {rotary debugger}; compare {tea, ISO
standard cup of}.
plain-ASCII: /playn-as'kee/ Syn. {flat-ASCII}.
plan file: [UNIX] n. On systems that support {finger}, the
`.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user
is fingered. This feature was originally intended to be used to
keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near-future
plans, but has been turned almost universally to humorous and
self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}). See {Hacking X
for Y}.
platinum-iridium: adj. Standard, against which all others of the
same category are measured. Usage: silly. The notion is that one
of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy
and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. (From
1889 to 1960, the meter was defined to be the distance between two
scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in that vault --- this
replaced an earlier definition as 10^7 times the distance
between the North Pole and the Equator along a meridian through
Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact value of
the circumference of the Earth. From 1960 to 1984 it was defined
to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of krypton-86
propagating in a vacuum. It is now defined as the length of the
path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of
1/299,792,458 of a second. The kilogram is now the only unit of
measure officially defined in terms of a unique artifact.) "This
garbage-collection algorithm has been tested against the
platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare {golden}.
playpen: [IBM] n. A room where programmers work. Compare {salt
mines}.
playte: /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and {{byte}}. Usage:
rare and extremely silly. See also {dynner} and {crumb}.
plingnet: /pling'net/ n. Syn. {UUCPNET}. Also see
{{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for {bang} (as in
{bang path}).
plokta: /plok't*/ [Acronym for `Press Lots Of Keys To Abort']
v. To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from
the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a
program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the system is
just sluggish or really hung. Plokta can also be used while trying
to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation.
Someone going into `plokta mode' usually places both hands flat
on the keyboard and presses down, hoping for some useful
response.
plonk: [USENET: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for
cheap booze] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the bottom
of a {kill file}. Used almost exclusively in the {newsgroup}
talk.bizarre, this term (usually written "*plonk*") is a
form of public ridicule.
plugh: /ploogh/ [from the {ADVENT} game] v. See {xyzzy}.
plumbing: [UNIX] n. Term used for {shell} code, so called because
of the prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of one
program to the input of another. Under UNIX, user utilities can
often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable
collection of pipelines and temp-file grinding encapsulated in a
shell script; this is much less effort than writing C every time,
and the capability is considered one of UNIX's major winning
features. Esp. used in the construction `hairy plumbing' (see
{hairy}). "You can kluge together a basic spell-checker out of
`sort(1)', `comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with a little
plumbing." See also {tee}.
PM: /P-M/ 1. v. (from `preventive maintenance') To bring
down a machine for inspection or test purposes; see {scratch
monkey}. 2. n. Abbrev. for `Presentation Manager', an
{elephantine} OS/2 graphical user interface. See also
{provocative maintenance}.
pnambic: /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film
version of `The Wizard of Oz' in which true nature of the
wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind
the curtain."] 1. A stage of development of a process or function
that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of
the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some
or all of the actions, inputs, or outputs of the process or
function. 2. Of or pertaining to a process or function whose
apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified. 3. Requiring
{prestidigitization}.
The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program
which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is
a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See
{magic}, sense 1, for illumination of this point.
pod: [allegedly from acronym POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A
Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer). From
the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to it.
See also {P.O.D.}
poke: n.,vt. See {peek}.
poll: v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an
input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular
external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check
with someone: "I keep polling him, but he's not answering his
phone; he must be swapped out." 3. To ask. "Lunch? I poll for
a takeout order daily."
polygon pusher: n. A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at
the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of
multi-colored polygons). Also `rectangle slinger'.
POM: /P-O-M/ n. Common acronym for {phase of the moon}. Usage:
usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means {flaky}.
pop: [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the
fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] (also
capitalized `POP' /pop/) 1. vt. To remove something from a
{stack} or {pdl}. If a person says he/she has popped
something from his stack, that means he/she has finally finished
working on it and can now remove it from the list of things hanging
overhead. 2. When a discussion gets to too deep a level of detail
so that the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone
will shout "Pop!", meaning "Get back up to a higher level!"
The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a
finger pointing to the ceiling.
POPJ: /pop'J/ [from a {PDP-10} return-from-subroutine
instruction] n.,v. To return from a digression. By verb doubling,
"Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see, where were we?"
See {RTI}.
posing: n. On a {MUD}, the use of `:' or an equivalent
command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain
physical action that has no effect on the game (it may, however,
serve as a social signal or propaganda device that induces other
people to take game actions). For example, if one's character name
is Firechild, one might type `: looks delighted at the idea and
begins hacking on the nearest terminal' to broadcast a message that
says "Firechild looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on
the nearest terminal". See {RL}.
post: v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}.
Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for
example: "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known
users?"
posting: n. Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that
{post} can be nouned). Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary
{email} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than
point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a small
mailing list are postings or email; perhaps the best dividing line
is that if you don't know the names of all the potential
recipients, it is a posting.
postmaster: n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site
connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the
same as the {admin}. It is conventional for each machine to have
a `postmaster' address that is aliased to this person.
pound on: vt. Syn. {bang on}.
power cycle: vt. (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle') To
power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the
intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.
Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare
{Vulcan nerve pinch}, {bounce}, and {boot}, and see the
AI Koan in appendix A about Tom Knight and the novice.
PPN: /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A
user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL,
BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers from the PDP-10
era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on other systems as
well.
precedence lossage: /pre's*-dens los'*j/ [C programmers] n. Coding
error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or
logical operators by the compiler. Used esp. of certain common
coding errors in C due to the nonintuitively low precedence levels
of `&', `|', `^', `<<', and `>>' (for this
reason, experienced C programmers deliberately forget the
language's {baroque} precedence hierarchy and parenthesize
defensively). Can always be avoided by suitable use of
parentheses. {LISP} fans enjoy pointing out that this can't
happen in *their* favorite language, which eschews precedence
entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
See {aliasing bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack},
{fandango on core}, {overrun screw}.
prepend: /pree`pend'/ [by analogy with `append'] vt. To
prefix. As with `append' (but not `prefix' or `suffix' as a
verb), the direct object is always the thing being added and not
the original word (or character string, or whatever). "If you
prepend a semicolon to the line, the translation routine will pass
it through unaltered."
prestidigitization: /pres`t*-di`j*-ti:-zay'sh*n/ n. 1. The act
of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand.
2. Data entry through legerdemain.
pretty pictures: n. [scientific computation] The next step up from
{numbers}. Interesting graphical output from a program that may
not have any sensible relationship to the system the program is
intended to model. Good for showing to {management}.
prettyprint: /prit'ee-print/ (alt. `pretty-print') v. 1. To
generate `pretty' human-readable output from a {hairy} internal
representation; esp. used for the process of {grind}ing (sense 2)
LISP code. 2. To format in some particularly slick and
nontrivial way.
pretzel key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.
prime time: [from TV programming] n. Normal high-usage hours on a
timesharing system; the day shift. Avoidance of prime time is a
major reason for {night mode} hacking.
priority interrupt: [from the hardware term] n. Describes any
stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack mode}.
Classically used to describe being dragged away by an {SO} for
immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions
such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity. Also called
an {NMI} (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land.
profile: n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file
automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to
be easily modified by the user in order to customize the program's
behavior. Used to avoid {hardcoded} choices. 2. [techspeak] A
report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program,
used to find and {tune} away the {hot spot}s in it. This sense
is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time
(such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than
per-routine, but the idea is similar.
proglet: /prog'let/ [UK] n. A short extempore program written
to meet an immediate, transient need. Often written in BASIC,
rarely more than a dozen lines long, and contains no subroutines.
The largest amount of code that can be written off the top of one's
head, that does not need any editing, and that runs correctly the
first time (this amount varies significantly according to the
language one is using). Compare {toy program}, {noddy},
{one-liner wars}.
program: n. 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to
turn one's input into error messages. 2. An exercise in
experimental epistemology. 3. A form of art, ostensibly intended
for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost
inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.
Programmer's Cheer: "Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop
up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" A joke so old it has hair on
it.
programming: n. 1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper (or,
in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging an empty
file). 2. n. A pastime similar to banging one's head against a
wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. 3. n. The most fun
you can have with your clothes on (although clothes are not
mandatory).
propeller head: n. Used by hackers, this is syn. with {computer
geek}. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies.
Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (originally invented by
old-time fan Ray Faraday Nelson) of propeller beanies as fannish
insignia (though nobody actually wears them except as a joke).
propeller key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.
proprietary: adj. 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior; implies a
product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of
the company's hardware or software designers. 2. In the language
of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to
open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the
mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service and upgrade
charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in (that's
assuming it wasn't too expensive in the first place).
protocol: n. As used by hackers, this never refers to niceties
about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal Nuncio or
the order in which one should use the forks in a Russian-style
place setting; hackers don't care about such things. It is used
instead to describe any set of rules that allow different machines
or pieces of software to coordinate with each other without
ambiguity. So, for example, it does include niceties about the
proper form for addressing packets on a network or the order in
which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers Problem.
It implies that there is some common message format and an accepted set
of primitives or commands that all parties involved understand, and
that transactions among them follow predictable logical sequences.
See also {handshaking}, {do protocol}.
provocative maintenance: [common ironic mutation of `preventive
maintenance'] n. Actions performed upon a machine at regularly
scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in a usable
state. So called because it is all too often performed by a
{field servoid} who doesn't know what he is doing; this results
in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for an
indeterminate amount of time. See also {scratch monkey}.
prowler: [UNIX] n. A {daemon} that is run periodically (typically
once a week) to seek out and erase {core} files, truncate
administrative logfiles, nuke `lost+found' directories, and
otherwise clean up the {cruft} that tends to pile up in the
corners of a file system. See also {GFR}, {reaper},
{skulker}.
pseudo: /soo'doh/ [USENET: truncation of `pseudonym'] n. 1. An
electronic-mail or {USENET} persona adopted by a human for
amusement value or as a means of avoiding negative repercussions of
one's net.behavior; a `nom de USENET', often associated with
forged postings designed to conceal message origins. Perhaps the
best-known and funniest hoax of this type is {BIFF}.
2. Notionally, a {flamage}-generating AI program simulating a
USENET user. Many flamers have been accused of actually being such
entities, despite the fact that no AI program of the required
sophistication yet exists. However, in 1989 there was a famous
series of forged postings that used a phrase-frequency-based
travesty generator to simulate the styles of several well-known
flamers; it was based on large samples of their back postings
(compare {Dissociated Press}). A significant number of people
were fooled by the forgeries, and the debate over their
authenticity was settled only when the perpetrator came forward to
publicly admit the hoax.
pseudoprime: n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied
points) with one point missing. This term is an esoteric pun
derived from a mathematical method that, rather than determining
precisely whether a number is prime (has no divisors), uses a
statistical technique to decide whether the number is `probably'
prime. A number that passes this test is called a pseudoprime.
The hacker backgammon usage stems from the idea that a pseudoprime
is almost as good as a prime: it does the job of a prime until
proven otherwise, and that probably won't happen.
pseudosuit: /soo'doh-s[y]oot`/ n. A {suit} wannabee; a hacker
who has decided that he wants to be in management or administration
and begins wearing ties, sport coats, and (shudder!) suits
voluntarily. It's his funeral. See also {lobotomy}.
psychedelicware: /si:`k*-del'-ik-weir/ [UK] n. Syn.
{display hack}. See also {smoking clover}.
psyton: /si:'ton/ [TMRC] n. The elementary particle carrying the
sinister force. The probability of a process losing is
proportional to the number of psytons falling on it. Psytons are
generated by observers, which is why demos are more likely to fail
when lots of people are watching. [This term appears to have been
largely superseded by {bogon}; see also {quantum bogodynamics}.
--- ESR]
pubic directory: [NYU] (also `pube directory' /pyoob'
d*-rek't*-ree/) n. The `pub' (public) directory on a machine that
allows {FTP} access. So called because it is the default
location for {SEX} (sense 1). "I'll have the source in the
pube directory by Friday."
puff: vt. To decompress data that has been crunched by Huffman
coding. At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder program
was actually *named* `PUFF', but these days it is usually
packaged with the encoder. Oppose {huff}.
punched card:: alt. `punch card' [techspeak] n.obs. The signature
medium of computing's {Stone Age}, now obsolescent outside of
some IBM shops. The punched card actually predated computers
considerably, originating in 1801 as a control device for
mechanical looms. The version patented by Hollerith and used with
mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 U.S. Census was a piece
of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm, designed to fit exactly in the
currency trays used for that era's larger dollar bills.
IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married
the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as
patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column,
80 columns per card. Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and
hole shapes were tried at various times.
The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the
IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards
distributed with many varieties of computers even today. See
{chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card},
{dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}.
punt: [from the punch line of an old joke referring to American
football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt!"] v. 1. To give up,
typically without any intention of retrying. "Let's punt the
movie tonight." "I was going to hack all night to get this
feature in, but I decided to punt" may mean that you've decided
not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even
going to put in the feature. 2. More specifically, to give up on
figuring out what the {Right Thing} is and resort to an
inefficient hack. 3. A design decision to defer solving a
problem, typically because one cannot define what is desirable
sufficiently well to frame an algorithmic solution. "No way to
know what the right form to dump the graph in is --- we'll punt
that for now." 4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off
to some other section of the design. "It's too hard to get the
compiler to do that; let's punt to the runtime system."
Purple Book: n. The `System V Interface Definition'. The covers
of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of
off-lavender. See also {{book titles}}.
push: [from the operation that puts the current information on a
stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on
a stack] Also PUSH /push/ or PUSHJ /push'J/ (the latter based
on the PDP-10 procedure call instruction). 1. To put something
onto a {stack} or {pdl}. If one says that something has been
pushed onto one's stack, it means that the Damoclean list of things
hanging over ones's head has grown longer and heavier yet. This may
also imply that one will deal with it *before* other pending
items; otherwise one might say that the thing was `added to my queue'.
2. vi. To enter upon a digression, to save the current discussion
for later. Antonym of {pop}; see also {stack}, {pdl}.
= Q =
quad: n. 1. Two bits; syn. for {quarter}, {crumb},
{tayste}. 2. A four-pack of anything (compare {hex}, sense 2).
3. The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for various
arcane purposes mostly related to I/O. Former Ivy-Leaguers and
Oxbridge types are said to associate it with nostalgic memories of
dear old University.
quadruple bucky: n., obs. 1. On an MIT {space-cadet keyboard},
use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta, hyper, and
super) while typing a character key. 2. On a Stanford or MIT
keyboard in {raw mode}, use of four shift keys while typing a
fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control and meta
keys on *both* sides of the keyboard. This was very difficult
to do! One accepted technique was to press the left-control and
left-meta keys with your left hand, the right-control and
right-meta keys with your right hand, and the fifth key with your
nose.
Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice,
because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to
some character that was easier to type. If you want to imply that
a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say
something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes while
whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quadruple-bucky-cokebottle."
See {double bucky}, {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}.
quantifiers:: In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric
prefixes used in the SI (Syst`eme International) conventions for
scientific measurement have dual uses. With units of time or
things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they retain their
usual meanings of multiplication by powers of 1000 = 10^3.
But when used with bytes or other things that naturally come in
powers of 2, they usually denote multiplication by powers of
1024 = 2^{10}. Here are the magnifying prefixes in jargon
use:
prefix decimal binary
kilo- 1000^1 1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024
mega- 1000^2 1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576
giga- 1000^3 1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824
tera- 1000^4 1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
peta- 1000^5 1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
exa- 1000^6 1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
Here are the fractional prefixes:
*prefix decimal jargon usage*
milli- 1000^-1 (seldom used in jargon)
micro- 1000^-2 small or human-scale (see {micro-})
nano- 1000^-3 even smaller (see {nano-})
pico- 1000^-4 even smaller yet (see {pico-})
femto- 1000^-5 (not used in jargon---yet)
atto- 1000^-6 (not used in jargon---yet)
The binary peta- and exa- loadings are not in common use---yet,
and the prefix milli-, denoting multiplication by 1000^{-1},
has always been rare (there is, however, a standard joke about the
`millihelen' --- notionally, the amount of beauty required to
launch one ship). See the entries on {micro-}, {pico-}, and
{nano-} for more information on connotative jargon use of these
terms. `Femto' and `atto' (which, interestingly, derive not
from Greek but from Danish) have not yet acquired jargon loadings,
though it is easy to predict what those will be once computing
technology enters the required realms of magnitude (however, see
{attoparsec}).
There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of
10. In the following table, the `prefix' column is the
international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the
`binary' column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the
corresponding power of 2. The B-suffixed forms are commonly used
for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns which may
(but do not always) pluralize with `s'.
prefix decimal binary pronunciation
kilo- k K, KB, /kay/
mega- M M, MB, meg /meg/
giga- G G, GB, gig /gig/,/jig/
Confusingly, hackers often use K as though it were a suffix or
numeric multiplier rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars". This
is also true (though less commonly) of G and M.
Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is `k'; some use
this strictly, reserving `K' for multiplication by 1024 (KB is
`kilobytes').
K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is
64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of `a G'
as short for `a grand', that is, $1000). Whether one pronounces
`gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks the proper
pronunciation of `giga-' is.
Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in
magnitude) --- for example, describing a memory in units of
500K or 524K instead of 512K --- is a sure sign of the
{marketroid}.
quantum bogodynamics: /kwon'tm boh`goh-di:-nam'iks/ n. A theory
that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as
politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and {suit}s in
general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and
bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption, of course, causes
human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may
also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise
mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood
and remain to be elucidated. Quantum bogodynamics is most often
invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software
failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which
the former absorb. See {bogon}, {computron}, {suit},
{psyton}.
quarter: n. Two bits. This in turn comes from the `pieces of
eight' famed in pirate movies --- Spanish gold pieces that could be
broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make change. Early
in American history the Spanish coin was considered equal to a
dollar, so each of these `bits' was considered worth 12.5 cents.
Syn. {tayste}, {crumb}, {quad}. Usage: rare. See also
{nickle}, {nybble}, {{byte}}, {dynner}.
ques: /kwes/ 1. n. The question mark character (`?', ASCII
0111111). 2. interj. What? Also frequently verb-doubled as
"Ques ques?" See {wall}.
quick-and-dirty: adj. Describes a {crock} put together under time
or user pressure. Used esp. when you want to convey that you think
the fast way might lead to trouble further down the road. "I can
have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but I'll have to
rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying design problem."
See also {kluge}.
quote chapter and verse: [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] v.
To reproduce a relevant excerpt from an appropriate {bible}.
"I don't care if `rn' gets it wrong; `Followup-To: poster' is
explicitly permitted by RFC-1036. I'll quote chapter and
verse if you don't believe me."
quotient: n. See {coefficient}.
quux: /kwuhks/ Mythically, from the Latin semi-deponent verb
quuxo, quuxare, quuxandum iri; noun form variously `quux' (plural
`quuces', anglicized to `quuxes') and `quuxu' (genitive
plural is `quuxuum', for four u-letters out of seven in all,
using up all the `u' letters in Scrabble).] 1. Originally, a
metasyntactic variable like {foo} and {foobar}. Invented by
Guy Steele for precisely this purpose when he was young and na"ive
and not yet interacting with the real computing community. Many
people invent such words; this one seems simply to have been lucky
enough to have spread a little. In an eloquent display of poetic
justice, it has returned to the originator in the form of a
nickname. 2. interj. See {foo}; however, denotes very little
disgust, and is uttered mostly for the sake of the sound of it.
3. Guy Steele in his persona as `The Great Quux', which is somewhat
infamous for light verse and for the `Crunchly' cartoons. 4. In
some circles, quux is used as a punning opposite of `crux'.
"Ah, that's the quux of the matter!" implies that the point is
*not* crucial (compare {tip of the ice-cube}). 5. quuxy:
adj. Of or pertaining to a quux.
qux: /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard metasyntactic
variables, after {baz} and before the quu(u...)x series.
See {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}. This appears to be a
recent mutation from {quux}, and many versions of the
standard series just run {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux},
....
QWERTY: /kwer'tee/ [from the keycaps at the upper left] adj.
Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard
(sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as
opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts or a {space-cadet
keyboard} or APL keyboard.
Historical note: The QWERTY layout is a fine example of a {fossil}.
It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist,
but this is wrong; it was designed to allow *faster* typing
--- under a constraint now long obsolete. In early typewriters,
fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism. So Sholes
fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs
(he did a far from perfect job, though; `th', `tr', `ed', and `er',
for example, each use two nearby keys). Also, putting the letters
of `typewriter' on one line allowed it to be typed with particular
speed and accuracy for {demo}s. The jamming problem was
essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but
the keyboard layout lives on.
= R =
rain dance: n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware
problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished.
This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards,
reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine. We'll
have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any arcane
sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order
to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals
that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity
or motion. Compare {magic}, {voodoo programming}, {black
art}.
random: adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical
definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty
randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the
conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types."
3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a
random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not
well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures."
"That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names
were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular order, though
deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file
is opened one is chosen randomly." 6. Arbitrary. "It generates
a random name for the scratch file." 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e.,
poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a
program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless
way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded
using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with
non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
without first saving four extra registers. What {randomness}!
8. n. A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students
who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n.
Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the
hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. "I went to the talk,
but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".
10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See
also {J. Random}, {some random X}.
random numbers:: n. When one wishes to specify a large but random
number of things, and the context is inappropriate for {N}, certain
numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily
recognized as placeholders). These include the following:
17
Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see 23.
23
Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and 5).
42
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and
Everything. (Note that this answer is completely fortuitous. `:-)')
69
From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture.
105
69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.
666
The Number of the Beast.
For further enlightenment, consult the `Principia Discordia',
`The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', `The Joy of Sex',
and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:8). See also
{Discordianism} or consult your pineal gland.
One common rhetorical maneuver uses any of the canonical random
numbers as placeholders for variables. "The max function takes
42 arguments, for arbitrary values of 42." "There are 69 ways
to leave your lover, for 69 = 50." This is especially likely when
the speaker has uttered a random number and realizes that it was
not recognized as such, but even `non-random' numbers are
occasionally used in this fashion. A related joke is that pi
equals 3 --- for small values of pi and large values of 3.
randomness: n. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.
Also, a {hack} or {crock} that depends on a complex
combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon
which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).
"This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the character
in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six bits
--- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing." "What
randomness!"
rape: vt. 1. To {screw} someone or something, violently; in
particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably.
Often used in describing file-system damage. "So-and-so was
running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping
the master directory." 2. To strip a piece of hardware for parts.
rare mode: [UNIX] adj. CBREAK mode (character-by-character with
interrupts enabled). Distinguished from {raw mode} and `cooked
mode'; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?) mode" is used
in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode. Usage: rare.
raster blaster: n. [Cambridge] Specialized hardware for
{bitblt} operations (a {blitter}). Allegedly inspired by
`Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable stereo
Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto blaster'.
raster burn: n. Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of looking at
low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp. graphics
monitors. See {terminal illness}.
rat belt: n. A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed, self-locking plastic
kind that you can remove only by cutting (as opposed to a random
twist of wire or a twist tie or one of those humongous metal clip
frobs). Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.
rave: [WPI] vi. 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.
2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows
very little. 3. To complain to a person who is not in a position
to correct the difficulty. 4. To purposely annoy another person
verbally. 5. To evangelize. See {flame}. 6. Also used to
describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly
bullshitting. `Rave' differs slightly from {flame} in that
`rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the
person speaking that is annoying, while {flame} implies somewhat
more strongly that the tone is offensive as well.
rave on!: imp. Sarcastic invitation to continue a {rave}, often by
someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes this is
unlikely.
ravs: /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' n. Jiao-zi (steamed or
boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried). A Chinese appetizer, known
variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal
translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'. The
term `rav' is short for `ravioli', which among hackers always
means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind. Both consist
of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no
cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good
ones include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by
steaming or frying. A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a
potsticker is always the fried kind (so called because it sticks to
the frying pot and has to be scraped off). "Let's get
hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs." See also
{{oriental food}}.
raw mode: n. A mode that allows a program to transfer bits directly
to or from an I/O device without any processing, abstraction, or
interpretation by the operating system. Compare {rare}. This is
techspeak under UNIX, jargon elsewhere.
rc file: /R-C fi:l/ [UNIX: from the startup script
`/etc/rc', but this is commonly believed to have been named
after older scripts to `run commands'] n. Script file containing
startup instructions for an application program (or an entire
operating system), usually a text file containing commands of the
sort that might have been invoked manually once the system was
running but are to be executed automatically each time the system
starts up. See also {dot file}.
RE: /R-E/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for {regexp}.
read-only user: n. Describes a {luser} who uses computers almost
exclusively for reading USENET, bulletin boards, and/or email,
rather than writing code or purveying useful information. See
{twink}, {terminal junkie}, {lurker}.
README file: n. By convention, the top-level directory of a UNIX
source distribution always contains a file named `README' (or
READ.ME, or rarely ReadMe or some other variant), which is a
hacker's-eye introduction containing a pointer to more detailed
documentation, credits, miscellaneous revision history notes, etc.
When asked, hackers invariably relate this to the famous scene in
Lewis Carroll's `Alice's Adventures In Wonderland' in which
Alice confronts magic munchies labeled "Eat Me" and "Drink
Me".
real estate: n. May be used for any critical resource measured in
units of area. Most frequently used of `chip real estate', the
area available for logic on the surface of an integrated circuit
(see also {nanoacre}). May also be used of floor space in a
{dinosaur pen}, or even space on a crowded desktop (whether
physical or electronic).
real hack: n. A {crock}. This is sometimes used affectionately;
see {hack}.
real operating system: n. The sort the speaker is used to. People
from the academic community are likely to issue comments like
"System V? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?",
people from the commercial/industrial UNIX sector are known to
complain "BSD? Why don't you use a *real* operating
system?", and people from IBM object "UNIX? Why don't
you use a *real* operating system?" See {holy wars},
{religious issues}, {proprietary}, {Get a real computer!}
real programmer: [indirectly, from the book `Real Men Don't
Eat Quiche'] n. A particular sub-variety of hacker: one possessed
of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even
when justified by experience. The archetypal `real programmer'
likes to program on the {bare metal} and is very good at same,
remembers the binary opcodes for every machine he has ever
programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a debugger to edit
his code because full-screen editors are for wimps. Real
Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been {bum}med
into a state of {tense}ness just short of rupture. Real
Programmers never use comments or write documentation: "If it was
hard to write", says the Real Programmer, "it should be hard to
understand." Real Programmers can make machines do things that
were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really
happy unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its
fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appalls. Real
Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on
their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers ---
because someday, somebody else might have to try to understand
their code in order to change it. Their successors generally
consider it a {Good Thing} that there aren't many Real
Programmers around any more. For a famous (and somewhat more
positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see "The Story of
Mel" in appendix A.
Real Soon Now: [orig. from SF's fanzine community, popularized by
Jerry Pournelle's column in `BYTE'] adv. 1. Supposed to be available
(or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now according to
somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical. 2. When one's
gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one to get to it (in other
words, don't hold your breath). Often abbreviated RSN.
real time: 1. [techspeak] adj. Describes an application which requires a
program to respond to stimuli within some small upper limit of
response time (typically milli- or microseconds). Process control
at a chemical plant is the classic example. Such applications
often require special operating systems (because everything else
must take a back seat to response time) and speed-tuned hardware.
2. adv. In jargon, refers to doing something while people are watching
or waiting. "I asked her how to find the calling procedure's
program counter on the stack and she came up with an algorithm in
real time."
real user: n. 1. A commercial user. One who is paying *real*
money for his computer usage. 2. A non-hacker. Someone using the
system for an explicit purpose (a research project, a course, etc.)
other than pure exploration. See {user}. Hackers who are also
students may also be real users. "I need this fixed so I can do a
problem set. I'm not complaining out of randomness, but as a real
user." See also {luser}.
Real World: n. 1. Those institutions at which `programming' may
be used in the same sentence as `FORTRAN', `{COBOL}',
`RPG', `{IBM}', `DBASE', etc. Places where programs do such
commercially necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as
generating payroll checks and invoices. 2. The location of
non-programmers and activities not related to programming. 3. A
bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and
in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5 (see
{code grinder}). 4. Anywhere outside a university. "Poor
fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the Real World." Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation,
talking of someone who has entered the Real World is not unlike
speaking of a deceased person. See also {fear and loathing},
{mundane}, and {uninteresting}.
reality check: n. 1. The simplest kind of test of software or
hardware; doing the equivalent of asking it what 2 + 2 is
and seeing if you get 4. The software equivalent of a
{smoke test}. 2. The act of letting a {real user} try out
prototype software. Compare {sanity check}.
reaper: n. A {prowler} that {GFR}s files. A file removed in
this way is said to have been `reaped'.
rectangle slinger: n. See {polygon pusher}.
recursion: n. See {recursion}. See also {tail recursion}.
recursive acronym:: pl.n. A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition
is to choose acronyms that refer humorously to themselves or to
other acronyms. The classic examples were two MIT editors called
EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE
Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called
LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and {GNU} (q.v.,
sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not UNIX!" --- and a company with
the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support".
See also {mung}, {EMACS}.
Red Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on PostScript (`PostScript Language Reference
Manual', Adobe Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN
0-201-10174-2); the others are known as the {Green Book} and
the {Blue Book}. 2. Informal name for one of the 3 standard
references on Smalltalk (`Smalltalk-80: The Interactive
Programming Environment' by Adele Goldberg (Addison-Wesley, 1984;
QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN 0-201-11372-4); this too is associated with
blue and green books). 3. Any of the 1984 standards issued by the
CCITT eighth plenary assembly. Until now, these have changed color
each review cycle (1988 was {Blue Book}, 1992 will be {Green
Book}); however, it is rumored that this convention is going to be
dropped before 1992. These include, among other things, the
X.400 email spec and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards. 4. The
new version of the {Green Book} (sense 4) --- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a
ISO 9945-1 --- is (because of the color and the fact that it is
printed on A4 paper) known in the U.S.A. as "the Ugly Red Book
That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in Europe as "the Ugly Red Book
That's A Sensible Size". 5. The NSA `Trusted Network
Interpretation' companion to the {Orange Book}. See also
{{book titles}}.
regexp: /reg'eksp/ [UNIX] n. (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')
1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular
expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by UNIX
utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.
These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those
described under {glob}. For purposes of this lexicon, it is
sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character
sets using `^'; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic
character' with `[^A-Za-z]'. 2. Name of a well-known PD
regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered USENETter
Henry Spencer (henry@zoo.toronto.edu).
reincarnation, cycle of: n. See {cycle of reincarnation}.
reinvent the wheel: v. To design or implement a tool equivalent to
an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so
is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid criticism.
On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some
kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them
right. On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to
come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset
axle.
religious issues: n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised
without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the best
operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail
reader, news reader)?", "What about that Heinlein guy, eh?",
"What should we add to the new Jargon File?" See {holy wars};
see also {theology}, {bigot}.
This term is an example of {ha ha only serious}. People
actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense
attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.
The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the
crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave --- unless, of course,
one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct
choices are being slammed.
replicator: n. Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself;
this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a program
(see {worm}, {wabbit}, and {virus}), a pattern in a cellular
automaton (see {life}, sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or
{nanobot}. It is even claimed by some that {{UNIX}} and {C}
are the symbiotic halves of an extremely successful replicator; see
{UNIX conspiracy}.
reply: n. See {followup}.
reset: [the MUD community] v. In AberMUD, to bring all dead mobiles
to life and move items back to their initial starting places. New
players who can't find anything shout "Reset! Reset!" quite a bit.
Higher-level players shout back "No way!" since they know where
points are to be found. Used in {RL}, it means to put things back
to the way they were when you found them.
restriction: n. A {bug} or design error that limits a program's
capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can
quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a {feature}. Often
used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make it sound as though
some crippling bogosity had been intended by the designers all
along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical constraints of a
nature no mere user could possibly comprehend (these claims are
almost invariably false).
Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a
quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a
power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1. If you impose a limit of
17 items in a list, everyone will know it is a random number --- on
the other hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason
(involving 0- or 1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less
{flamage} for it. Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are
always especially suspect.
retcon: /ret'kon/ [`retroactive continuity', from the USENET
newsgroup rec.arts.comics] 1. n. The common situation in pulp
fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story `reveals'
things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the
`facts' the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely
changing their interpretation. E.g., revealing that a whole season
of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon. 2. vt. To write such a
story about a character or fictitious object. "Byrne has
retconned Superman's cape so that it is no longer unbreakable."
"Marvelman's old adventures were retconned into synthetic
dreams." "Swamp Thing was retconned from a transformed person
into a sentient vegetable."
[This is included because it is a good example of hackish linguistic
innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers. The word
`retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and lose its
association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for the
record, it started here. --- ESR]
RETI: v. Syn. {RTI}
retrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ n. Refers to emulations
of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software, or
implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such
implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies of
more `serious' designs. Perhaps the most widely distributed
retrocomputing utility was the `pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)'
program on V7 and other early UNIX versions, which would accept up
to 80 characters of text argument and display the corresponding
pattern in {{punched card}} code. Other well-known retrocomputing
hacks have included the programming language {INTERCAL}, a
{JCL}-emulating shell for UNIX, the card-punch-emulating editor
named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11 hardware emulators and RT-11
OS emulators written just to keep an old, sourceless {Zork} binary
running.
RFC: /R-F-C/ [Request For Comment] n. One of a long-established
series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercial
and PD software in the Internet and UNIX communities. Perhaps the
single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet
mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are
floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and
reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated
through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain
known as RFCs even once adopted.
RFE: /R-F-E/ n. 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement. 2. [from
`Radio Free Europe', Bellcore and Sun] Radio Free Ethernet, a system
(originated by Peter Langston) for broadcasting audio among Sun
SPARCstations over the ethernet.
rib site: [by analogy with {backbone site}] n. A machine that
has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and serves
as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party traffic in
email and USENET news. Compare {leaf site}, {backbone site}.
rice box: [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-made commodity
computer, esp. an 80x86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible
ISA or EISA-bus standards.
Right Thing: n. That which is {compellingly} the correct or
appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc. Often capitalized, always
emphasized in speech as though capitalized. Use of this term often
implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree. "What's the
right thing for LISP to do when it sees `(mod a 0)'? Should
it return `a', or give a divide-by-0 error?" Oppose
{Wrong Thing}.
RL: // [MUD community] n. Real Life. "Firiss laughs in RL"
means that Firiss's player is laughing. Oppose {VR}.
roach: [Bell Labs] vt. To destroy, esp. of a data structure. Hardware
gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets roached.
robust: adj. Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to
recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and
situations in a given environment. One step below {bulletproof}.
Carries the additional connotation of elegance in addition to just
careful attention to detail. Compare {smart}, oppose
{brittle}.
rococo: adj. {Baroque} in the extreme. Used to imply that a
program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of
gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the
underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms
of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the
mid-1700s in Europe. Fred Brooks (the man who coined
{second-system effect}) said: "Every program eventually becomes
rococo, and then rubble."
rogue: [UNIX] n. A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character
graphics, written under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other
UNIX systems. The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling
package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support
`rogue(6)' and has since become one of UNIX's most important
and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, and
an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the
inspiration provided by `rogue(6)'. See {nethack}.
room-temperature IQ: [IBM] quant. 80 or below. Used in describing the
expected intelligence range of the {luser}. "Well, but
how's this interface going to play with the room-temperature IQ
crowd?" See {drool-proof paper}. This is a much more insulting
phrase in countries that use Celsius thermometers.
root: [UNIX] n. 1. The {superuser} account that ignores
permission bits, user number 0 on a UNIX system. This account
has the user name `root'. The term {avatar} is also used.
2. The top node of the system directory structure (home directory
of the root user). 3. By extension, the privileged
system-maintenance login on any OS. See {root mode}, {go root}.
root mode: n. Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'. Like
these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in
systems other than OSes.
rot13: /rot ther'teen/ [USENET: from `rotate alphabet
13 places'] n., v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces
each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along
the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre
qvq vg!" Most USENET news reading and posting programs include a
rot13 feature. It is used to enclose the text in a sealed wrapper
that the reader must choose to open --- e.g., for posting things
that might offend some readers, or answers to puzzles. A major
advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is that it
is self-inverse, so the same code can be used for encoding and
decoding.
rotary debugger: [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those
late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as
sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colors, such as
Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. See {pizza, ANSI standard}.
RSN: // adj. See {Real Soon Now}.
RTFAQ: /R-T-F-A-Q/ [USENET: primarily written, by analogy with
{RTFM}] imp. Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation that
the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ list}
before posting questions.
RTFM: /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Manual'. 1. Used by {guru}s to brush off questions they
consider trivial or annoying. Compare {Don't do that, then!}
2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just
asking out of {randomness}. "No, I can't figure out how to
interface UNIX to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM." Unlike
sense 1, this use is considered polite. See also
{RTFAQ}, {RTM}. The variant RTFS, where S = `Standard',
has also been reported. Compare {UTSL}.
RTI: /R-T-I/ interj. The mnemonic for the `return from
interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and
6800. The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers (almost
nobody programs these things in assembler anymore). Equivalent to
"Now, where was I?" or used to end a conversational digression.
See {pop}; see also {POPJ}.
RTM: /R-T-M/ [USENET: acronym for `Read The Manual']
1. Politer variant of {RTFM}. 2. Robert T. Morris, perpetrator
of the great Internet worm of 1988; villain to many, na"ive hacker
gone wrong to a few. Morris claimed that the worm that brought
the Internet to its knees was a benign experiment that got out of
control as the result of a coding error. After the storm of negative
publicity that followed this blunder, Morris's name on ITS was
hacked from RTM to {RTFM}.
rude: [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written. 2. Functionally
poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use because of
gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. See {cuspy}.
runes: pl.n. 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry} or
{black art} to {parse}: core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code
in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Compare {casting
the runes}, {Great Runes}. 2. Special display characters (for
example, the high-half graphics on an IBM PC).
runic: adj. Syn. {obscure}. VMS fans sometimes refer to UNIX as
`Runix'; UNIX fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very
Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Syst`eme' (French; lit.
"Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System").
rusty iron: n. Syn. {tired iron}. It has been claimed that this
is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.
rusty memory: n. Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic
media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used
in {washing machine}s). Compare {donuts}.
= S =
S/N ratio: // n. (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio'). Syn.
{signal-to-noise ratio}. Often abbreviated `SNR'.
sacred: adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an
extension of the standard meaning). Often means that anyone may
look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it
is sacred to. The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the interrupt
handler" appearing in a program would be interpreted by a hacker
to mean that if any *other* part of the program changes the
contents of register 7, dire consequences are likely to ensue.
saga: [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random
broken people.
Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L. Steele:
Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at MIT
for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to California
for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some
people at Stanford, particularly our mutual friend Richard P.
Gabriel (RPG; see {Gabriel}).
RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to
Palo Alto (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to
{El Camino Bignum}). Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University and
about 40 miles south of San Francisco. We ate at The Good
Earth, a `health food' restaurant, very popular, the sort whose
milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder. JONL ordered such
a shake --- the waitress claimed the flavor of the day was
"lalaberry". I still have no idea what that might be, but it
became a running joke. It was the color of raspberry, and JONL
said it tasted rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than I
have ever had in a Mexican restaurant.
After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice
Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of
intriguing flavors. It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you
don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's --- MOVE!" Also, Uncle
Gaylord (a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name
ice cream makers to print their ingredients on the package (like
air and plastic and other non-natural garbage). JONL and I had
first discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had
flown to a computer-science conference in Berkeley, California, the
first time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not in
the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length
of Telegraph Street, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was
lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops.
On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store. The
ice cream there was very good. During that August visit JONL went
absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavor, ginger
honey.
Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth --- indeed, after every
lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip
to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory. We had
arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there
at least four times. Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice
cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice
that drove the Europeans mad! That's why they sought a route to
the East! They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste
meat." After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were
getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him:
"Wow! Ginger! The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!"
"Say! Why don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in
the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!"
"Right! With a lalaberry shake!" And so on. This failed to
faze JONL; he took it in good humor, as long as we kept returning
to Uncle Gaylord's. He loves ginger honey ice cream.
Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up
(putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them
JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their
choosing. I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had
je ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin
(rabbit). (Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh
today." RPG: "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any
*ginger*!")
We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M
Boston time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet
midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's!
Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.
In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north
instead of south. JONL and I wouldn't have known the difference
had RPG not mentioned it. We still knew very little of the local
geography. I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the
direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue
north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.
RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked. I was
drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes.
When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the
way over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco
Bay. Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue".
I mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Street;
RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled
up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.
Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy,
and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me
in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice
that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after
all.
JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't
caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night,
and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.) He
said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It
looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one
back in Palo Alto!"
RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to
when I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too.
Remember, they're a chain."
JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant
--- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,
not far from Telegraph Street. What he didn't know was that there
is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.
JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at
the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,
evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too
many people like it.
JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy
behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first.
"Some people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look,
I *love* ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I
already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I
*know* I like that flavor!"
At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a
very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his
eye and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped
what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor
laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched
into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the
forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully.
RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our
chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream
with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream
shops and generally having a good old time.
At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL
said, "Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord
publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make
his ice cream at home. So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he
and JONL pored over it for a while. But the g.b.t.c. could
contain his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like
that stuff, huh?" JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it
constantly back in Palo Alto for the past two days. In fact, I
think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo
Alto!"
G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're
*in* Palo Alto!"
JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a
fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed,
"I've been hacked!"
sagan: /say'gn/ [from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos"; think
"billions and billions"] n. A large quantity of anything.
"There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS." "The
U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --- hard to say which
is more destructive."
SAIL:: /sayl/, not /S-A-I-L/ n. 1. Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Lab. An important site in the early development of
LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, and the UNIX community, one of
the major wellsprings of technical innovation and hacker-culture
traditions (see the {{WAITS}} entry for details). The SAIL
machines were officially shut down in late May 1990, scant weeks
after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially decommissioned.
2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used at SAIL
(sense 1). It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining
facility and some new data types intended for building search trees
and association lists.
salescritter: /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer
salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke:
Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a
computer salesman?
A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying.
This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are
self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the
inclination to use them, they'd be in programming). The terms
`salesthing' and `salesdroid' are also common. Compare
{marketroid}, {suit}, {droid}.
salsman: /salz'm*n/ v. To flood a mailing list or newsgroup with
huge amounts of useless, trivial or redundant information. From
the name of a hacker who has frequently done this on some widely
distributed mailing lists.
salt mines: n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers
working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the
end of the tunnel in N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine.
Compare {playpen}, {sandbox}.
salt substrate: [MIT] n. Collective noun used to refer to potato
chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food
designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride. From the
technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the
top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.
same-day service: n. Ironic term used to describe long response
time, particularly with respect to {{MS-DOS}} system calls (which
ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute).
Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write
programs that are not {well-behaved}. See also {PC-ism}.
sandbender: [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and
the physical design of chips. Compare {ironmonger}, {polygon
pusher}.
sandbox: n. (or `sandbox, the') Common term for the
R&D department at many software and computer companies (where hackers
in commercial environments are likely to be found). Half-derisive,
but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative play.
Compare {playpen}.
sanity check: n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or
anything else, e.g., a USENET posting) for completely stupid mistakes.
Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it
was written; e.g., if a piece of scientific software relied on a
particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might
first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the
formula, as a {sanity check}, before looking at the more complex
I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the
algorithm itself. Compare {reality check}. 2. A run-time test,
either validating input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed
up internally (producing an inconsistent value or state).
Saturday night special: [from police slang for a cheap handgun] n.
A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a
deadline, and in response to pressure from a {salescritter}.
Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too often sneak into
a production release after insufficient review.
say: vt. 1. To type to a terminal. "To list a directory
verbosely, you have to say `ls -l'." Tends to imply a
{newline}-terminated command (a `sentence'). 2. A computer
may also be said to `say' things to you, even if it doesn't have
a speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a terminal in response
to your commands. Hackers find it odd that this usage confuses
{mundane}s.
science-fiction fandom:: n. Another voluntary subculture having a
very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or
fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or
are involved in fandom-connected activities such as the Society for
Creative Anachronism. Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom;
see {defenestration}, {great-wall}, {cyberpunk}, {h}, {ha ha
only serious}, {IMHO}, {mundane}, {neep-neep}, {Real
Soon Now}. Additionally, the jargon terms {cowboy},
{cyberspace}, {de-rezz}, {go flatline}, {ice}, {virus},
{wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm} originated in SF
stories.
scram switch: [from the nuclear power industry] n. An
emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one
positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general,
this is *not* something you {frob} lightly; these often
initiate expensive events (such as Halon dumps) and are installed
in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in
case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across
himself while {Easter egging}.
scratch: 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data
structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or
temporary-use purposes; one that can be {scribble}d on without
loss. Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory',
`scratch register', `scratch disk', `scratch tape',
`scratch volume'. See {scratch monkey}. 2. [primarily
IBM] vt. To delete (as in a file).
scratch monkey: n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always
mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when
dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any
scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a
replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get
trashed.
This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of
Toronto ca. 1986. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary
monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim,
breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of
different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an
untimely demise one day when DEC {PM}ed the PDP-11 controlling
her regulator (see also {provocative maintainance}).
It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate
customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible
and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"
Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society. The moral
is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.
screw: [MIT] n. A {lose}, usually in software. Especially used for
user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. This use
has become quite widespread outside MIT.
screwage: /skroo'*j/ n. Like {lossage} but connotes that the
failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple
inadequacy or a mere bug.
scribble: n. To modify a data structure in a random and
unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's
disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node
table." "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines
scribbled on low core." Synonymous with {trash}; compare {mung},
which conveys a bit more intention, and {mangle}, which is more
violent and final.
scrog: /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a
data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported
as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of
Id". Equivalent to {scribble} or {mangle}.
scrool: /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in
Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The
log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get
back in synch with the conversation. It was originally called the
`scrool monster', because an early version of the roundtable
software had a bug where it would dump all 8K of scrool on a user's
terminal.
scrozzle: /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs
incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data. "The
damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"
SCSI: [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent
standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and
intelligent devices. Typically annotated in literature with `sexy'
(/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/skuh'zee/) as
pronunciation guides --- the last being the overwhelmingly
predominant form, much to the dismay of the designers and their
marketing people. One can usually assume that a person who
pronounces it /S-C-S-I/ is clueless.
search-and-destroy mode: n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace
facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen
match pattern can cause {infinite} damage.
second-system effect: n. (sometimes, more euphoniously,
`second-system syndrome') When one is designing the successor to
a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a
tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an
{elephantine} feature-laden monstrosity. The term was first
used by Fred Brooks in his classic `The Mythical Man-Month:
Essays on Software Engineering' (Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN
0-201-00650-2). It described the jump from a set of nice, simple
operating systems on the IBM 70xx series to OS/360 on the
360 series. A similar effect can also happen in an evolving
system; see {Brooks's Law}, {creeping elegance}, {creeping
featurism}. See also {{Multics}}, {OS/2}, {X}, {software
bloat}.
This version of the jargon lexicon has been described (with
altogether too much truth for comfort) as an example of
second-system effect run amok on jargon-1....
secondary damage: n. When a fatal error occurs (esp. a
{segfault}) the immediate cause may be that a pointer has been
trashed due to a previous {fandango on core}. However, this
fandango may have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no
amount of analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.
"The data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."
By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded
fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'. There is at least
one case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with
`adb' actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
seventh-level damage! The hacker who accomplished this
near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his fellows.
security through obscurity: n. A name applied by hackers to most OS
vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes --- namely,
ignoring them and not documenting them and trusting that nobody
will find out about them and that people who do find out about them
won't exploit them. This never works for long and occasionally
sets the world up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988, but once
the brief moments of panic created by such events subside most
vendors are all too willing to turn over and go back to sleep.
After all, actually fixing the bugs would siphon off the resources
needed to implement the next user-interface frill on marketing's
wish list --- and besides, if they started fixing security bugs
customers might begin to *expect* it and imagine that their
warranties of merchantability gave them some sort of *right*
to a system with fewer holes in it than a shotgunned Swiss cheese,
and then where would we be?
Historical note: It is claimed (with dissent from {{ITS}} fans who
say they used to use `security through obscurity' in a positive
sense) that this term was first used in the USENET newsgroup in
comp.sys.apollo during a campaign to get HP/Apollo to fix
security problems in its UNIX-{clone} Aegis/DomainOS. They
didn't change a thing.
SED: [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] /S-E-D/ n.
Smoke-emitting diode. A {friode} that lost the war. See
{LER}.
segfault: n.,vi. Syn. {segment}, {seggie}.
seggie: /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault}
reported from Britain.
segment: /seg'ment/ vi. To experience a {segmentation fault}.
Confusingly, this is often pronounced more like the noun `segment'
than like mainstream v. segment; this is because it is actually a
noun shorthand that has been verbed.
segmentation fault: n. [UNIX] 1. An error in which a running program
attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s
with a segmentation violation error. 2. To lose a train of
thought or a line of reasoning. Also uttered as an exclamation at
the point of befuddlement.
segv: /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation
fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').
self-reference: n. See {self-reference}.
selvage: /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense 1).
semi: /se'mee/ or /se'mi:/ 1. n. Abbreviation for
`semicolon', when speaking. "Commands to {grind} are
prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that the prefix is `;;*',
not 1/4 of a star. 2. A prefix used with words such as
`immediately' as a qualifier. "When is the system coming up?"
"Semi-immediately." (That is, maybe not for an hour.) "We did
consider that possibility semi-seriously." See also
{infinite}.
semi-infinite: n. See {infinite}.
senior bit: [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.
server: n. A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the
requester and which often runs on a computer other than the one on
which the server runs. A particularly common term on the Internet,
which is rife with `name servers', `domain servers', `news
servers', `finger servers', and the like.
SEX: /seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software
EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of
millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been
terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among
hackers and others (of course, these are no longer limited to
exchanges of genetic software). In general, SEX parties are a
{Good Thing}, but unprotected SEX can propagate a {virus}.
See also {pubic directory}. 2. The rather Freudian mnemonic
often used for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the
PDP-11 and many other architectures.
DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the
`SEX' mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once)
marketing wasn't asleep and forced a change. That wasn't the last
time this happened, either. The author of `The Intel 8086
Primer', who was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted
that there was originally a `SEX' instruction on that
processor, too. He says that Intel management got cold feet and
decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed
`CBW' and `CWD' (depending on what was being extended).
Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the microcontroller used in IBM PC
keyboards) is also missing straight `SEX' but has logical-or
and logical-and instructions `ORL' and `ANL'.
The Motorola 6809, used in the U.K.'s `Dragon 32' personal
computer, actually had an official `SEX' instruction; the 6502
in the Apple II it competed with did not. British hackers thought
this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly
observed, you could have sex with a dragon, but you can't have sex
with an apple.
sex changer: n. Syn. {gender mender}.
shareware: /sheir'weir/ n. {Freeware} (sense 1) for which the
author requests some payment, usually in the accompanying
documentation files or in an announcement made by the software
itself. Such payment may or may not buy additional support or
functionality. See {guiltware}, {crippleware}.
shelfware: /shelfweir/ n. Software purchased on a whim (by an
individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or
government agency), but not actually required for any particular use.
Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.
shell: [orig. {{Multics}} techspeak, widely propagated via UNIX] n.
1. [techspeak] The command interpreter used to pass commands to an
operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating
system that interfaces with the outside world. 2. More generally,
any interface program that mediates access to a special resource
or {server} for convenience, efficiency, or security reasons; for
this meaning, the usage is usually `a shell around' whatever.
This sort of program is also called a `wrapper'.
shell out: [UNIX] n. To spawn an interactive {subshell} from
within a program (e.g., a mailer or editor). "Bang foo runs foo in
a subshell, while bang alone shells out."
shift left (or right) logical: [from any of various machines'
instruction sets] 1. vi. To move oneself to the left (right). To
move out of the way. 2. imper. "Get out of that (my) seat! You
can shift to that empty one to the left (right)." Often
used without the `logical', or as `left shift' instead of
`shift left'. Sometimes heard as LSH /lish/, from the {PDP-10}
instruction set. See {Programmer's Cheer}.
shitogram: /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email.
Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.
short card: n. A half-length IBM PC expansion card or adapter that
will fit in one of the two short slots located towards the right
rear of a standard chassis (tucked behind the floppy disk drives).
See also {tall card}.
shotgun debugging: n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging};
the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope
that a bug will be perturbed out of existence. This almost never
works, and usually introduces more bugs.
showstopper: n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes
an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to
be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation
from its original theatrical use, which refers to something
stunningly *good*.
shriek: n. See {excl}. Occasional CMU usage, also in common use
among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.
Shub-Internet: /shuhb in't*r-net/ [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft's
evil fictional deity `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a
Thousand Young] n. The harsh personification of the Internet,
Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line
Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity
formed of all the manifold connections of the net. A sect of
MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for
good connections. To no avail --- its purpose is malign and evil,
and is the cause of all network slowdown. Often heard as in
"Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down."
(A forged response often follows along the lines of: "Shub-Internet
gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.") Also cursed by users
of {FTP} and {telnet} when the system slows down. The dread
name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that
repeating it three times will cause the being to wake, deep within its
lair beneath the Pentagon.
sidecar: n. 1. Syn. {slap on the side}. Esp. used of add-ons
for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr. 2. The IBM PC compatibility
box that could be bolted onto the side of an Amiga. Designed and
produced by Commodore, it broke all of the company's own rules.
If it worked with any other peripherals, it was by {magic}.
sig block: /sig blok/ [UNIX: often written `.sig' there] n.
Short for `signature', used specifically to refer to the
electronic signature block that most UNIX mail- and news-posting
software will {automagically} append to outgoing mail and news.
The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an
ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote},
{fool file}); but many consider large sigs a waste of
{bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig
block is usually inversely proportional to one's longevity and
level of prestige on the net.
sig quote: /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke,
or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey
something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of
humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."
signal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers
in a generalization of its technical meaning. `Signal' refers to
useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and
`noise' to anything else on that medium. Hence a low ratio implies
that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given. The term is
most often applied to {USENET} newsgroups during {flame war}s.
Compare {bandwidth}. See also {coefficient of X}, {lost in
the noise}.
silicon: n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer
systems (compare {iron}). Contrasted with software. See also
{sandbender}.
silicon foundry: n. A company that {fab}s chips to the designs of
others. As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon foundries
and good computer-aided design software made it much easier for
hardware-designing startup companies to come into being. The
downside of using a silicon foundry is that the distance from the
actual chip-fabrication processes reduces designers' control of detail.
This is somewhat analogous to the use of {HLL}s versus coding in
assembler.
silly walk: [from Monty Python's Flying Circus] vi. 1. A ridiculous
procedure required to accomplish a task. Like {grovel}, but more
{random} and humorous. "I had to silly-walk through half the
/usr directories to find the maps file." 2. Syn. {fandango on
core}.
silo: n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card. So
called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the
VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for
fungible stuff that you put in the top and took out the bottom.
Silver Book: n. Jensen and Wirth's infamous `Pascal User Manual
and Report', so called because of the silver cover of the
widely distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of 1978 (ISBN
0-387-90144-2). See {{book titles}}, {Pascal}.
since time T equals minus infinity: adj. A long time ago; for as
long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob
was first designed. Usually the word `time' is omitted. See also
{time T}.
sitename: /si:t'naym/ [UNIX/Internet] n. The unique electronic
name of a computer system, used to identify it in UUCP mail,
USENET, or other forms of electronic information interchange. The
folklore interest of sitenames stems from the creativity and humor
they often display. Interpreting a sitename is not unlike
interpreting a vanity license plate; one has to mentally unpack it,
allowing for mono-case and length restrictions and the lack of
whitespace. Hacker tradition deprecates dull,
institutional-sounding names in favor of punchy, humorous, and
clever coinages (except that it is considered appropriate for the
official public gateway machine of an organization to bear the
organization's name or acronym). Mythological references, cartoon
characters, animal names, and allusions to SF or fantasy literature
are probably the most popular sources for sitenames (in roughly
descending order). The obligatory comment when discussing these is
Harris's Lament: "All the good ones are taken!" See also
{network address}.
skrog: v. Syn. {scrog}.
skulker: n. Syn. {prowler}.
slap on the side: n. (also called a {sidecar}, or abbreviated
`SOTS'.) A type of external expansion hardware marketed by
computer manufacturers (e.g., Commodore for the Amiga 500/1000
series and IBM for the hideous failure called `PCjr'). Various
SOTS boxes provided necessities such as memory, hard drive
controllers, and conventional expansion slots.
slash: n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)
character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
sleep: vi. 1. [techspeak] On a timesharing system, a process that
relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until some given event
occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go to
sleep'. 2. In jargon, used very similarly to v. {block}; also
in `sleep on', syn. with `block on'. Often used to
indicate that the speaker has relinquished a demand for resources
until some (possibly unspecified) external event: "They can't get
the fix I've been asking for into the next release, so I'm going to
sleep on it until the release, then start hassling them again."
slim: n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).
slop: n. 1. A one-sided {fudge factor}, that is, an allowance for
error but in only one of two directions. For example, if you need
a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it,
you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if
necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you
can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on again.
When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to
avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a {fencepost
error}. 2. The percentage of `extra' code generated by a compiler
over the size of equivalent assembler code produced by
{hand-hacking}; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because
you didn't do it yourself. This number is often used as a measure
of the goodness of a compiler; slop below 5% is very good, and
10% is usually acceptable. With modern compiler technology, esp.
on RISC machines, the compiler's slop may actually be
*negative*; that is, humans may be unable to generate code as
good. This is one of the reasons assembler programming is no
longer common.
slopsucker: /slop'suhk-r/ n. A lowest-priority task that must
wait around until everything else has `had its fill' of machine
resources. Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is the
task allowed to `suck up the slop'. Also called a {hungry
puppy}. One common variety of slopsucker hunts for large prime
numbers. Compare {background}.
slurp: vt. To read a large data file entirely into {core} before
working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading
a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next
piece. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does
an FFT." See also {sponge}.
smart: adj. Said of a program that does the {Right Thing} in a
wide variety of complicated circumstances. There is a difference
between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in
particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs (yet ---
see {AI-complete}). Compare {robust} (smart programs can be
{brittle}).
smart terminal: n. A terminal that has enough computing capability
to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing
from the computer it talks to. The development of workstations and
personal computers has made this term and the product it describes
semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase
`act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of
workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost
entirely out of a remote {server}'s storage, using said devices
as displays. Compare {glass tty}.
There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the {blit}
terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smart*ass* terminal,
but rather a terminal you can educate." This illustrates a common
design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else)
intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid `special
features' that become just so much dead weight if you try to use
the device in any way the designer didn't anticipate. Flexibility
and programmability, on the other hand, are *really* smart.
Compare {hook}.
smash case: vi. To lose or obliterate the uppercase/lowercase
distinction in text input. "MS-DOS will automatically smash case
in the names of all the files you create." Compare {fold case}.
smash the stack: [C programming] n. On many C implementations it is
possible to corrupt the execution stack by writing past the end of
an array declared `auto' in a routine. Code that does this is
said to `smash the stack', and can cause return from the routine
to jump to a random address. This can produce some of the most
insidious data-dependent bugs known to mankind. Variants include
`trash' the stack, {scribble} the stack, {mangle} the stack;
the term *{mung} the stack is not used, as this is never done
intentionally. See {spam}; see also {aliasing bug},
{fandango on core}, {memory leak}, {precedence lossage},
{overrun screw}.
smiley: n. See {emoticon}.
smoke test: n. 1. A rudimentary form of testing applied to
electronic equipment following repair or reconfiguration, in which
power is applied and the tester checks for sparks, smoke, or other
dramatic signs of fundamental failure. See {magic smoke}. 2. By
extension, the first run of a piece of software after construction
or a critical change. See and compare {reality check}.
There is an interesting semi-parallel to this term among
typographers and printers: When new typefaces are being punch-cut by
hand, a `smoke test' (hold the letter in candle smoke, then press
it onto paper) is used to check out new dies.
smoking clover: [ITS] n. A {display hack} originally due to
Bill Gosper. Many convergent lines are drawn on a color monitor in
{AOS} mode (so that every pixel struck has its color
incremented). The lines all have one endpoint in the middle of the
screen; the other endpoints are spaced one pixel apart around the
perimeter of a large square. The color map is then repeatedly
rotated. This results in a striking, rainbow-hued, shimmering
four-leaf clover. Gosper joked about keeping it hidden from the
FDA (the U.S.'s Food and Drug Administration) lest its
hallucinogenic properties cause it to be banned.
SMOP: /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n.
1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is
significantly greater than its complexity. Used to refer to a
program that could obviously be written, but is not worth the
trouble. Also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem
can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it; the
irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be
a great deal of work. "It's easy to enhance a FORTRAN compiler to
compile COBOL as well; it's just a SMOP." 2. Often used
ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program
is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the
victim) a lot of work.
SNAFU principle: /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ [from WWII Army acronym
for `Situation Normal, All Fucked Up'] n. "True communication is
possible only between equals, because inferiors are more
consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies
than for telling the truth." --- a central tenet of
{Discordianism}, often invoked by hackers to explain why
authoritarian hierarchies screw up so reliably and systematically.
The effect of the SNAFU principle is a progressive disconnection of
decision-makers from reality. This lightly adapted version of a
fable dating back to the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon
perfectly:
In the beginning was the plan,
and then the specification;
And the plan was without form,
and the specification was void.
And darkness
was on the faces of the implementors thereof;
And they spake unto their leader,
saying:
"It is a crock of shit,
and smells as of a sewer."
And the leader took pity on them,
and spoke to the project leader:
"It is a crock of excrement,
and none may abide the odor thereof."
And the project leader
spake unto his section head, saying:
"It is a container of excrement,
and it is very strong, such that none may abide it."
The section head then hurried to his department manager,
and informed him thus:
"It is a vessel of fertilizer,
and none may abide its strength."
The department manager carried these words
to his general manager,
and spoke unto him
saying:
"It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants,
and it is very strong."
And so it was that the general manager rejoiced
and delivered the good news unto the Vice President.
"It promoteth growth,
and it is very powerful."
The Vice President rushed to the President's side,
and joyously exclaimed:
"This powerful new software product
will promote the growth of the company!"
And the President looked upon the product,
and saw that it was very good.
After the subsequent disaster, the {suit}s protect themselves by
saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or
fired.
snail: vt. To {snail-mail} something. "Snail me a copy of those
graphics, will you?"
snail-mail: n. Paper mail, as opposed to electronic. Sometimes
written as the single word `SnailMail'. One's postal address is,
correspondingly, a `snail address'. Derives from earlier coinage
`USnail' (from `U.S. Mail'), for which there have been
parody posters and stamps made. Oppose {email}.
snap: v. To replace a pointer to a pointer with a direct pointer;
to replace an old address with the forwarding address found there.
If you telephone the main number for an institution and ask for a
particular person by name, the operator may tell you that person's
extension before connecting you, in the hopes that you will `snap
your pointer' and dial direct next time. The underlying metaphor
may be that of a rubber band stretched through a number of
intermediate points; if you remove all the thumbtacks in the
middle, it snaps into a straight line from first to last. See
{chase pointers}.
Often, the behavior of a {trampoline} is to perform an error
check once and then snap the pointer that invoked it so as henceforth
to bypass the trampoline (and its one-shot error check). In this
context one also speaks of `snapping links'. For example, in a
Lisp implementation, a function interface trampoline might check to
make sure that the caller is passing the correct number of arguments;
if it is, and if the caller and the callee are both compiled, then
snapping the link allows that particular path to use a direct
procedure-call instruction with no further overhead.
snarf: /snarf/ vt. 1. To grab, esp. to grab a large document
or file for the purpose of using it with or without the author's
permission. See also {BLT}. 2. [in the UNIX community] To
fetch a file or set of files across a network. See also
{blast}. This term was mainstream in the late 1960s, meaning
`to eat piggishly'. It may still have this connotation in context.
"He's in the snarfing phase of hacking --- {FTP}ing megs of
stuff a day." 3. To acquire, with little concern for legal forms
or politesse (but not quite by stealing). "They were giving
away samples, so I snarfed a bunch of them." 4. Syn. for
{slurp}. "This program starts by snarfing the entire database
into core, then...."
snarf & barf: /snarf'n-barf`/ n. Under a {WIMP environment},
the act of grabbing a region of text and then stuffing the contents
of that region into another region (or the same one) to avoid
retyping a command line. In the late 1960s, this was a mainstream
expression for an `eat now, regret it later' cheap-restaurant
expedition.
snarf down: v. To {snarf}, with the connotation of absorbing,
processing, or understanding. "I'll snarf down the latest
version of the {nethack} user's guide --- It's been a while
since I played last and I don't know what's changed recently."
snark: [Lewis Carroll, via the Michigan Terminal System] n. 1. A
system failure. When a user's process bombed, the operator would
get the message "Help, Help, Snark in MTS!" 2. More generally,
any kind of unexplained or threatening event on a computer
(especially if it might be a boojum). Often used to refer to an
event or a log file entry that might indicate an attempted security
violation. See {snivitz}. 3. UUCP name of
snark.thyrsus.com, home site of the Jargon File 2.*.* versions
(i.e., this lexicon).
sneakernet: /snee'ker-net/ n. Term used (generally with ironic
intent) for transfer of electronic information by physically
carrying tape, disks, or some other media from one machine to
another. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon
filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs." Also called
`Tennis-Net', `Armpit-Net', `Floppy-Net'.
sniff: v.,n. Synonym for {poll}.
snivitz: /sniv'itz/ n. A hiccup in hardware or software; a small,
transient problem of unknown origin (less serious than a
{snark}). Compare {glitch}.
SO: /S-O/ n. 1. (also `S.O.') Abbrev. for Significant
Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced
/S-O/ by hackers. Used to refer to one's primary
relationship, esp. a live-in to whom one is not married. See
{MOTAS}, {MOTOS}, {MOTSS}. 2. The Shift Out control
character in ASCII (Control-N, 0001110).
social science number: [IBM] n. A statistic that is
{content-free}, or nearly so. A measure derived via methods of
questionable validity from data of a dubious and vague nature.
Predictively, having a social science number in hand is seldom much
better than nothing, and can be considerably worse. {Management}
loves them. See also {numbers}, {math-out}, {pretty
pictures}.
soft boot: n. See {boot}.
softcopy: /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A
machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy. See {bits},
{machinable}.
software bloat: n. The results of {second-system effect} or
{creeping featuritis}. Commonly cited examples include
`ls(1)', {X}, {BSD}, {Missed'em-five}, and {OS/2}.
software rot: n. Term used to describe the tendency of software
that has not been used in a while to {lose}; such failure may be
semi-humorously ascribed to {bit rot}. More commonly,
`software rot' strikes when a program's assumptions become out
of date. If the design was insufficiently {robust}, this may
cause it to fail in mysterious ways.
For example, owing to endemic shortsightedness in the design of
COBOL programs, most will succumb to software rot when their
2-digit year counters {wrap around} at the beginning of the
year 2000. Actually, related lossages often afflict centenarians
who have to deal with computer software designed by unimaginative
clods. One such incident became the focus of a minor public flap
in 1990, when a gentleman born in 1889 applied for a driver's
license renewal in Raleigh, North Carolina. The new system
refused to issue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the
ages 101 and 1 cannot be distinguished.
Historical note: Software rot in an even funnier sense than the
mythical one was a real problem on early research computers (e.g.,
the R1; see {grind crank}). If a program that depended on a
peculiar instruction hadn't been run in quite a while, the user
might discover that the opcodes no longer did the same things they
once did. ("Hey, so-and-so needs an instruction to do
such-and-such. We can {snarf} this opcode, right? No one uses
it.")
Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIT hacker
found a simple way to double the speed of the unconditional jump
instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched the hardware. Unfortunately,
this broke some fragile timing software in a music-playing program,
throwing its output out of tune. This was fixed by adding a
defensive initialization routine to compare the speed of a timing
loop with the real-time clock; in other words, it figured out how
fast the PDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately.
Compare {bit rot}.
softwarily: /soft-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to software.
"The system is softwarily unreliable." The adjective
`softwary' is *not* used. See {hardwarily}.
softy: [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who
is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.
some random X: adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the
implication that Xs are interchangeable. "I think some random
cracker tripped over the guest timeout last night." See also
{J. Random}.
sorcerer's apprentice mode: [from the film "Fantasia"] n. A bug in a
protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message
causes multiple messages to be sent, each of which, when
received, triggers the same bug. Used esp. of such behavior
caused by {bounce message} loops in {email} software. Compare
{broadcast storm}, {network meltdown}.
SOS: n.,obs. /S-O-S/ 1. An infamously {losing} text editor.
Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the
PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a {quick-and-dirty} `stopgap
editor' to be used until a better one was written. Unfortunately,
the old one was never really discarded when new ones (in
particular, {TECO}) came along. SOS is a descendant (`Son of
Stopgap') of that editor, and many PDP-10 users gained the dubious
pleasure of its acquaintance. Since then other programs similar in
style to SOS have been written, notably the early font editor BILOS
/bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the alternate expansion
`Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap' has been proposed). 2. /sos/
n. To decrease; inverse of {AOS}, from the PDP-10 instruction
set.
source of all good bits: n. A person from whom (or a place from
which) useful information may be obtained. If you need to know
about a program, a {guru} might be the source of all good bits.
The title is often applied to a particularly competent secretary.
space-cadet keyboard: n. The Knight keyboard, a now-legendary device
used on MIT LISP machines, which inspired several still-current
jargon terms and influenced the design of {EMACS}. It was inspired
by the Stanford keyboard and equipped with no fewer than
*seven* shift keys: four keys for {bucky bits} (`control',
`meta', `hyper', and `super') and three like regular shift keys,
called `shift', `top', and `front'. Many keys had three symbols
on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on
the front. For example, the `L' key had an `L' and a two-way
arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the front. If you
press this key with the right hand while playing an appropriate
`chord' with the left hand on the shift keys, you can get the
following results:
L
lowercase l
shift-L
uppercase L
front-L
lowercase lambda
front-shift-L
uppercase lambda
top-L
two-way arrow
(front and shift are ignored)
And of course each of these might also be typed with any
combination of the control, meta, hyper, and super keys. On this
keyboard, you could type over 8000 different characters! This
allowed the user to type very complicated mathematical text, and
also to have thousands of single-character commands at his
disposal. Many hackers were actually willing to memorize the
command meanings of that many characters if it reduced typing time
(this attitude obviously shaped the interface of EMACS). Other
hackers, however, thought having that many bucky bits was overkill,
and objected that such a keyboard can require three or four hands
to operate. See {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}, {double bucky},
{meta bit}, {quadruple bucky}.
SPACEWAR: n. A space-combat simulation game, inspired by
E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" books, in which two spaceships
duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and
jumping through hyperspace. This game was first implemented on the
PDP-1 at MIT in 1960--61. SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of
the early hacker culture at MIT. Nine years later, a descendant
of the game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a
scavenged PDP-7, the operating system that became {{UNIX}}. Less
than 9 years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of
the first video games; descendants are still {feep}ing in video
arcades everywhere.
spaghetti code: n. Code with a complex and tangled control
structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions, or other
`unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative. The synonym
`kangaroo code' has been reported, doubtless because such code
has many jumps in it.
spaghetti inheritance: n. [encountered among users of object-oriented
languages that use inheritance, such as Smalltalk] A convoluted
class-subclass graph, often resulting from carelessly deriving
subclasses from other classes just for the sake of reusing their
code. Coined in a (successful) attempt to discourage such
practice, through guilt-by-association with {spaghetti code}.
spam: [from the {MUD} community] vt. To crash a program by overrunning
a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. See also
{buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the stack}.
special-case: vt. To write unique code to handle input to or
situations arising in program that are somehow distinguished from
normal processing. This would be used for processing of mode
switches or interrupt characters in an interactive interface (as
opposed, say, to text entry or normal commands), or for processing
of {hidden flag}s in the input of a batch program or {filter}.
speedometer: n. A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of
LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient mainframes). The
pattern is shifted left every N times the software goes
through its main loop. A swiftly moving pattern indicates that the
system is mostly idle; the speedometer slows down as the system
becomes overloaded. The speedometer on Sun Microsystems hardware
bounces back and forth like the eyes on one of the Cylons from the
wretched "Battlestar Galactica" TV series.
Historical note: One computer, the Honeywell 6000 (later GE 600)
actually had an *analog* speedometer on the front panel,
calibrated in instructions executed per second.
spell: n. Syn. {incantation}.
spiffy: /spi'fee/ adj. 1. Said of programs having a pretty,
clever, or exceptionally well-designed interface. "Have you seen
the spiffy {X} version of {empire} yet?" 2. Said
sarcastically of a program that is perceived to have little more
than a flashy interface going for it. Which meaning should be
drawn depends delicately on tone of voice and context. This word
was common mainstream slang during the 1940s, in a sense close to #1.
spin: vi. Equivalent to {buzz}. More common among C and UNIX
programmers.
spl: /S-P-L/ [abbrev, from Set Priority Level] The way
traditional UNIX kernels implement mutual exclusion by running code
at high interrupt levels. Used in jargon to describe the act of
tuning in or tuning out ordinary communication. Classically, spl
levels run from 1 to 7; "Fred's at spl 6 today." would mean
that he is very hard to interrupt. "Wait till I finish this; I'll
spl down then." See also {interrupts locked out}.
splat: n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for
the asterisk (`*') character (ASCII 0101010). This may derive
from the `squashed-bug' appearance of the asterisk on many early
line printers. 2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the
`#' character (ASCII 0100011). 3. [Rochester Institute of
Technology] The {command key} on a Mac (same as {ALT},
sense 2). 4. [Stanford] Name used by some people for the
Stanford/ITS extended ASCII
circle-x
character. This character is also called `blobby' and `frob',
among other names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a
notation for `tensor product'. 5. [Stanford] Name for the
semi-mythical extended ASCII
circle-plus
character. 6. Canonical name for an output routine that outputs
whatever the local interpretation of `splat' is.
With ITS and WAITS gone, senses 4--6 are now nearly obsolete. See
also {{ASCII}}.
sponge: [UNIX] n. A special case of a {filter} that reads its
entire input before writing any output; the canonical example is a
sort utility. Unlike most filters, a sponge can conveniently
overwrite the input file with the output data stream. If your file
system has versioning (as ITS did and VMS does now) the
sponge/filter distinction loses its usefulness, because directing
filter output would just write a new version. See also {slurp}.
spooge: /spooj/ 1. n. Inexplicable or arcane code, or random
and probably incorrect output from a computer program. 2. vi. To
generate spooge (sense 1).
spool: [from early IBM `Simultaneous Peripheral Operation Off-Line',
but this acronym is widely thought to have been contrived for
effect] vt. To send files to some device or program (a `spooler')
that queues them up and does something useful with them later. The
spooler usually understood is the `print spooler' controlling
output of jobs to a printer, but the term has been used in
connection with other peripherals (especially plotters and graphics
devices). See also {demon}.
stack: n. A person's stack is the set of things he or she has to do
in the future. One speaks of the next project to be attacked as
having risen to the top of the stack. "I'm afraid I've got real
work to do, so this'll have to be pushed way down on my stack."
"I haven't done it yet because every time I pop my stack something
new gets pushed." If you are interrupted several times in the
middle of a conversation, "My stack overflowed" means "I
forget what we were talking about." The implication is that more
items were pushed onto the stack than could be remembered, so the
least recent items were lost. The usual physical example of a
stack is to be found in a cafeteria: a pile of plates or trays
sitting on a spring in a well, so that when you put one on the top
they all sink down, and when you take one off the top the rest
spring up a bit. See also {push} and {pop}.
At MIT, {pdl} used to be a more common synonym for {stack} in
all these contexts, and this may still be true. Everywhere else
{stack} seems to be the preferred term. {Knuth}
(`The Art of Computer Programming', second edition, vol. 1,
p. 236) says:
Many people who realized the importance of stacks and queues
independently have given other names to these structures:
stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages,
cellars, nesting stores, piles, last-in-first-out ("LIFO")
lists, and even yo-yo lists!
stack puke: n. Some processor architectures are said to `puke their
guts onto the stack' to save their internal state during exception
processing. The Motorola 68020, for example, regurgitates up to
92 bytes on a bus fault. On a pipelined machine, this can take a
while.
stale pointer bug: n. Synonym for {aliasing bug} used esp. among
microcomputer hackers.
state: n. 1. Condition, situation. "What's the state of your
latest hack?" "It's winning away." "The system tried to read
and write the disk simultaneously and got into a totally wedged
state." The standard question "What's your state?" means
"What are you doing?" or "What are you about to do?" Typical
answers are "about to gronk out", or "hungry". Another
standard question is "What's the state of the world?", meaning
"What's new?" or "What's going on?". The more terse and
humorous way of asking these questions would be "State-p?".
Another way of phrasing the first question under sense 1 would be
"state-p latest hack?". 2. Information being maintained in
non-permanent memory (electronic or human).
steam-powered: adj. Old-fashioned or underpowered; archaic. This
term does not have a strong negative loading and may even be used
semi-affectionately for something that clanks and wheezes a lot
but hangs in there doing the job.
stiffy: [University of Lowell, Massachusetts.] n. 3.5-inch
{microfloppies}, so called because their jackets are more firm
than those of the 5.25-inch and the 8-inch floppy. Elsewhere this might be
called a `firmy'.
stir-fried random: alt. `stir-fried mumble' n. Term used for the
best dish of many of those hackers who can cook. Consists of
random fresh veggies and meat wokked with random spices. Tasty and
economical. See {random}, {great-wall}, {ravs}, {{laser
chicken}}, {{oriental food}}; see also {mumble}.
stomp on: vt. To inadvertently overwrite something important, usually
automatically. "All the work I did this weekend got
stomped on last night by the nightly server script." Compare
{scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {scrog}, {roach}.
Stone Age: n., adj. 1. In computer folklore, an ill-defined period
from ENIAC (ca. 1943) to the mid-1950s; the great age of
electromechanical {dinosaur}s. Sometimes used for the entire
period up to 1960--61 (see {Iron Age}); however, it is funnier
and more descriptive to characterize the latter period in terms of
a `Bronze Age' era of transistor-logic, pre-ferrite-{core}
machines with drum or CRT mass storage (as opposed to just mercury
delay lines and/or relays). See also {Iron Age}. 2. More
generally, a pejorative for any crufty, ancient piece of hardware
or software technology. Note that this is used even by people who
were there for the {Stone Age} (sense 1).
stoppage: /sto'p*j/ n. Extreme {lossage} that renders
something (usually something vital) completely unusable. "The
recent system stoppage was caused by a {fried} transformer."
store: [prob. from techspeak `main store'] n. Preferred Commonwealth
synonym for {core}. Thus, `bringing a program into store' means
not that one is returning shrink-wrapped software but that a
program is being {swap}ped in.
stroke: n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)
character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
strudel: n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`', ASCII
1000000) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
stubroutine: /stuhb'roo-teen/ [contraction of `stub routine']
n. Tiny, often vacuous placeholder for a subroutine that is to be
written or fleshed out later.
studlycaps: /stuhd'lee-kaps/ n. A hackish form of silliness
similar to {BiCapitalization} for trademarks, but applied
randomly and to arbitrary text rather than to trademarks. ThE
oRigiN and SigNificaNce of thIs pRacTicE iS oBscuRe.
stunning: adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid. Usually used in sarcasm.
"You want to code *what* in ADA? That's ... a stunning
idea!"
stupid-sort: n. Syn. {bogo-sort}.
subshell: /suhb'shel/ [UNIX, MS-DOS] n. An OS command interpreter
(see {shell}) spawned from within a program, such that exit from
the command interpreter returns one to the parent program in a
state that allows it to continue execution. Compare {shell out};
oppose {chain}.
sucking mud: [Applied Data Research] adj. (also `pumping
mud') Crashed or wedged. Usually said of a machine that provides
some service to a network, such as a file server. This Dallas
regionalism derives from the East Texas oilfield lament, "Shut
'er down, Ma, she's a-suckin' mud". Often used as a query. "We
are going to reconfigure the network, are you ready to suck mud?"
sufficiently small: adj. Syn. {suitably small}.
suit: n. 1. Ugly and uncomfortable `business clothing' often worn
by non-hackers. Invariably worn with a `tie', a strangulation
device that partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain. It
is thought that this explains much about the behavior of
suit-wearers. Compare {droid}. 2. A person who habitually wears
suits, as distinct from a techie or hacker. See {loser},
{burble}, {management}, and {brain-damaged}. English, by the
way, is relatively kind; our Soviet correspondent informs us that
the corresponding idiom in Russian hacker jargon is `sovok', lit.
a tool for grabbing garbage.
suitable win: n. See {win}.
suitably small: [perverted from mathematical jargon] adj. An
expression used ironically to characterize unquantifiable
behavior that differs from expected or required behavior. For
example, suppose a newly created program came up with a correct
full-screen display, and one publicly exclaimed: "It works!"
Then, if the program dumps core on the first mouse click, one might
add: "Well, for suitably small values of `works'." Compare
the characterization of pi under {{random numbers}}.
sun-stools: n. Unflattering hackerism for SunTools, a pre-X
windowing environment notorious in its day for size, slowness, and
misfeatures. {X}, however, is larger and slower; see
{second-system effect}.
sunspots: n. 1. Notional cause of an odd error. "Why did the
program suddenly turn the screen blue?" "Sunspots, I guess."
2. Also the cause of {bit rot} --- from the myth that sunspots
will increase {cosmic rays}, which can flip single bits in memory.
See {cosmic rays}, {phase of the moon}.
superprogrammer: n. A prolific programmer; one who can code
exceedingly well and quickly. Not all hackers are
superprogrammers, but many are. (Productivity can vary from one
programmer to another by three orders of magnitude. For example,
one programmer might be able to write an average of 3 lines of
working code in one day, while another, with the proper tools,
might be able to write 3,000. This range is astonishing; it is
matched in very few other areas of human endeavor.) The term
`superprogrammer' is more commonly used within such places as IBM
than in the hacker community. It tends to stress na"ive measures
of productivity and to underweight creativity, ingenuity, and
getting the job *done* --- and to sidestep the question of
whether the 3,000 lines of code do more or less useful work than
three lines that do the {Right Thing}. Hackers tend to prefer
the terms {hacker} and {wizard}.
superuser: [UNIX] n. Syn. {root}, {avatar}. This usage has
spread to non-UNIX environments; the superuser is any account with
all {wheel} bits on. A more specific term than {wheel}.
support: n. After-sale handholding; something many software
vendors promise but few deliver. To hackers, most support people
are useless --- because by the time a hacker calls support he or
she will usually know the relevant manuals better than the support
people (sadly, this is *not* a joke or exaggeration). A
hacker's idea of `support' is a t^ete-`a-t^ete with the
software's designer.
Suzie COBOL: /soo'zee koh'bol/ 1. [IBM: prob. from Frank Zappa's
`Suzy Creamcheese'] n. A coder straight out of training school who
knows everything except the value of comments in plain English.
Also (fashionable among personkind wishing to avoid accusations of
sexism) `Sammy Cobol' or (in some non-IBM circles) `Cobol Charlie'.
2. [proposed] Meta-name for any {code grinder}, analogous to
{J. Random Hacker}.
swab: /swob/ [From the mnemonic for the PDP-11 `SWAp Byte'
instruction, as immortalized in the `dd(1)' option `conv=swab'
(see {dd})] 1. vt. To solve the {NUXI problem} by swapping
bytes in a file. 2. n. The program in V7 UNIX used to perform this
action, or anything functionally equivalent to it. See also
{big-endian}, {little-endian}, {middle-endian},
{bytesexual}.
swap: vt. 1. [techspeak] To move information from a fast-access
memory to a slow-access memory (`swap out'), or vice versa
(`swap in'). Often refers specifically to the use of disks as
`virtual memory'. As pieces of data or program are needed, they
are swapped into {core} for processing; when they are no longer
needed they may be swapped out again. 2. The jargon use of these
terms analogizes people's short-term memories with core. Cramming
for an exam might be spoken of as swapping in. If you temporarily
forget someone's name, but then remember it, your excuse is that it
was swapped out. To `keep something swapped in' means to keep it
fresh in your memory: "I reread the TECO manual every few months
to keep it swapped in." If someone interrupts you just as you got
a good idea, you might say "Wait a moment while I swap this
out", implying that the piece of paper is your extra-somatic
memory and if you don't swap the info out by writing it down it
will get overwritten and lost as you talk. Compare {page in},
{page out}.
swap space: n. Storage space, especially temporary storage space
used during a move or reconfiguration. "I'm just using that corner
of the machine room for swap space."
swapped in: n. See {swap}. See also {page in}.
swapped out: n. See {swap}. See also {page out}.
swizzle: v. To convert external names, array indices, or references
within a data structure into address pointers when the data
structure is brought into main memory from external storage (also
called `pointer swizzling'); this may be done for speed in
chasing references or to simplify code (e.g., by turning lots of
name lookups into pointer dereferences). The converse operation is
sometimes termed `unswizzling'. See also {snap}.
sync: /sink/ (var. `synch') n., vi. 1. To synchronize, to
bring into synchronization. 2. [techspeak] To force all pending
I/O to the disk; see {flush}, sense 2. 3. More generally, to
force a number of competing processes or agents to a state that
would be `safe' if the system were to crash; thus, to checkpoint
(in the database-theory sense).
syntactic sugar: [coined by Peter Landin] n. Features added to a
language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans,
that do not affect the expressiveness of the formalism (compare
{chrome}). Used esp. when there is an obvious and trivial
translation of the `sugar' feature into other constructs already
present in the notation. C's `a[i]' notation is syntactic
sugar for `*(a + i)'. "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the
semicolon." --- Alan Perlis
The variant `syntactic saccharine' is also recorded. This
denotes something even more gratuitous, in that syntactic sugar
serves a purpose (making something more acceptable to humans) but
syntactic saccharine serves no purpose at all.
sys-frog: /sis'frog/ [the PLATO system] n. Playful variant of
`sysprog', which is in turn short for `systems programmer'.
sysadmin: /sis'ad-min/ n. Common contraction of `system
admin'; see {admin}.
sysop: /sis'op/ n. [esp. in the BBS world] The operator (and
usually the owner) of a bulletin-board system. A common neophyte
mistake on {FidoNet} is to address a message to `sysop' in an
international {echo}, thus sending it to hundreds of sysops
around the world.
system: n. 1. The supervisor program or OS on a computer. 2. The
entire computer system, including input/output devices, the
supervisor program or OS, and possibly other software. 3. Any
large-scale program. 4. Any method or algorithm. 5. `System
hacker': one who hacks the system (in senses 1 and 2 only; for
sense 3 one mentions the particular program: e.g., `LISP
hacker')
systems jock: n. See {jock}, (sense 2).
SysVile: /sis-vi:l'/ n. See {Missed'em-five}.
system mangler: n. Humorous synonym for `system manager', poss.
from the fact that one major IBM OS had a {root} account called
SYSMANGR. Refers specifically to a systems programmer in charge of
administration, software maintenance, and updates at some site.
Unlike {admin}, this term emphasizes the technical end of the
skills involved.
= T =
T: /T/ 1. [from LISP terminology for `true'] Yes. Used in
reply to a question (particularly one asked using the `-P'
convention). In LISP, the constant T means `true', among other
things. Some hackers use `T' and `NIL' instead of `Yes' and `No'
almost reflexively. This sometimes causes misunderstandings. When
a waiter or flight attendant asks whether a hacker wants coffee, he
may well respond `T', meaning that he wants coffee; but of course
he will be brought a cup of tea instead. As it happens, most
hackers (particularly those who frequent Chinese restaurants) like
tea at least as well as coffee --- so it is not that big a problem.
2. See {time T} (also {since time T equals minus infinity}).
3. [techspeak] In transaction-processing circles, an abbreviation
for the noun `transaction'. 4. [Purdue] Alternate spelling of
{tee}.
tail recursion: n. If you aren't sick of it already, see {tail
recursion}.
talk mode: n. A feature supported by UNIX, ITS, and some other
OSes that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time
on-line conversation. It combines the immediacy of talking with
all the precision (and verbosity) that written language entails.
It is difficult to communicate inflection, though conventions have
arisen for some of these (see the section on writing style in the
Prependices for details).
Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
which are not used orally. Some of these are identical to (and
probably derived from) Morse-code jargon used by ham-radio amateurs
since the 1920s.
`BCNU'
be seeing you
`BTW'
by the way
`BYE?'
are you ready to unlink? (this is the standard way to end a talk-mode
conversation; the other person types `BYE' to confirm, or else continues
the conversation)
`CUL'
see you later
`ENQ?'
are you busy? (expects `ACK' or `NAK' in return)
`FOO?'
are you there? (often used on unexpected links,
meaning also "Sorry if I butted in ..." (linker) or "What's
up?" (linkee))
`FYI'
for your information
`FYA'
for your amusement
`GA'
go ahead (used when two people have tried to type simultaneously; this
cedes the right to type to the other)
`GRMBL'
grumble (expresses disquiet or disagreement)
`HELLOP'
hello? (an instance of the `-P' convention)
`JAM'
just a minute (equivalent to `SEC....')
`MIN'
same as `JAM'
`NIL'
no (see {NIL})
`O'
over to you
`OO'
over and out
`/'
another form of "over to you" (from x/y as "x over y")
`\'
lambda (used in discussing LISPy things)
`OBTW'
oh, by the way
`R U THERE?'
are you there?
`SEC'
wait a second (sometimes written `SEC...')
`T'
yes (see the main entry for {T})
`TNX'
thanks
`TNX 1.0E6'
thanks a million (humorous)
`TNXE6'
another for of "thanks a million"
`WRT'
with regard to, or with respect to.
`WTF'
the universal interrogative particle; WTF knows what it means?
`WTH'
what the hell?
`<double newline>'
When the typing party has finished, he/she types two newlines to
signal that he/she is done; this leaves a blank line between
`speeches' in the conversation, making it easier to reread the
preceding text.
`<name>:'
When three or more terminals are linked, it is conventional for each
typist to {prepend} his/her login name or handle and a colon
(or a hyphen) to each line to indicate who is typing (some
conferencing facilities do this automatically). The login name
is often shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single letter)
during a very long conversation.
`/\/\/\'
A giggle or chuckle. On a MUD, this usually means `earthquake fault'.
Most of the above sub-jargon is used at both Stanford and MIT.
Several of these expressions are also common in {email}, esp.
FYI, FYA, BTW, BCNU, WTF, and CUL. A few other abbreviations have
been reported from commercial networks, such as GEnie and CompuServe,
where on-line `live' chat including more than two people is
common and usually involves a more `social' context, notably the
following:
`<g>'
grin
`<gr&d>'
grinning, running, and ducking
`BBL'
be back later
`BRB'
be right back
`HHOJ'
ha ha only joking
`HHOK'
ha ha only kidding
`HHOS'
{ha ha only serious}
`IMHO'
in my humble opinion (see {IMHO})
`LOL'
laughing out loud
`ROTF'
rolling on the floor
`ROTFL'
rolling on the floor laughing
`AFK'
away from keyboard
`b4'
before
`CU l8tr'
see you later
`MORF'
male or female?
`TTFN'
ta-ta for now
`OIC'
oh, I see
`rehi'
hello again
Most of these are not used at universities or in the UNIX world,
though ROTF and TTFN have gained some currency there and IMHO is
common; conversely, most of the people who know these are
unfamiliar with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, {NIL}, and {T}.
The {MUD} community uses a mixture of USENET/Internet emoticons, a
few of the more natural of the old-style talk-mode abbrevs, and
some of the `social' list above; specifically, MUD respondents
report use of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF, TTFN, and WTH. The use of
`rehi' is also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re- compounds and
will frequently `rehug' or `rebonk' (see {bonk/oif}) people. The
word `re' by itself is taken as `regreet'. In general, though,
MUDders express a preference for typing things out in full rather
than using abbreviations; this may be due to the relative youth of
the MUD cultures, which tend to include many touch typists and
to assume high-speed links. The following uses specific to MUDs are
reported:
`UOK?'
are you OK?
`THX'
thanks (mutant of `TNX'; clearly this comes in batches of 1138 (the
Lucasian K)).
`CU l8er'
see you later (mutant of `CU l8tr')
`OTT'
over the top (excessive, uncalled for)
Some {BIFF}isms (notably the variant spelling `d00d')
appear to be passing into wider use among some subgroups of
MUDders.
One final note on talk mode style: neophytes, when in talk mode,
often seem to think they must produce letter-perfect prose because
they are typing rather than speaking. This is not the best
approach. It can be very frustrating to wait while your partner
pauses to think of a word, or repeatedly makes the same spelling
error and backs up to fix it. It is usually best just to leave
typographical errors behind and plunge forward, unless severe
confusion may result; in that case it is often fastest just to type
"xxx" and start over from before the mistake.
See also {hakspek}, {emoticon}, {bonk/oif}.
talker system: n. British hackerism for software that enables
real-time chat or {talk mode}.
tall card: n. A PC/AT-size expansion card (these can be larger
than IBM PC or XT cards because the AT case is bigger). See also
{short card}. When IBM introduced the PS/2 model 30 (its last
gasp at supporting the ISA) they made the case lower and many
industry-standard tall cards wouldn't fit; this was felt to be a
reincarnation of the {connector conspiracy}, done with less
style.
tanked: adj. Same as {down}, used primarily by UNIX hackers. See
also {hosed}. Popularized as a synonym for `drunk' by Steve
Dallas in the late lamented "Bloom County" comic strip.
tar and feather: [from UNIX `tar(1)'] vt. To create a
transportable archive from a group of files by first sticking them
together with `tar(1)' (the Tape ARchiver) and then
compressing the result (see {compress}). The latter action is
dubbed `feathering' by analogy to what you do with an airplane
propeller to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce
water resistance; smaller files, after all, slip through comm links
more easily.
taste: [primarily MIT] n. 1. The quality in a program that tends
to be inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and
kluges programmed into it. Also `tasty', `tasteful',
`tastefulness'. "This feature comes in N tasty flavors."
Although `tasteful' and `flavorful' are essentially
synonyms, `taste' and {flavor} are not. Taste refers to
sound judgment on the part of the creator; a program or feature
can *exhibit* taste but cannot {have} taste. On the other
hand, a feature can have {flavor}. Also, {flavor} has the
additional meaning of `kind' or `variety' not shared by
`taste'. {Flavor} is a more popular word than `taste',
though both are used. See also {elegant}. 2. Alt. sp. of
{tayste}.
tayste: /tayst/ n. Two bits; also as {taste}. Syn. {crumb},
{quarter}. Compare {{byte}}, {dynner}, {playte},
{nybble}, {quad}.
TCB: /T-C-B/ [IBM] n. 1. Trouble Came Back. An intermittent or
difficult-to-reproduce problem that has failed to respond to
neglect. Compare {heisenbug}. Not to be confused with:
2. Trusted Computing Base, an `official' jargon term from the
{Orange Book}.
tea, ISO standard cup of: [South Africa] n. A cup of tea with milk
and one teaspoon of sugar, where the milk is poured into the cup
before the tea. Variations are ISO 0, with no sugar; ISO 2, with
two spoons of sugar; and so on.
Like many ISO standards, this one has a faintly alien ring in North
America, where hackers generally shun the decadent British practice
of adulterating perfectly good tea with dairy products and
prefer instead to add a wedge of lemon, if anything. If one were
feeling extremely silly, one might hypothesize an analogous `ANSI
standard cup of tea' and wind up with a political situation
distressingly similar to several that arise in much more serious
technical contexts. Milk and lemon don't mix very well.
TechRef: /tek'ref/ [MS-DOS] n. The original `IBM PC
Technical Reference Manual', including the BIOS listing and
complete schematics for the PC. The only PC documentation in the
issue package that's considered serious by real hackers.
TECO: /tee'koh/ obs. 1. vt. Originally, to edit using the TECO
editor in one of its infinite variations (see below). 2. vt.,obs.
To edit even when TECO is *not* the editor being used! This
usage is rare and now primarily historical. 2. [originally an
acronym for `[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector'; later, `Text
Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor developed at MIT and
modified by just about everybody. With all the dialects included,
TECO might have been the most prolific editor in use before
{EMACS}, to which it was directly ancestral. Noted for its
powerful programming-language-like features and its unspeakably
hairy syntax. It is literally the case that every string of
characters is a valid TECO program (though probably not a useful
one); one common hacker game used to be mentally working out what
the TECO commands corresponding to human names did. As an example
of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that takes a list of
names such as:
Loser, J. Random
Quux, The Great
Dick, Moby
sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts the
surname last, removing the comma, to produce the following:
Moby Dick
J. Random Loser
The Great Quux
The program is
[1 J^P$L$$
J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$
(where ^B means `Control-B' (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually
an {ALT} or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).
In fact, this very program was used to produce the second, sorted
list from the first list. The first hack at it had a {bug}: GLS
(the author) had accidentally omitted the `@' in front
of `F^B', which as anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong Thing}. It
worked fine the second time. There is no space to describe all the
features of TECO, but it may be of interest that `^P' means
`sort' and `J<.-Z; ... L>' is an idiomatic series of commands
for `do once for every line'.
In mid-1991, TECO is pretty much one with the dust of history,
having been replaced in the affections of hackerdom by {EMACS}.
Descendants of an early (and somewhat lobotomized) version adopted
by DEC can still be found lurking on VMS and a couple of crufty
PDP-11 operating systems, however, and ports of the more advanced
MIT versions remain the focus of some antiquarian interest. See
also {retrocomputing}, {write-only language}.
tee: n.,vt. [Purdue] A carbon copy of an electronic transmission.
"Oh, you're sending him the {bits} to that? Slap on a tee for
me." From the UNIX command `tee(1)', itself named after a
pipe fitting (see {plumbing}). Can also mean `save one for me',
as in "Tee a slice for me!" Also spelled `T'.
Telerat: /tel'*-rat/ n. Unflattering hackerism for `Teleray', a
line of extremely losing terminals. See also {terminak},
{sun-stools}, {HP-SUX}.
TELNET: /tel'net/ vt. To communicate with another Internet host
using the {TELNET} program. TOPS-10 people used the word
IMPCOM, since that was the program name for them. Sometimes
abbreviated to TN /T-N/. "I usually TN over to SAIL just to
read the AP News."
ten-finger interface: n. The interface between two networks that
cannot be directly connected for security reasons; refers to the
practice of placing two terminals side by side and having an
operator read from one and type into the other.
tense: adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece
of code often got that way because it was highly {bum}med, but
sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever
routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This
routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A tense
programmer is one who produces tense code.
tenured graduate student: n. One who has been in graduate school
for 10 years (the usual maximum is 5 or 6): a `ten-yeared'
student (get it?). Actually, this term may be used of any grad
student beginning in his seventh year. Students don't really get
tenure, of course, the way professors do, but a tenth-year graduate
student has probably been around the university longer than any
untenured professor.
tera-: /te'r*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
teraflop club: /te'r*-flop kluhb/ [FLOP = Floating Point
Operation] n. A mythical association of people who consume outrageous
amounts of computer time in order to produce a few simple pictures
of glass balls with intricate ray-tracing techniques. Caltech
professor James Kajiya is said to have been the founder.
terminak: /ter'mi-nak`/ [Caltech, ca. 1979] n. Any malfunctioning
computer terminal. A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM 3a
terminals caused the `L' key to produce the `K' code instead;
complaints about this tended to look like "Terminak #3 has a bad
keyboard. Pkease fix." See {sun-stools}, {Telerat},
{HP-SUX}.
terminal brain death: n. The extreme form of {terminal illness}
(sense 1). What someone who has obviously been hacking
continuously for far too long is said to be suffering from.
terminal illness: n. 1. Syn. {raster burn}. 2. The `burn-in'
condition your CRT tends to get if you don't have a screen saver.
terminal junkie: [UK] n. A {wannabee} or early
{larval stage} hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering
the directory tree and writing {noddy} programs just to get
a fix of computer time. Variants include `terminal
jockey', `console junkie', and {console jockey}. The term
`console jockey' seems to imply more expertise than the other
three (possibly because of the exalted status of the {{console}}
relative to an ordinary terminal). See also {twink},
{read-only user}.
terpri: /ter'pree/ [from LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP)] vi. To
output a {newline}. Now rare as jargon, though still used as
techspeak in Common LISP. It is a contraction of `TERminate PRInt
line', named for the fact that, on early OSes, no characters would be
printed until a complete line was formed, so this operation
terminated the line and emitted the output.
test: n. 1. Real users bashing on a prototype long enough to get
thoroughly acquainted with it, with careful monitoring and followup
of the results. 2. Some bored random user trying a couple of the
simpler features with a developer looking over his or her shoulder,
ready to pounce on mistakes. Judging by the quality of most
software, the second definition is far more prevalent. See also
{demo}.
TeX: /tekh/ n. An extremely powerful {macro}-based
text formatter written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the
computer-science community (it is good enough to have displaced
UNIX `troff(1)', the other favored formatter, even at many
UNIX installations). TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural)
pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all caps, squished
together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX'
--- such as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX
programmer), TeXmaster (competent TeX programmer), TeXhax,
and TeXnique.
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
quality of the typesetting in volumes I--III of his monumental
`Art of Computer Programming' (see {bible}). In a
manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at
hand once and for all, he began to design his own typesetting
language. He thought he would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978;
he was wrong by only about 8 years. The language was finally
frozen around 1985, but volume IV of `The Art of Computer
Programming' has yet to appear as of mid-1991. The impact and
influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this
very much. Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of
tool-building on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was
simply on a grander scale than most.
text: n. 1. [techspeak] Executable code, esp. a `pure code'
portion shared between multiple instances of a program running in a
multitasking OS (compare {English}). 2. Textual material in the
mainstream sense; data in ordinary {{ASCII}} or {{EBCDIC}}
representation (see {flat-ASCII}). "Those are text files;
you can review them using the editor." These two contradictory
senses confuse hackers, too.
thanks in advance: [USENET] Conventional net.politeness ending a
posted request for information or assistance. Sometimes written
`advTHANKSance' or `aTdHvAaNnKcSe' or abbreviated `TIA'. See
{net.-}, {netiquette}.
the X that can be Y is not the true X: Yet another instance of
hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical references --- a common
humorous way of making exclusive statements about a class of
things. The template is from the `Tao te Ching': "The
Tao which can be spoken of is not the true Tao." The implication
is often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the
enlightened. See the {trampoline} entry for an example, and
compare {has the X nature}.
theology: n. 1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to
{religious issues}. 2. Technical fine points of an abstruse
nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical
interest but is relatively {marginal} with respect to actual use of
a design or system. Used esp. around software issues with a
heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs.
smart-programs dispute in AI.
theory: n. The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that
is currently being used to inform a behavior. This is a
generalization and abuse of the technical meaning. "What's the
theory on fixing this TECO loss?" "What's the theory on dinner
tonight?" ("Chinatown, I guess.") "What's the current theory
on letting lusers on during the day?" "The theory behind this
change is to fix the following well-known screw...."
thinko: /thing'koh/ [by analogy with `typo'] n. A momentary,
correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving
recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of
consciousness. Syn. {braino}. Compare {mouso}.
This time, for sure!: excl. Ritual affirmation frequently uttered
during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small
obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection). For the
proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitation of
Bullwinkle J. Moose. Also heard: "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a
rabbit out of my hat!" The {canonical} response is, of course,
"But that trick *never* works!" See {{Humor, Hacker}}.
thrash: vi. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing
anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded
waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather
than performing useful computation) and are therefore said to
thrash. Someone who keeps changing his mind (esp. about what to
work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically trying
to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on
any single task) may also be described as thrashing. Compare
{multitask}.
thread: n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of
`topic thread', a more or less continuous chain of postings on a
single topic.
three-finger salute: n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
thud: n. 1. Yet another meta-syntactic variable (see {foo}).
It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of
these was `foo', `bar', `thud', `blat'. 2. Rare term
for the hash character, `#' (ASCII 0100011). See {ASCII} for
other synonyms.
thunk: /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides an
address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks
in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal
definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If a procedure is called
with an expression in the place of a formal parameter, the compiler
generates a {thunk} to compute the expression and leave the
address of the result in some standard location. 2. Later
generalized into: an expression, frozen together with its
environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar to
what in techspeak is called a `closure'). The process of
unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing'. 3. A
{stubroutine}, in an overlay programming environment, that loads
and jumps to the correct overlay. Compare {trampoline}.
4. People and activities scheduled in a thunklike manner. "It
occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by
a thunk --- I frequently need to be forced to completion." ---
paraphrased from a {plan file}.
Historical note: There are a couple of onomatopoeic myths
circulating about the origin of this term. The most common is that
it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that
the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator. Yet another
holds that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at
argument-evaluation time. In fact, according to the inventors, it
was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of
discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be
figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought,
simplifying the evaluation machinery. In other words, it had
`already been thought of'; thus it was christened a `thunk',
which is "the past tense of `think' at two in the morning".
tick: n. 1. A {jiffy} (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the
discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the
simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is
often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is
the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often
pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick' simulation,
especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long,
independent chains of causes is {handwave}d. 3. In the FORTH
language, a single quote character.
tick-list features: [Acorn Computers] n. Features in software or
hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in
desktop TSRs and that sort of thing). The American equivalent
would be `checklist features', but this jargon sense of the
phrase has not been reported.
tickle a bug: vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest
through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can
tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by
trying to set bright yellow reverse video."
tiger team: [U.S. military jargon] n. A team whose purpose is to
penetrate security, and thus test security measures. These people
are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave
cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense installations,
hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have been stolen"
(they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc. After a successful
penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next
morning for a `security review' and finds the sign, note, etc.,
and all hell breaks loose. Serious successes of tiger teams
sometimes lead to early retirement for base commanders and security
officers (see the {patch} entry for an example).
A subset of tiger teams are professional {cracker}s, testing the
security of military computer installations by attempting remote
attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels. Some of
their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the
greatest hacks of all times. The term has been adopted in
commercial computer-security circles in this more specific sense.
time sink: [poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or `current sink'] n.
A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.
time T: /ti:m T/ n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understood
time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1.
"We'll meet on campus at time T or at Louie's at
time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner:
"We can meet on campus and go to Louie's, or we can meet at Louie's
itself a bit later." (Louie's is a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto
that is a favorite with hackers.) Had the number 30 been used instead
of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from
campus to Louie's is 30 minutes; whatever time T is (and
that hasn't been decided on yet), you can meet half an hour later at
Louie's than you could on campus and end up eating at the same time.
See also {since time T equals minus infinity}.
times-or-divided-by: [by analogy with `plus-or-minus'] quant. Term
occasionally used when describing the uncertainty associated with a
scheduling estimate, for either humorous or brutally honest effect.
For a software project, the factor is usually at least 2.
tinycrud: /ti:'nee-kruhd/ n. A pejorative used by habitues of older
game-oriented {MUD} versions for TinyMUDs and other
user-extensible {MUD} variants; esp. common among users of the
rather violent and competitive AberMUD and MIST systems. These
people justify the slur on the basis of how (allegedly)
inconsistent and lacking in genuine atmosphere the scenarios
generated in user extensible MUDs can be. Other common knocks on
them are that they feature little overall plot, bad game topology,
little competitive interaction, etc. --- not to mention the alleged
horrors of the TinyMUD code itself. This dispute is one of the MUD
world's hardiest perennial {holy wars}.
tip of the ice-cube: [IBM] n. The visible part of something small and
insignificant. Used as an ironic comment in situations where `tip
of the iceberg' might be appropriate if the subject were actually
nontrivial.
tired iron: [IBM] n. Hardware that is perfectly functional but
far enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new
products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that
the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a {dinosaur}.
tits on a keyboard: n. Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep
touch-typists registered (usually on the `5' of a numeric keypad,
and on the `F' and `J' of a QWERTY keyboard).
TLA: /T-L-A/ [Three-Letter Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing
acronym for a species with which computing terminology is infested.
2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU,
MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage
argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter
words have four letters. One also hears of `ETLA' (Extended
Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to
describe four-letter acronyms. The term `SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter
Acronym) has also been reported. See also {YABA}.
The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is
often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a
random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin
"What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in
the 90s?" Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only
17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3
= 17,576.)
TMRC: /tmerk'/ n. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of
the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 `Dictionary of
the TMRC Language' compiled by Peter Samson included several terms
which became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. {foo}
and {frob}).
By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of
complexity. The control system alone featured about 1200 relays.
There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around
the room that could be pressed if something undesirable was about
to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction.
Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch
board. Normally it ran at some multiple of real time, but if
someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was
replaced with the word `FOO'.
Steven Levy, in his book `Hackers' (see the Bibliography), gives a
stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Power and Signals
group included most of the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who
later bacame the core of the MIT AI Lab staff. Thirty years later
that connection is still very much alive, and this lexicon
accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent revision of
the TMRC Dictionary.
to a first approximation: 1. [techspeak] When one is doing certain
numerical computations, an approximate solution may be computed by
any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a final value.
By using the starting point of a first approximation of the answer,
one can write an algorithm that converges more quickly to the
correct result. 2. In jargon, a preface to any comment that
indicates that the comment is only approximately true. The remark
"To a first approximation, I feel good" might indicate that
deeper questioning would reveal that not all is perfect (e.g., a
nagging cough still remains after an illness).
to a zeroth approximation: [from `to a first approximation'] A
*really* sloppy approximation; a wild guess. Compare
{social science number}.
toast: 1. n. Any completely inoperable system or component, esp.
one that has just crashed and burned: "Uh, oh ... I think the
serial board is toast." 2. vt. To cause a system to crash
accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual
rebooting. "Rick just toasted the {firewall machine} again."
toaster: n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an
embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that
imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see
{elevator controller}). "{DWIM} for an assembler? That'd be
as silly as running UNIX on your toaster!" 2. A very, very dumb
computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster." See
{bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {beige toaster}.
3. A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac. Some hold that this is
implied by sense 2. 4. A peripheral device. "I bought my box
without toasters, but since then I've added two boards and a second
disk drive."
toeprint: n. A {footprint} of especially small size.
toggle: vt. To change a {bit} from whatever state it is in to the
other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from
`toggle switches', such as standard light switches, though the
word `toggle' actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the
switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the
fact that the switch has two positions. There are four things you
can do to a bit: set it (force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it,
leave it alone, or toggle it. (Mathematically, one would say that
there are four distinct boolean-valued functions of one boolean
argument, but saying that is much less fun than talking about
toggling bits.)
tool: 1. n. A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify,
or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a
cross-referencing program. Oppose {app}, {operating system}.
2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple, `transparent'
(typically text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used
in programmed combination with other tools (see {filter}).
3. [MIT: general to students there] vi. To work; to study (connotes
tedium). The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain
to the grindstone". See {hack}. 4. [MIT] n. A student who
studies too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student humor
magazine rejoices in the name `Tool and Die'.)
toolsmith: n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist;
one who specializes in making the {tool}s with which other
programmers create applications. See also {uninteresting}.
topic drift: n. Term used on GEnie, USENET and other electronic
fora to describe the tendency of a {thread} to drift away from
the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the Subject
header of the originating message), or the results of that
tendency. Often used in gentle reminders that the discussion has
strayed off any useful track. "I think we started with a question
about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the sexual
habits of the common marmoset. Now *that's* topic drift!"
topic group: n. Syn. {forum}.
TOPS-10:: /tops-ten/ n. DEC's proprietary OS for the fabled {PDP-10}
machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct.
A fountain of hacker folklore; see appendix A. See also {{ITS}},
{{TOPS-20}}, {{TWENEX}}, {VMS}, {operating system}. TOPS-10 was
sometimes called BOTS-10 (from `bottoms-ten') as a comment on the
inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything.
TOPS-20:: /tops-twen'tee/ n. See {{TWENEX}}.
toto: /toh'toh/ n. This is reported to be the default scratch
file name among French-speaking programmers --- in other words, a
francophone {foo}.
tourist: [ITS] n. A guest on the system, especially one who
generally logs in over a network from a remote location for {comm
mode}, email, games, and other trivial purposes. One step below
{luser}. Hackers often spell this {turist}, perhaps by
some sort of tenuous analogy with {luser} (this also expresses the
ITS culture's penchant for six-letterisms). Compare {twink},
{read-only user}.
tourist information: n. Information in an on-line display that is
not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewer's gestalt of
what's going on with the software or hardware behind it. Whether a
given piece of info falls in this category depends partly on what
the user is looking for at any given time. The `bytes free'
information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir' display is
tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information
in a UNIX `ps(1)' display.
touristic: adj. Having the quality of a {tourist}. Often used
as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum'. Often spelled
`turistic' or `turistik', so that phrase might be more properly
rendered `lusing turistic scum'.
toy: n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking style
adequately. 2. `just a toy': A machine that yields
insufficient {computron}s for the speaker's preferred uses. This
is not condemnatory, as is {bitty box}; toys can at least be fun.
It is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP
users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy', and certainly all RISC
boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See also {Get
a real computer!}.
toy language: n. A language useful for instructional purposes or
as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory,
but inadequate for general-purpose programming. {Bad Thing}s
can result when a toy language is promoted as a general purpose
solution for programming (see {bondage-and-discipline
language}); the classic example is {{Pascal}}. Several moderately
well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing
machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense.
See also {MFTL}.
toy problem: [AI] n. A deliberately oversimplified case of a
challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test
algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See
also {gedanken}, {toy program}.
toy program: n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a
trivial program (compare {noddy}). 2. One for which the effort
of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle.
See also {noddy}.
trampoline: n. An incredibly {hairy} technique, found in some
{HLL} and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the
Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable
(and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection
between code sections. These pieces of {live data} are called
`trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand
in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the
trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true
trampoline. See also {snap}.
trap: 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by
some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the
OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.
2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the
monitor." Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the
trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."
This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt'
or `exception' is more common among {HLL} programmers) and
appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of
assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to
computer architects and systems hackers (see {system},
sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable
exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).
trap door: alt. `trapdoor' n. 1. Syn. {back door}.
2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one which is easy to
compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of. Such
functions have important applications in cryptography, specifically
in the construction of public-key cryptosystems.
trash: vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure).
The most common of the family of near-synonyms including {mung},
{mangle}, and {scribble}.
tree-killer: [Sun] n. 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper.
This should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper'
includes the production of {spiffy} but {content-free} documents.
Thus, most {suit}s are tree-killers.
trit: /trit/ [by analogy with `bit'] n. One base-3 digit; the
amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three
equally likely outcomes (see also {bit}). These arise, for
example, in the context of a {flag} that should actually be able
to assume *three* values --- such as yes, no, or unknown. Trits are
sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits'. A trit may be
semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half', although it is
linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is,
log2(3)
bits).
trivial: adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not worth the
speaker's time. 3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known
that anyone not utterly {cretinous} would have thought of them
already. 4. Any problem one has already solved (some claim that
hackish `trivial' usually evaluates to `I've seen it before').
Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those
of non-hackers. See {nontrivial}, {uninteresting}.
troglodyte: [Commodore] n. 1. A hacker who never leaves his
cubicle. The term `Gnoll' (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also
reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing
environment. The combination `ITS troglodyte' was flung around
some during the USENET and email wringle-wrangle attending the
2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it
was intended to describe adopted it with pride.
troglodyte mode: [Rice University] n. Programming with the lights
turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black on
white) because you've been up for so many days straight that your
eyes hurt (see {raster burn}). Loud music blaring from a stereo
stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. See {larval
stage}, {hack mode}.
Trojan horse: [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards]
n. A program designed to break security or damage a system that is
disguised as something else benign, such as a directory lister,
archiver, a game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a
program to find and destroy viruses! See {back door}, {virus},
{worm}.
true-hacker: [analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] n. One who
exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence
and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent
6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000
last week --- manifestly the act of a true-hacker." Compare
{demigod}, oppose {munchkin}.
tty: /T-T-Y/ [UNIX], /tit'ee/ [ITS, but some UNIX people say it
this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have
sexual undertones] n. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety,
characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited
character set, and poor print quality. Usage: antiquated (like the
TTYs themselves). See also {bit-paired keyboard}.
2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer
to the particular terminal controlling a given job.
tube: 1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of
TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky &
Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy
old swashbuckler movie (see appendix B). 2. [IBM] To send a copy
of something to someone else's terminal. "Tube me that
note?"
tube time: n. Time spent at a terminal or console. More inclusive
than hacking time; commonly used in discussions of what parts of
one's environment one uses most heavily. "I find I'm spending too
much of my tube time reading mail since I started this revision."
tunafish: n. In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of
an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the manual pages of
`tunefs(8)' in the original {BSD} 4.2 distribution. The
joke was removed in later releases once commercial sites started
developing in 4.2. Tunefs relates to the `tuning' of
file-system parameters for optimum performance, and at the bottom
of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a `BUGS' section
consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but you can't
tunafish". Variants of this can be seen in other BSD versions,
though it has been excised from some versions by humorless
management {droid}s. The [nt]roff source for SunOS 4.1.1
contains a comment apparently designed to prevent this: "Take this
out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from now until the
`time_t''s wrap around."
tune: [from automotive or musical usage] vt. To optimize a program
or system for a particular environment, esp. by adjusting numerical
parameters designed as {hook}s for tuning, e.g., by changing
`#define' lines in C. One may `tune for time' (fastest
execution), `tune for space' (least memory use), or
`tune for configuration' (most efficient use of hardware). See
{bum}, {hot spot}, {hand-hacking}.
turbo nerd: n. See {computer geek}.
turist: /too'rist/ n. Var. sp. of {tourist}, q.v. Also in
adjectival form, `turistic'. Poss. influenced by {luser} and
`Turing'.
tweak: vt. 1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value.
Also used synonymously with {twiddle}. If a program is almost
correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you might
just keep tweaking it until it works. See {frobnicate} and
{fudge factor}; also see {shotgun debugging}. 2. To {tune}
or {bum} a program; preferred usage in the U.K.
TWENEX:: /twe'neks/ n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC ---
the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 --- preferred by most
PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not
{{ITS}} or {{WAITS}} partisans). TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt,
Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging
hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the
ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and
began work to make it their own. The first in-house code name for
the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating System);
when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to
SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project
called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was
briefly reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when
it was discovered that `krans' meant `funeral shroud' in
Swedish. Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the
operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The
hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it
{{TWENEX}} (a contraction of `twenty TENEX'), even though by this
point very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously
to the differences between AT&T V6 UNIX and BSD). DEC people
cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but the term caught on
nevertheless (the written abbreviation `20x' was also used).
TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact, there was a period
in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent a culture of
partisans as UNIX or ITS --- but DEC's decision to scrap all the
internal rivals to the VAX architecture and its relatively stodgy
VMS OS killed the DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in
the sun. DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 hackers to convert to
{VMS}, but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20
hackers had migrated to UNIX.
twiddle: n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, `~'). Also
called `squiggle', `sqiggle' (sic --- pronounced /skig'l/),
and `twaddle', but twiddle is the most common term. 2. A small
and insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes one bug and
generates several new ones. 3. vt. To change something in a small
way. Bits, for example, are often twiddled. Twiddling a switch or
knob implies much less sense of purpose than toggling or tweaking
it; see {frobnicate}. To speak of twiddling a bit connotes
aimlessness, and at best doesn't specify what you're doing to the
bit; `toggling a bit' has a more specific meaning (see {bit
twiddling}, {toggle}).
twink: /twink/ [UCSC] n. Equivalent to {read-only user}. Also
reported on the USENET group soc.motss; may derive from gay
slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs.
two pi: quant. The number of years it takes to finish one's
thesis. Occurs in stories in the following form: "He started on
his thesis; 2 pi years later..."
two-to-the-N: quant. An amount much larger than {N} but smaller
than {infinity}. "I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can
go out for lunch" means you probably won't show up.
twonkie: /twon'kee/ n. The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a
variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang) the male
equivalent of `chick'); a useless `feature' added to look sexy
and placate a {marketroid} (compare {Saturday-night
special}). This may also be related to "The Twonky", title menace
of a classic SF short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and
C. L. Moore), first published in the September 1942
`Astounding Science Fiction' and subsequently much
anthologized.
= U =
UBD: /U-B-D/ [abbreviation for `User Brain Damage'] An
abbreviation used to close out trouble reports obviously due to
utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare {pilot error};
oppose {PBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.
UN*X: n. Used to refer to the UNIX operating system (a trademark of
AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly
{(TM)} typography.
Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating
systems. Ironically, lawyers now say (1990) that the requirement
for the TM-postfix has no legal force, but the asterisk usage
is entrenched anyhow. It has been suggested that there may be a
psychological connection to practice in certain religions
(especially Judaism) in which the name of the deity is never
written out in full, e.g., `YHWH' or `G--d' is used. See also
{glob}.
undefined external reference: excl. [UNIX] A message from UNIX's
linker. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references
in an argument or discussion.
under the hood: prep. [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the
underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or
idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious
from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the
listener to {grok} it. "Let's now look under the hood to see
how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much
simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we
are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in
"Under the hood, this baby has a 40MHz 68030!"
undocumented feature: n. See {feature}.
uninteresting: adj. 1. Said of a problem that, although
{nontrivial}, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient
resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution
would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and
code.
Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of
time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. *Real*
hackers (see {toolsmith}) generalize uninteresting problems
enough to make them interesting and solve them --- thus solving the
original problem as a special case. See {WOMBAT}, {SMOP};
compare {toy problem}, oppose {interesting}.
UNIX:: /yoo'niks/ [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on
Multics"] n. (also `Unix') An interactive time-sharing system
originally invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left
the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his
scavenged PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C, is considered
a co-author of the system. The turning point in UNIX's history
came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during
1972--1974, making it the first source-portable OS. UNIX
subsequently underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of
many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and
developer-friendly environment. In 1991, UNIX is the most widely
used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world. Many
people consider this the most important victory yet of hackerdom
over industry opposition (but see {UNIX weenie} and {UNIX
conspiracy} for an opposing point of view). See {Version 7},
{BSD}, {USG UNIX}.
UNIX brain damage: n. Something that has to be done to break a
network program (typically a mailer) on a non-UNIX system so that
it will interoperate with UNIX systems. The hack may qualify as
`UNIX brain damage' if the program conforms to published standards
and the UNIX program in question does not. UNIX brain damage
happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to
change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than it is to
change all the hundreds of thousands of UNIX systems out there.
An example of UNIX brain damage is a {kluge} in a mail server to
recognize bare line feed (the UNIX newline) as an equivalent form
to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return
followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened
{jock} weep.
UNIX conspiracy: [ITS] n. According to a conspiracy theory long
popular among {{ITS}} and {{TOPS-20}} fans, UNIX's growth is the
result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose
intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent
upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's
control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating
system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also
relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing
upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus
in 1984 by the paper referenced in the {back door} entry.
In this view, UNIX was designed to be one of the first computer
viruses (see {virus}) --- but a virus spread to computers indirectly
by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and
networks. Adherents of this `UNIX virus' theory like to cite the
fact that the well-known quotation "UNIX is snake oil" was
uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began
actively promoting its own family of UNIX workstations. (Olsen now
claims to have been misquoted.)
UNIX weenie: [ITS] n. 1. A derogatory play on `UNIX wizard', common
among hackers who use UNIX by necessity but would prefer
alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question
may consider mastery of UNIX arcana to be a wizardly skill, the
only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and the bad
taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is
alleged to infest many UNIX programs. "This shell script tries to
parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must have been
written by a real UNIX weenie." 2. A derogatory term for anyone
who engages in uncritical praise of UNIX. Often appearing in the
context "stupid UNIX weenie". See {Weenix}, {UNIX
conspiracy}. See also {weenie}.
unixism: n. A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the
protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low
process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory UNIX systems.
Common {unixism}s include: gratuitous use of `fork(2)'; the
assumption that certain undocumented but well-known features of
UNIX libraries such as `stdio(3)' are supported elsewhere;
reliance on {obscure} side-effects of system calls (use of
`sleep(2)' with a 0 argument to clue the scheduler that
you're willing to give up your time-slice, for example); the
assumption that freshly allocated memory is zeroed; and the assumption
that fragmentation problems won't arise from never `free()'ing
memory. Compare {vaxocentrism}; see also {New Jersey}.
unswizzle: v. See {swizzle}.
unwind the stack: vi. 1. [techspeak] During the execution of a
procedural language, one is said to `unwind the stack' from a
called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame
and any number of frames above it, popping back up to the level of
the given caller. In C this is done with
`longjmp'/`setjmp', in LISP with `throw/catch'.
See also {smash the stack}. 2. People can unwind the stack as
well, by quickly dealing with a bunch of problems: "Oh heck, let's
do lunch. Just a second while I unwind my stack."
unwind-protect: [MIT: from the name of a LISP operator] n. A task you
must remember to perform before you leave a place or finish a
project. "I have an unwind-protect to call my advisor."
up: adj. 1. Working, in order. "The down escalator is up."
Oppose {down}. 2. `bring up': vt. To create a working
version and start it. "They brought up a down system."
3. `come up' vi. To become ready for production use.
upload: /uhp'lohd/ v. 1. [techspeak] To transfer programs or data
over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral
`client' system to a larger or central `host' one. A transfer in
the other direction is, of course, called a {download} (but see
the note about ground-to-space comm under that entry).
2. [speculatively] To move the essential patterns and algorithms
that make up one's mind from one's brain into a computer. Only
those who are convinced that such patterns and algorithms capture
the complete essence of the self view this prospect with
gusto.
upthread: adv. Earlier in the discussion (see {thread}), i.e.,
`above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..." See also
{followup}.
urchin: n. See {munchkin}.
USENET: /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ [from `Users' Network'] n.
A distributed {bboard} (bulletin board) system supported mainly
by UNIX machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve
Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke
University, it has swiftly grown to become international in scope
and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility
in existence. As of early 1991, it hosts well over
700 {newsgroup}s and an average of 16 megabytes (the equivalent
of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news,
discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day.
user: n. 1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using
it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a
computer. See {real user}. 2. A programmer who will believe
anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS
observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask
questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep.
Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently
because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the
documentation before bothering the maintainer.] See {luser}.
3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully,
without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports
bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them.
The general theory behind this term is that there are two classes
of people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers)
and {luser}s. The users are looked down on by hackers to a mild
degree because they don't understand the full ramifications of the
system in all its glory. (The few users who do are known as
`real winners'.) The term is a relative one: a skilled hacker
may be a user with respect to some program he himself does not
hack. A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who
uses LISP (but with the skill of a hacker). A LISP user is one who
uses LISP, whether skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap
between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by
context.
user-friendly: adj. Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in
a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so
obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and
knowledgeable to get any work done. See {menuitis}, {drool-proof
paper}, {Macintrash}, {user-obsequious}.
user-obsequious: adj. Emphatic form of {user-friendly}. Connotes
a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded
that it is nearly unusable. "Design a system any fool can use and
only a fool will want to use it." See {WIMP environment},
{Macintrash}.
USG UNIX: /U-S-G yoo'niks/ n. Refers to AT&T UNIX
commercial versions after {Version 7}, especially System III and
System V releases 1, 2, and 3. So called because during most of
the life-span of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the
`UNIX Support Group'. See {BSD}, {{UNIX}}.
UTSL: // [UNIX] n. On-line acronym for `Use the Source, Luke' (a
pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Use the Force, Luke!" in `Star
Wars') --- analogous to {RTFM} but more polite. This is a
common way of suggesting that someone would be best off reading the
source code that supports whatever feature is causing confusion,
rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals or
broadcasting questions that haven't attracted {wizard}s to
answer them. In theory, this is appropriately directed only at
associates of some outfit with a UNIX source license; in practice,
bootlegs of UNIX source code (made precisely for reference
purposes) are so ubiquitous that one may utter this at almost
anyone on {the network} without concern. In the near future
(this written in 1991) source licenses may become even less
important; after the recent release of the Mach 3.0 microkernal,
given the continuing efforts of the {GNU} project, and with the
4.4BSD release on the horizon, complete free source code for
UNIX-clone toolsets and kernels should soon be widely available.
UUCPNET: n. The store-and-forward network consisting of all the
world's connected UNIX machines (and others running some clone of
the UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy) software). Any machine reachable only
via a {bang path} is on UUCPNET. See {network address}.
= V =
vadding: /vad'ing/ [from VAD, a permutation of ADV (i.e.,
{ADVENT}), used to avoid a particular {admin}'s continual
search-and-destroy sweeps for the game] n. A leisure-time activity
of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the `secret'
parts of large buildings --- basements, roofs, freight elevators,
maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like. A few go so
far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesize vadding keys.
The verb is `to vad' (compare {phreaking}).
The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is `elevator
rodeo', a.k.a. `elevator surfing', a sport played by wrasslin'
down a thousand-pound elevator car with a 3-foot piece of
string, and then exploiting this mastery in various stimulating
ways (such as elevator hopping, shaft exploration, rat-racing, and
the ever-popular drop experiments). Kids, don't try this at home!
See also {hobbit} (sense 2).
vanilla: [from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] adj.
Ordinary {flavor}, standard. When used of food, very often does
not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract! For
example, `vanilla wonton soup' means ordinary wonton soup, as
opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and
software, as in "Vanilla Version 7 UNIX can't run on a
vanilla 11/34." Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for
instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from
a 74LS00, etc. This word differs from {canonical} in that the
latter means `default', whereas vanilla simply means `ordinary'.
For example, when hackers go on a {great-wall}, hot-and-sour
wonton soup is the {canonical} wonton soup to get (because that
is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the
vanilla wonton soup.
vannevar: /van'*-var/ n. A bogus technological prediction or
a foredoomed engineering concept, esp. one that fails by
implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly,
incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the
learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are
common, and competition is the rule. The prototype was Vannevar
Bush's prediction of `electronic brains' the size of the Empire
State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for
their tubes and relays, made at a time when the semiconductor effect had
already been demonstrated. Other famous vannevars have included
magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines, {videotex}, and a paper from
the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal
density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities
of 5 years later.
vaporware: /vay'pr-weir/ n. Products announced far in advance of
any release (which may or may not actually take place).
var: /veir/ or /var/ n. Short for `variable'. Compare {arg},
{param}.
VAX: /vaks/ n. 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most
successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly
excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11. Between its release
in 1978 and its eclipse by {killer micro}s after about 1986, the VAX
was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all, esp.
after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD UNIX (see {BSD}). Esp.
noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set
--- an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution.
2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain. Cited here because
its alleged sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a
sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans. Ironically, the slogan was
*not* actually used by the Vax vacuum-cleaner people, but was
actually that of a rival brand called Electrolux (as in "Nothing
sucks like an..."). It is claimed, however, that DEC actually
entered a cross-licensing deal with the vacuum-Vax people that
allowed them to market VAX computers in the U.K. in return for not
challenging the vacuum cleaner trademark in the U.S.
VAXectomy: /vak-sek't*-mee/ [by analogy with `vasectomy'] n. A
VAX removal. DEC's Microvaxen, especially, are much slower than
newer RISC-based workstations such as the SPARC. Thus, if one knows
one has a replacement coming, VAX removal can be cause for
celebration.
VAXen: /vak'sn/ [from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] n.
(alt. `vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for the
DEC VAX computers. "Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty
vaxen." See {boxen}.
vaxherd: n. /vaks'herd/ [from `oxherd'] A VAX operator.
vaxism: /vak'sizm/ n. A piece of code that exhibits
{vaxocentrism} in critical areas. Compare {PC-ism},
{unixism}.
vaxocentrism: /vak`soh-sen'trizm/ [analogy with
`ethnocentrism'] n. A notional disease said to afflict
C programmers who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are
valid (esp. under UNIX) on {VAXen} but false elsewhere. Among
these are:
1. The assumption that dereferencing a null pointer is safe because it
is all bits 0, and location 0 is readable and 0. Problem: this may
instead cause an illegal-address trap on non-VAXen, and even on
VAXen under OSes other than BSD UNIX. Usually this is an implicit
assumption of sloppy code (forgetting to check the pointer before
using it), rather than deliberate exploitation of a
misfeature.)
2. The assumption that characters are signed.
3. The assumption that a pointer to any one type can freely be cast
into a pointer to any other type. A stronger form of this is the
assumption that all pointers are the same size and format, which
means you don't have to worry about getting the types correct in
calls. Problem: this fails on word-oriented machines or others with
multiple pointer formats.
4. The assumption that the parameters of a routine are stored in
memory, contiguously, and in strictly ascending or descending order.
Problem: this fails on many RISC architectures.
5. The assumption that pointer and integer types are the same size,
and that pointers can be stuffed into integer variables (and
vice-versa) and drawn back out without being truncated or mangled.
Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or word-oriented
machines with funny pointer formats.
6. The assumption that a data type of any size may begin at any byte
address in memory (for example, that you can freely construct and
dereference a pointer to a word- or greater-sized object at an odd
char address). Problem: this fails on many (esp. RISC)
architectures better optimized for {HLL} execution speed, and
can cause an illegal address fault or bus error.
7. The (related) assumption that there is no padding at the end of
types and that in an array you can thus step right from the last
byte of a previous component to the first byte of the next one.
This is not only machine- but compiler-dependent.
8. The assumption that memory address space is globally flat and that
the array reference `foo[-1]' is necessarily valid. Problem:
this fails at 0, or other places on segment-addressed machines like
Intel chips (yes, segmentation is universally considered a
{brain-damaged} way to design machines (see {moby}), but that
is a separate issue).
9. The assumption that objects can be arbitrarily large with no
special considerations. Problem: this fails on segmented
architectures and under non-virtual-addressing environments.
10. The assumption that the stack can be as large as memory. Problem:
this fails on segmented architectures or almost anything else without
virtual addressing and a paged stack.
11. The assumption that bits and addressable units within an object
are ordered in the same way and that this order is a constant of
nature. Problem: this fails on {big-endian} machines.
12. The assumption that it is meaningful to compare pointers to
different objects not located within the same array, or to objects
of different types. Problem: the former fails on segmented
architectures, the latter on word-oriented machines or others with
multiple pointer formats.
13. The assumption that an `int' is 32 bits, or (nearly
equivalently) the assumption that `sizeof(int) ==
sizeof(long)'. Problem: this fails on 286-based systems and even
on 386 and 68000 systems under some compilers.
14. The assumption that `argv[]' is writable. Problem: this fails in
some embedded-systems C environments.
Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism
even if he or she has never seen a VAX. Some of these assumptions
(esp. 2--5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and
became endemic years before the VAX. The terms `vaxocentricity'
and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.
vdiff: /vee'dif/ v.,n. Visual diff. The operation of finding
differences between two files by {eyeball search}. The term
`optical diff' has also been reported. See {diff}.
veeblefester: /vee'b*l-fes`tr/ [from the "Born Loser"
comix via Commodore; prob. originally from `Mad' Magazine's
`Veeblefeetzer' parodies ca. 1960] n. Any obnoxious person engaged
in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management. Antonym of
{hacker}. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}.
Venus flytrap: [after the insect-eating plant] n. See {firewall
machine}.
verbage: /ver'b*j/ n. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of
{verbiage} that assimilates it to the word `garbage'. Compare
{content-free}. More pejorative than `verbiage'.
verbiage: n. When the context involves a software or hardware
system, this refers to {{documentation}}. This term borrows the
connotations of mainstream `verbiage' to suggest that the
documentation is of marginal utility and that the motives behind
its production have little to do with the ostensible subject.
Version 7: alt. V7 /vee' se'vn/ n. The 1978 unsupported release of
{{UNIX}} ancestral to all current commercial versions. Before
the release of the POSIX/SVID standards, V7's features were often
treated as a UNIX portability baseline. See {BSD}, {USG UNIX},
{{UNIX}}. Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and
kernel bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True UNIX.
vgrep: /vee'grep/ v.,n. Visual grep. The operation of finding
patterns in a file optically rather than digitally. See {grep};
compare {vdiff}.
vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from
`Visual Interface'] n. A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy
for an early {BSD} version. Became the de facto standard UNIX
editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite until the rise of
{EMACS} after about 1984. Tends to frustrate new users no end,
as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor
vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which
mode one is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has
often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it
is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 USENET
poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a
mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up
faster than bulky EMACS). See {holy wars}.
videotex: n. obs. An electronic service offering people the
privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens
instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they
brush their teeth. The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't
government-subsidized, because by the time videotex was practical
the installed base of personal computers could hook up to
timesharing services and do the things for which videotex might
have been worthwhile better and cheaper. Videotex planners badly
overestimated both the appeal of getting information from a
computer and the cost of local intelligence at the user's end.
Like the {gorilla arm} effect, this has been a cautionary tale
to hackers ever since. See also {vannevar}.
virgin: adj. Unused; pristine; in a known initial state. "Let's
bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again." (Esp.
useful after contracting a {virus} through {SEX}.) Also, by
extension, buffers and the like within a program that have not yet
been used.
virtual: [via the technical term `virtual memory', prob. from the
term `virtual image' in optics] adj. 1. Common alternative to
{logical}. 2. Simulated; performing the functions of something
that isn't really there. An imaginative child's doll may be a
virtual playmate.
virtual Friday: n. The last day before an extended weekend, if
that day is not a `real' Friday. For example, the U.S. holiday
Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. The next day is often also
a holiday or taken as an extra day off, in which case Wednesday of
that week is a virtual Friday (and Thursday is a virtual Saturday,
as is Friday). There are also `virtual Mondays' that are
actually Tuesdays, after the three-day weekends associated with many
national holidays in the U.S.
virtual reality: n. 1. Computer simulations that use 3-D graphics
and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to interact
with the simulation. See {cyberspace}. 2. A form of network
interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games,
interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and `true confessions'
magazines. In a virtual reality forum (such as USENET's
alt.callahans newsgroup or the {MUD} experiments on Internet),
interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel
complete with scenery, `foreground characters' that may be
personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common
`background characters' manipulable by all parties. The one
iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a
character without the consent of the person who `owns' it.
Otherwise anything goes. See {bamf}, {cyberspace}.
virus: [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF]
n. A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects'
them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become
{Trojan Horse}s. When these programs are executed, the embedded
virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'. This
normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a {worm}, a
virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is
propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their
friends (see {SEX}). The virus may do nothing but propagate
itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually,
however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing
things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing
strange tricks with your display (some viruses include nice
{display hack}s). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly
perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like
nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially
among IBM PC and Macintosh users (the lack of security on these
machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the
operating system). The production of special anti-virus software
has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports
have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many
{luser}s tend to blame *everything* that doesn't work as
they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of
`virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular
usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or
even a {Trojan horse}). Compare {back door}; see also
{UNIX conspiracy}.
visionary: n. 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an
Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of
getting computers to `see' things using TV cameras. (There isn't
any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer.
The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of
the camera information? See {SMOP}, {AI-complete}.) 2. [IBM]
One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a
penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.
VMS: /V-M-S/ n. DEC's proprietary operating system for its VAX
minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom largest
in hacker folklore. Many UNIX fans generously concede that VMS
would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if UNIX
didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. One major
hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness --- thus the following
limerick:
There once was a system called VMS
Of cycles by no means abstemious.
It's chock-full of hacks
And runs on a VAX
And makes my poor stomach all squeamious.
--- The Great Quux
See also {VAX}, {{TOPS-10}}, {{TOPS-20}}, {{UNIX}}, {runic}.
voice: vt. To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or
connecting in talk mode. "I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."
voice-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the telephone system,
analogizing it to a digital network. USENET {sig block}s not
uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or
"Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and
"V-Net". Compare {paper-net}, {snail-mail}.
voodoo programming: [from George Bush's "voodoo economics"] n.
The use by guess or cookbook of an {obscure} or {hairy} system,
feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand. The
implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't,
one will never know why. Almost synonymous with {black magic},
except that black magic typically isn't documented and
*nobody* understands it. Compare {magic}, {deep magic},
{heavy wizardry}, {rain dance}, {cargo cult programming},
{wave a dead chicken}.
VR: // [MUD] n. On-line abbrev for {virtual reality}, as
opposed to {RL}.
Vulcan nerve pinch: n. [from the old "Star Trek" TV series via
Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a
soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a
feature). On many micros this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on
some Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch>! Also called
{three-finger salute}. Compare {quadruple bucky}.
vulture capitalist: n. Pejorative hackerism for `venture
capitalist', deriving from the common practice of pushing contracts
that deprive inventors of control over their own innovations and
most of the money they ought to have made from them.
= W =
wabbit: /wab'it/ [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal
line "You wascawwy wabbit!"] n. 1. A legendary early hack
reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978. The
program would make two copies of itself every time it was run,
eventually crashing the system. 2. By extension, any hack that
includes infinite self-replication but is not a {virus} or
{worm}. See also {cookie monster}.
WAITS:: /wayts/ n. The mutant cousin of {{TOPS-10}} used on a
handful of systems at {{SAIL}} up to 1990. There was never an
`official' expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived
at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glossed as
`West-coast Alternative to ITS'. Though WAITS was less visible
than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between
the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted
enormous indirect influence. The early screen modes of {EMACS},
for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's `E' editor --- one
of a family of editors that were the first to do `real-time
editing', in which the editing commands were invisible and where
one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting. The modern
style of multi-region windowing is said to have originated there,
and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere played major roles in
the developments that led to the XEROX Star, the Macintosh, and the
Sun workstations. {Bucky bits} were also invented there ---
thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS legacy. One notable
WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was a news-wire interface
that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and UPI
dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a
still-unusual level of support for what is now called `multimedia'
computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched
to programming terminals.
waldo: /wol'doh/ [From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"]
1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human
limb. When these were developed for the nuclear industry in the
mid-1940s they were named after the invention described by Heinlein
in the story, which he wrote in 1942. Now known by the more
generic term `telefactoring', this technology is of intense
interest to NASA for tasks like space station maintenance. 2. At
Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham and students), this is used
instead of {foobar} as a meta-syntactic variable and general
nonsense word. See {foo}, {bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.
walk: n.,vt. Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or
linked-list data structure in {core}. See also {codewalker},
{silly walk}, {clobber}.
walk off the end of: vt. To run past the end of an array, list, or medium after stepping
through it --- a good way to land in trouble.
Often the result of an {off-by-one error}. Compare
{clobber}, {roach}, {smash the stack}.
walking drives: n. An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk
drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky {washing
machine}s. Those old {dinosaur} parts carried terrific angular
momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or worn bearings
and stick-slip interactions with the floor could cause them to
`walk' across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a couple
of millimeters at a time. There is a legend about a drive that
walked over to the only door to the computer room and jammed it
shut; the staff had to cut a hole in the wall in order to get at
it! Walking could also be induced by certain patterns of drive
access (a fast seek across the whole width of the disk, followed by
a slow seek in the other direction). Some bands of old-time
hackers figured out how to induce disk-accessing patterns that
would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive races.
wall: [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken
with a quizzical tone: "Wall??" 2. A request for further
explication. Compare {octal forty}.
It is said that "Wall?" really came from `like talking to a
blank wall'. It was initially used in situations where, after you
had carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you
blankly, clearly having understood nothing that was explained. You
would then throw out a "Hello, wall?" to elicit some sort of
response from the questioner. Later, confused questioners began
voicing "Wall?" themselves.
wall follower: n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack
of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some
simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past. Used of
an algorithm, this is not necessarily pejorative; it recalls
`Harvey Wallbanger', the winning robot in an early AI contest
(named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey successfully solved
mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and running till it came
out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was mathematically
guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes --- and, in fact,
Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to
`learn' each maze by building an internal representation of it.
Used of humans, the term *is* pejorative and implies an
uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality. See also {code
grinder}, {droid}.
wall time: n. (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world' time (what
the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea
of time. 2. The real running time of a program, as opposed to the
number of {clocks} required to execute it (on a timesharing
system these will differ, as no one program gets all the
{clocks}, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support
one may get more processor clocks than real-time clocks).
wallpaper: n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly
listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of
all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for
such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced
at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.) Now rare,
esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g.,
PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the UNIX world doesn't have an
equivalent term, so perhaps {wallpaper} will take hold there.
The term probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin
and end transcript files were `:WALBEG' and `:WALEND',
with default file `WALL PAPER' (the space was a path
delimiter). 2. The background pattern used on graphical
workstations (this is techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user
interface to MS-DOS). 3. `wallpaper file' n. The file that
contains the wallpaper information before it is actually printed on
paper. (Even if you don't intend ever to produce a real paper copy
of the file, it is still called a wallpaper file.)
wango: /wang'goh/ n. Random bit-level {grovel}ling going on in
a system during some unspecified operation. Often used in
combination with {mumble}. For example: "You start with the `.o'
file, run it through this postprocessor that does mumble-wango ---
and it comes out a snazzy object-oriented executable."
wank: /wangk/ [Columbia University: prob. by mutation from
Commonwealth slang v. `wank', to masturbate] n.,v. Used much as
{hack} is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever technique or
person or the result of such cleverness. May describe (negatively)
the act of hacking for hacking's sake ("Quit wanking, let's go get
supper!") or (more positively) a {wizard}. Adj. `wanky'
describes something particularly clever (a person, program, or
algorithm). Conversations can also get wanky when there are too
many wanks involved. This excess wankiness is signalled by an
overload of the `wankometer' (compare {bogometer}). When the
wankometer overloads, the conversation's subject must be changed,
or all non-wanks will leave. Compare `neep-neeping' (under
{neep-neep}). Usage: U.S. only. In Britain and the Commonwealth
this word is *extremely* rude and is best avoided unless one
intends to give offense.
wannabee: /won'*-bee/ (also, more plausibly, spelled `wannabe')
[from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans who dress,
talk, and act like their idol; prob. originally from biker slang]
n. A would-be {hacker}. The connotations of this term differ
sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject. Used of
a person who is in or might be entering {larval stage}, it is
semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most hackers
remember that they, too, were once such creatures. When used of
any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or {suit}, it is
derogatory, implying that said person is trying to cuddle up to the
hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a prayer of
understanding what it is all about. Overuse of terms from this lexicon
is often an indication of the {wannabee} nature. Compare
{newbie}.
Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different
flavor now (1991) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the
people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in {larval
stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious
and unaffected by models known in popular culture --- communities
formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt
irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees
experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become
similarly wizardly. Those days of innocence are gone forever;
society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980
included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero,
and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to
*be hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the
popular image of hackers. Fortunately, to do this really well, one
has to actually become a wizard. Nevertheless, old-time hackers
tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change; among
other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of
public compendia of lore like this one.
warm boot: n. See {boot}.
wart: n. A small, {crock}y {feature} that sticks out of an
otherwise {clean} design. Something conspicuous for localized
ugliness, especially a special-case exception to a general rule.
For example, in some versions of `csh(1)', single quotes
literalize every character inside them except `!'. In ANSI C,
the `??' syntax used obtaining ASCII characters in a foreign
environment is a wart. See also {miswart}.
washing machine: n. Old-style 14-inch hard disks in floor-standing
cabinets. So called because of the size of the cabinet and the
`top-loading' access to the media packs --- and, of course, they
were always set on `spin cycle'. The washing-machine idiom
transcends language barriers; it is even used in Russian hacker
jargon. See also {walking drives}. The thick channel cables
connecting these were called `bit hoses' (see {hose}).
water MIPS: n. (see {MIPS}, sense 2) Large, water-cooled
machines of either today's ECL-supercomputer flavor or yesterday's
traditional {mainframe} type.
wave a dead chicken: v. To perform a ritual in the direction of
crashed software or hardware that one believes to be futile but
is nevertheless necessary so that others are satisfied that an
appropriate degree of effort has been expended. "I'll wave a dead
chicken over the source code, but I really think we've run into an
OS bug." Compare {voodoo programming}, {rain dance}.
weasel: n. [Cambridge] A na"ive user, one who deliberately or
accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised. Roughly
synonymous with {loser}.
wedged: [from a common description of recto-cranial inversion] adj.
1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help. This is
different from having crashed. If the system has crashed, then it
has become totally non-functioning. If the system is wedged, it is
trying to do something but cannot make progress; it may be capable
of doing a few things, but not be fully operational. For example,
a process may become wedged if it {deadlock}s with another (but
not all instances of wedging are deadlocks). Being wedged is
slightly milder than being {hung}. See also {gronk}, {locked
up}, {hosed}. Describes a {deadlock}ed condition. 2. Often
refers to humans suffering misconceptions. "He's totally wedged
--- he's convinced that he can levitate through meditation."
3. [UNIX] Specifically used to describe the state of a TTY left in
a losing state by abort of a screen-oriented program or one that
has messed with the line discipline in some obscure way.
wedgie: [Fairchild] n. A bug. Prob. related to {wedged}.
wedgitude: /wedj'i-t[y]ood/ n. The quality or state of being
{wedged}.
weeble: /weeb'l/ [Cambridge] interj. Used to denote frustration,
usually at amazing stupidity. "I stuck the disk in upside down."
"Weeble...." Compare {gurfle}.
weeds: n. 1. Refers to development projects or algorithms that have
no possible relevance or practical application. Comes from `off in
the weeds'. Used in phrases like "lexical analysis for microcode
is serious weeds...." 2. At CDC/ETA before its demise, the
phrase `go off in the weeds' was equivalent to IBM's {branch to
Fishkill} and mainstream hackerdom's {jump off into never-never
land}.
weenie: n. 1. When used with a qualifier (for example, as in
{UNIX weenie}, VMS weenie, IBM weenie) this can be either an
insult or a term of praise, depending on context, tone of voice,
and whether or not it is applied by a person who considers
him or herself to be the same sort of weenie. Implies that the weenie
has put a major investment of time, effort, and concentration into
the area indicated; whether this is positive or negative depends on
the hearer's judgment of how the speaker feels about that area.
See also {bigot}. 2. The semicolon character, `;' (ASCII
0111011).
Weenix: /wee'niks/ [ITS] n. A derogatory term for {{UNIX}},
derived from {UNIX weenie}. According to one noted ex-ITSer, it
is "the operating system preferred by Unix Weenies: typified by
poor modularity, poor reliability, hard file deletion, no file
version numbers, case sensitivity everywhere, and users who believe
that these are all advantages". Some ITS fans behave as though
they believe UNIX stole a future that rightfully belonged to them.
See {{ITS}}, sense 2.
well-behaved: adj. 1. [primarily {{MS-DOS}}] Said of software
conforming to system interface guidelines and standards.
Well-behaved software uses the operating system to do chores such
as keyboard input, allocating memory and drawing graphics. Oppose
{ill-behaved}. 2. Software that does its job quietly and
without counterintuitive effects. Esp. said of software having
an interface spec sufficiently simple and well-defined that it can
be used as a {tool} by other software. See {cat}.
well-connected: adj. Said of a computer installation, this means
that it has reliable email links with {the network} and/or that
it relays a large fraction of available {USENET} newsgroups.
`Well-known' can be almost synonymous, but also implies that the
site's name is familiar to many (due perhaps to an archive service
or active USENET users).
wetware: /wet'weir/ [prob. from the novels of Rudy Rucker] n.
1. The human nervous system, as opposed to computer hardware or
software. "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers."
2. Human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached
to a computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or
software. See {liveware}, {meatware}.
whacker: [University of Maryland: from {hacker}] n. 1. A person,
similar to a {hacker}, who enjoys exploring the details of
programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities.
Whereas a hacker tends to produce great hacks, a whacker only ends
up whacking the system or program in question. Whackers are often
quite egotistical and eager to claim {wizard} status,
regardless of the views of their peers. 2. A person who is good at
programming quickly, though rather poorly and ineptly.
whales: n. See {like kicking dead whales down the beach}.
wheel: [from slang `big wheel' for a powerful person] n. A
person who has an active a {wheel bit}. "We need to find a
wheel to un{wedge} the hung tape drives."
wheel bit: n. A privilege bit that allows the possessor to perform
some restricted operation on a timesharing system, such as read or
write any file on the system regardless of protections, change or
look at any address in the running monitor, crash or reload the
system, and kill or create jobs and user accounts. The term was
invented on the TENEX operating system, and carried over to
TOPS-20, XEROX-IFS, and others. The state of being in a privileged
logon is sometimes called `wheel mode'. This term entered the
UNIX culture from TWENEX in the mid-1980s and has been gaining
popularity there (esp. at university sites). See also {root}.
wheel wars: [Stanford University] A period in {larval stage}
during which student hackers hassle each other by attempting to log
each other out of the system, delete each other's files, and
otherwise wreak havoc, usually at the expense of the lesser users.
White Book: n. Syn. {K&R}.
whizzy: [Sun] adj. (alt. `wizzy') Describes a {cuspy} program;
one that is feature-rich and well presented.
WIBNI: // [Bell Labs: Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most
requirements documents and specifications consist entirely of.
Compare {IWBNI}.
widget: n. 1. A meta-thing. Used to stand for a real object in
didactic examples (especially database tutorials). Legend has it
that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips. "But
suppose the parts list for a widget has 52 entries...."
2. [poss. evoking `window gadget'] A user interface object in
{X} graphical user interfaces.
wiggles: n. [scientific computation] In solving partial differential
equations by finite difference and similar methods, wiggles are
sawtooth (up-down-up-down) oscillations at the shortest wavelength
representable on the grid. If an algorithm is unstable, this is
often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate the
solution. Alternatively, stable (though inaccurate) wiggles can be
generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon.
WIMP environment: n. [acronymic from `Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing
device (or Pull-down menu)'] A graphical-user-interface-based
environment such as {X} or the Macintosh interface, as described
by a hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior
flexibility and extensibility. See {menuitis},
{user-obsequious}.
win: [MIT] 1. vi. To succeed. A program wins if no unexpected
conditions arise, or (especially) if it sufficiently {robust} to
take exceptions in stride. 2. n. Success, or a specific instance
thereof. A pleasing outcome. A {feature}. Emphatic forms:
`moby win', `super win', `hyper-win' (often used
interjectively as a reply). For some reason `suitable win' is
also common at MIT, usually in reference to a satisfactory solution
to a problem. Oppose {lose}; see also {big win}, which isn't
quite just an intensification of `win'.
win big: vi. To experience serendipity. "I went shopping and won
big; there was a 2-for-1 sale." See {big win}.
win win: interj. Expresses pleasure at a {win}.
Winchester:: n. Informal generic term for `floating-head'
magnetic-disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the
disk surface on an air cushion. The name arose because the
original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the
IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30 became
`Winchester' when somebody noticed the similarity to the common
term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the latter, the first 30
referred to caliber and the second to the grain weight of the
charge).
winged comments: n. Comments set on the same line as code, as
opposed to {boxed comments}. In C, for example:
d = sqrt(x*x + y*y); /* distance from origin */
Generally these refer only to the action(s) taken on that line.
winkey: n. (alt. `winkey face') See {emoticon}.
winnage: /win'*j/ n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or
when something is winning.
winner: 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer,
or person. "So it turned out I could use a {lexer} generator
instead of hand-coding my own pattern recognizer. What a win!"
2. `real winner': Often sarcastic, but also used as high praise
(see also the note under {user}). "He's a real winner --- never
reports a bug till he can duplicate it and send in an
example."
winnitude: /win'*-t[y]ood/ n. The quality of winning (as opposed
to {winnage}, which is the result of winning). "Guess what?
They tweaked the microcode and now the LISP interpreter runs twice
as fast as it used to." "That's really great! Boy, what
winnitude!" "Yup. I'll probably get a half-hour's winnage on the
next run of my program." Perhaps curiously, the obvious antonym
`lossitude' is rare.
wired: n. See {hardwired}.
wirehead: /wi:r'hed/ n. [prob. from SF slang for an
electrical-brain-stimulation addict] 1. A hardware hacker,
especially one who concentrates on communications hardware. 2. An
expert in local-area networks. A wirehead can be a network
software wizard too, but will always have the ability to deal with
network hardware, down to the smallest component. Wireheads are
known for their ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from
spare resistors, for example.
wish list: n. A list of desired features or bug fixes that probably
won't get done for a long time, usually because the person
responsible for the code is too busy or can't think of a clean way
to do it. "OK, I'll add automatic filename completion to the wish
list for the new interface." Compare {tick-list features}.
within delta of: adj. See {delta}.
within epsilon of: adj. See {epsilon}.
wizard: n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software
or hardware works (that is, who {grok}s it); esp. someone who
can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency. Someone is a
{hacker} if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a wizard
with respect to something only if he or she has specific detailed
knowledge of that thing. A good hacker could become a wizard for
something given the time to study it. 2. A person who is permitted
to do things forbidden to ordinary people; one who has {wheel}
privileges on a system. 3. A UNIX expert, esp. a UNIX systems
programmer. This usage is well enough established that `UNIX
Wizard' is a recognized job title at some corporations and to most
headhunters. See {guru}, {lord high fixer}. See also
{deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}, {incantation}, {magic},
{mutter}, {rain dance}, {voodoo programming}, {wave a
dead chicken}.
Wizard Book: n. Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman's `Structure
and Interpretation of Computer Programs' (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN
0-262-01077-1, an excellent computer science text used in
introductory courses at MIT. So called because of the wizard on
the jacket. One of the {bible}s of the LISP/Scheme
world.
wizard mode: [from {rogue}] n. A special access mode of a program or
system, usually passworded, that permits some users godlike
privileges. Generally not used for operating systems themselves
(`root mode' or `wheel mode' would be used instead).
wizardly: adj. Pertaining to wizards. A wizardly {feature} is one
that only a wizard could understand or use properly.
womb box: n. 1. [TMRC] Storage space for equipment. 2. [proposed]
A variety of hard-shell equipment case with heavy interior padding
and/or shaped carrier cutouts in a foam-rubber matrix; mundanely
called a `flight case'. Used for delicate test equipment,
electronics, and musical instruments.
WOMBAT: [Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time] adj. Applied to problems
which are both profoundly {uninteresting} in themselves and
unlikely to benefit anyone interesting even if solved. Often used
in fanciful constructions such as `wrestling with a wombat'. See
also {crawling horror}, {SMOP}. Also note the rather different
usage as a meta-syntactic variable in {{Commonwealth Hackish}}.
wonky: /wong'kee/ [from Australian slang] adj. Yet another
approximate synonym for {broken}. Specifically connotes a
malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or
amusingly perverse. "That was the day the printer's font logic
went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar." Also in
`wonked out'. See {funky}, {demented}, {bozotic}.
workaround: n. A temporary {kluge} inserted in a system under
development or test in order to avoid the effects of a {bug} or
{misfeature} so that work can continue. Theoretically,
workarounds are always replaced by {fix}es; in practice,
customers often find themselves living with workarounds in the
first couple of releases. "The code died on NUL characters in the
input, so I fixed it to interpret them as spaces." "That's not a
fix, that's a workaround!"
working as designed: [IBM] adj. 1. In conformance to a wrong or
inappropriate specification; useful, but misdesigned.
2. Frequently used as a sardonic comment on a program's utility.
3. Unfortunately also used as a bogus reason for not accepting a
criticism or suggestion. At {IBM}, this sense is used in
official documents! See {BAD}.
worm: [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel `The
Shockwave Rider', via XEROX PARC] n. A program that propagates
itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. Compare
{virus}. Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is
assumed that only {cracker}s write worms. Perhaps the
best-known example was Robert T. Morris's `Internet Worm' of 1988,
a `benign' one that got out of control and hogged hundreds of
Suns and VAXen across the U.S. See also {cracker}, {RTM},
{Trojan horse}, {ice}.
wound around the axle: adj. In an infinite loop. Often used by older
computer types.
wrap around: vi. (also n. `wraparound' and v. shorthand `wrap')
1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over at zero or at
`minus infinity' (see {infinity}) after its maximum value has
been reached, and continues incrementing, either because it is
programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as when a car's
odometer starts over at 0). 2. To change {phase} gradually and
continuously by maintaining a steady wake-sleep cycle somewhat
longer than 24 hours, e.g., living six long (28-hour) days in a week
(or, equivalently, sleeping at the rate of 10 microhertz).
write-only code: [a play on `read-only memory'] n. Code so
arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be modified or
even comprehended by anyone but its author, and possibly not even
by him/her. A {Bad Thing}.
write-only language: n. A language with syntax (or semantics)
sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size
is {write-only code}. A sobriquet applied occasionally to C and
often to APL, though {INTERCAL} and {TECO} certainly deserve it
more.
write-only memory: n. The obvious antonym to `read-only
memory'. Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless
chain of approvals required of component specifications, during
which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at Signetics
once created a specification for a write-only memory and included
it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved. This
inclusion came to the attention of Signetics {management} only
when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing
information. Signetics published a corrected edition of the data
book and requested the return of the `erroneous' ones. Later,
around 1974, Signetics bought a double-page spread in `Electronics'
magazine's April issue and used the spec as an April Fools' Day
joke. Instead of the more conventional characteristic curves, the
25120 "fully encoded, 9046 x N, Random Access, write-only-memory"
data sheet included diagrams of "bit capacity vs. Temp.",
"Iff vs. Vff", "Number of pins remaining vs. number of socket
insertions", and "AQL vs. selling price". The 25120 required a
6.3 VAC VFF supply, a +10V VCC, and VDD of 0V,
+/- 2%.
Wrong Thing: n. A design, action, or decision that is clearly
incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized; always emphasized
in speech as if capitalized. The opposite of the {Right Thing};
more generally, anything that is not the Right Thing. In cases
where `the good is the enemy of the best', the merely good --- although
good --- is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. "In C, the default is for
module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than
just within the module. This is clearly the Wrong Thing."
wugga wugga: /wuh'g* wuh'g*/ n. Imaginary sound that a computer
program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task.
Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, {grind} (sense 4).
WYSIWYG: /wiz'ee-wig/ adj. Describes a user interface under which
"What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one that uses
more-or-less obscure commands which do not result in immediate
visual feedback. The term can be mildly derogatory, as it is often
used to refer to dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted
at non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands.
On the other hand, EMACS was one of the very first WYSIWYG editors,
replacing (actually, at first overlaying) the extremely obscure,
command-based {TECO}. See also {WIMP environment}. [Oddly
enough, this term has already made it into the OED. --- ESR]
= X =
X: /X/ n. 1. Used in various speech and writing contexts (also
in lowercase) in roughly its algebraic sense of `unknown within a
set defined by context' (compare {N}). Thus, the abbreviation
680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, or 68040, and 80x86
stands for 80186, 80286 80386 or 80486 (note that a UNIX hacker
might write these as 680[0-4]0 and 80[1-4]86 or 680?0 and 80?86
respectively; see {glob}). 2. [after the name of an earlier
window system called `W'] An over-sized, over-featured,
over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated window system
developed at MIT and widely used on UNIX systems.
XOFF: /X'of/ n. Syn. {control-s}.
xor: /X'or/, /kzor/ conj. Exclusive or. `A xor B' means
`A or B, but not both'. "I want to get cherry pie xor a
banana split." This derives from the technical use of the term as
a function on truth-values that is true if exactly one of its two
arguments is true.
xref: /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for
`cross-reference'.
XXX: /X-X-X/ n. A marker that attention is needed.
Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged
up or need to be. Some hackers liken `XXX' to the notional
heavy-porn movie rating.
xyzzy: /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/
[from the ADVENT game] adj. The {canonical} `magic word'.
This comes from {ADVENT}, in which the idea is to explore an
underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures you
find there. If you type `xyzzy' at the appropriate time, you can
move instantly between two otherwise distant points. If, therefore,
you encounter some bit of {magic}, you might remark on this
quite succinctly by saying simply "Xyzzy!" "Ordinarily you
can't look at someone else's screen if he has protected it, but if
you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will let you do it
anyway." "Xyzzy!" Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an
undocumented no-op command on several OSes; in Data General's
AOS/VS, for example, it would typically respond "Nothing
happens", just as {ADVENT} did if the magic was invoked at the
wrong spot or before a player had performed the action that enabled
the word. See also {plugh}.
= Y =
YA-: [Yet Another] abbrev. In hackish acronyms this almost
invariably expands to {Yet Another}, following the precedent set
by UNIX `yacc(1)'. See {YABA}.
YABA: /ya'b*/ [Cambridge] n. Yet Another Bloody Acronym. Whenever
some program is being named, someone invariably suggests that it be
given a name that is acronymic. The response from those with a
trace of originality is to remark ironically that the proposed name
would then be `YABA-compatible'. Also used in response to questions
like "What is WYSIWYG?" See also {TLA}.
YAUN: /yawn/ [Acronym for `Yet Another UNIX Nerd'] n. Reported
from the San Diego Computer Society (predominantly a microcomputer
users' group) as a good-natured punning insult aimed at UNIX
zealots.
Yellow Book: [proposed] n. The print version of this Jargon File;
`The New Hacker's Dictionary', forthcoming from MIT Press,
1991. Includes all the material in the File, plus a Foreword by
Guy L. Steele and a Preface by Eric S. Raymond. Most importantly,
the book version is nicely typeset and includes almost all of the
infamous Crunchly cartoons by the Great Quux, each attached to an
appropriate entry.
Yet Another: adj. [From UNIX's `yacc(1)', `Yet Another Compiler-
Compiler', a LALR parser generator] 1. Of your own work: A humorous
allusion often used in titles to acknowledge that the topic is not
original, though the content is. As in `Yet Another AI Group'
or `Yet Another Simulated Annealing Algorithm'. 2. Of others'
work: Describes something of which there are far too many. See
also {YA-}, {YABA}, {YAUN}.
You are not expected to understand this: cav. [UNIX] The canonical
comment describing something {magic} or too complicated to
bother explaining properly. From an infamous comment in the
context-switching code of the V6 UNIX kernel.
You know you've been hacking too long when...: The set-up line
for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These
include the following:
* not only do you check your email more often than your paper
mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your
postal one.
* your {SO} kisses you on the neck and the first thing you
think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}."
* you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're
doing it in octal.
* your computers have a higher street value than your car.
* in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
* more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in
some programming language.
* you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.
[An early version of this entry said "All but one of these
have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite
often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The
ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out
of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one
out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple
independent reports of its actually happening. --- ESR]
Your mileage may vary: cav. [from the standard disclaimer attached
to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1. A ritual
warning often found in UNIX freeware distributions. Translates
roughly as "Hey, I tried to write this portably, but who
*knows* what'll happen on your system?" 2. A qualifier more
generally attached to advice. "I find that sending flowers works
well, but your mileage may vary."
Yow!: /yow/ [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] interj. A favored hacker
expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. "Yow! Check out what
happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display hack!"
Compare {gurfle}.
yoyo mode: n. The state in which the system is said to be when it
rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down.
Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware
vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits.
Sun Microsystems gave out logoized yoyos at SIGPLAN '88. Tourists
staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were
subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top
computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish: /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ n. obs. The
character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in
its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term
is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked
whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang)
sauce. Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which
could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit
incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.
= Z =
zap: 1. n. Spiciness. 2. vt. To make food spicy. 3. vt. To make
someone `suffer' by making his food spicy. (Most hackers love
spicy food. Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it makes
you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.) See {zapped}.
4. vt. To modify, usually to correct; esp. used when the action
is performed with a debugger or binary patching tool. Also implies
surgical precision. "Zap the debug level to 6 and run it again."
In the IBM mainframe world, binary patches are applied to programs
or to the OS with a program called `superzap', whose file name is
`IMASPZAP' (I M A SuPerZAP). 5. vt. To erase or reset. 6. To
{fry} a chip with static electricity. "Uh oh --- I think that
lightning strike may have zapped the disk controller."
zapped: adj. Spicy. This term is used to distinguish between food
that is hot (in temperature) and food that is *spicy*-hot.
For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon Chicken is a kind of
chicken salad that is cold but zapped; by contrast, {vanilla}
wonton soup is hot but not zapped. See also {{oriental food}},
{laser chicken}. See {zap}, senses 1 and 2.
zen: vt. To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash
of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally
applied to problems of life in general. "How'd you figure out the
buffer allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned it." Contrast {grok},
which connotes a time-extended version of zenning a system.
Compare {hack mode}. See also {guru}.
zero: vt. 1. To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of data,
such as bits or words (esp. in the construction `zero out'). 2. To
erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories,
where `zeroing' need not involve actually writing zeroes throughout
the area being zeroed. One may speak of something being
`logically zeroed' rather than being `physically zeroed'. See
{scribble}.
zero-content: adj. Syn. {content-free}.
zeroth: /zee'rohth/ adj. First. Among software designers, comes
from C's and LISP's 0-based indexing of arrays. Hardware people
also tend to start counting at 0 instead of 1; this is natural
since, e.g., the 256 states of 8 bits correspond to the binary
numbers 0, 1, ..., 255 and the digital devices known as `counters'
count in this way.
Hackers and computer scientists often like to call the first
chapter of a publication `chapter 0', especially if it is of an
introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First
Edition of {K&R}). In recent years this trait has also been
observed among many pure mathematicians (who have an independent
tradition of numbering from 0). Zero-based numbering tends to
reduce {fencepost error}s, though it cannot eliminate them
entirely.
zigamorph: /zig'*-morf/ n. Hex FF (11111111) when used as a
delimiter or {fence} character. Usage: primarily at IBM
shops.
zip: [primarily MS-DOS] vt. To create a compressed archive from a
group of files using PKWare's PKZIP or a compatible archiver. Its
use is spreading now that portable implementations of the algorithm
have been written. Commonly used as follows: "I'll zip it up and
send it to you." See {arc}, {tar and feather}.
zipperhead: [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind.
zombie: [UNIX] n. A process that has died but has not yet
relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process
hasn't executed a `wait(2)' for it yet). These can be seen in
`ps(1)' listings occasionally. Compare {orphan}.
zorch: /zorch/ 1. [TMRC] v. To attack with an inverse heat sink.
2. [TMRC] v. To travel, with v approaching c [that
is, with velocity approaching lightspeed --- ESR]. 3. [MIT] v. To
propel something very quickly. "The new comm software is very
fast; it really zorches files through the network." 4. [MIT] n.
Influence. Brownie points. Good karma. The intangible and fuzzy
currency in which favors are measured. "I'd rather not ask him
for that just yet; I think I've used up my quota of zorch with him
for the week." 5. [MIT] n. Energy, drive, or ability. "I think
I'll {punt} that change for now; I've been up for 30 hours
and I've run out of zorch."
Zork: /zork/ n. The second of the great early experiments in computer
fantasy gaming; see {ADVENT}. Originally written on MIT-DM
during the late 1970s, later distributed with BSD UNIX and
commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by Infocom.
zorkmid: /zork'mid/ n. The canonical unit of currency in
hacker-written games. This originated in {zork} but has spread
to {nethack} and is referred to in several other games.