A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.
Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong."
Knight turned the machine off and on.
The machine worked.
One day a student came to Moon and said: "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons."
Moon patiently told the student the following story:
[Ed. note: Pure reference-count garbage collectors have problems with circular structures that point to themselves.]
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe" Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal.
"I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster, saying: "I wish the toaster to be happy, too."
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 grinders. 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
under "A Selection of AI Koans" 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.
AIDX n. /aydkz/ n. Derogatory term for IBM's perverted version
of UNIX, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM RS/6000
series. A victim of the dreaded "hybridism" disease, this
attempt to combine the two main currents of the UNIX stream
(BSD and USG UNIX) became a monstrosity to haunt
system administrators' dreams. For example, if new accounts are
created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps
quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases.
For a quite similar disease, compare HP-SUX.
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, memory smash, 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 rude, 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 feature 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.
annoybot /*-noy-nott/ [IRC] n. See robot.
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.
Appendix A Removed into its components, it consists of :
The Meaning of `Hack', TV Typewriters, Two Stories About `Magic', A Selection of AI Koans, OS and JEDGAR, The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer
Appendix B A Portrait of J. Random Hacker
This profile reflects detailed comments on an earlier `trial balloon' version from about a hundred USENET respondents. Where comparatives are used, the implicit `other' is a randomly selected segment of the non-hacker population of the same size as hackerdom.
An important point: Except in some relatively minor respects such as slang vocabulary, hackers don't get to be the way they are by imitating each other. Rather, it seems to be the case that the combination of personality traits that makes a hacker so conditions one's outlook on life that one tends to end up being like other hackers whether one wants to or not (much as bizarrely detailed similarities in behavior and preferences are found in genetic twins raised separately).
See also General Appearance Dress Reading Habits Other Interests Physical Activity and Sports, Education, Things Hackers Detest and Avoid, Food, Politics, Gender and Ethnicity, Religion, Ceremonial Chemicals, Communication Style, Geographical Distribution, Sexual Habits, Personality Characteristics, Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality, Miscellaneous
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, memory smash, 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 flames. 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; skid; [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)'.
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.
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.
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. Also,
see one-banana problem for a superficially similar but
unrelated usage.
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 for 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
The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer (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.
barfmail n. Multiple bounce messages accumulating to the
level of serious annoyance, or worse. The sort of thing that
happens when an inter-network mail gateway goes down or
wonky.
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?"
barney n. In Commonwealth hackish, `barney' is to fred
(sense #1) as bar is to foo. That is, people who
commonly use `fred' as their first metasyntactic variable will
often use `barney' second. The reference is, of course, to Fred
Flintstone and Barney Rubble in old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
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 and Roy Trubshaw (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). Bartle has
taken a bad rap in some MUDding circles for supposedly originating
this term, but (like the story that MUD is a trademark) this
appears to be a myth; he uses `MUD1'.
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.
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 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/ n. 1. The third metasyntactic variable "Suppose we
have three functions: FOO, BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls BAR, which
calls BAZ...." (See also fum) 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'.
Earlier versions of this lexicon derived `baz' as a Stanford corruption of bar. However, Pete Samson (compiler of the TMRC lexicon) reports it was already current when he joined TMRC in 1958. He says "It came from `Pogo'. Albert the Alligator, when vexed or outraged, would shout `Bazz Fazz!' or `Rowrbazzle!' The club layout was said to model the (mythical) New England counties of Rowrfolk and Bassex (Rowrbazzle mingled with (Norfolk/Suffolk/Middlesex/Essex)."
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/ [abbreviation, `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 groups. 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
suits 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 variants `BFMI', `brute force and
*massive* ignorance' and `BFBI' `brute force and bloody
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 a
friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls at
UCB while 4.2BSD was in development (it had a well-known habit of
barking 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
TLAs, this is often abbreviated 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 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.
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
wannabees.
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 (see
tune) 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 emoticons 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).
blargh /blarg/ [MIT] n. The opposite of ping, sense 5; an
exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a
quantum of unhappiness. Less common than ping.
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}.
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."
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,
die horribly.
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' nanobots 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.
blurgle /bl'gl/ [Great Britain] n. Spoken metasyntactic variable,
to indicate some text which is obvious from context, or which is
already known. If several words are to be replaced, blurgle may
well be doubled or trebled. "To look for something in several
files use `grep string blurgle blurgle'." In each case, "blurgle
blurgle" would be understood to be replaced by the command you
wished to run. Compare mumble, sense 6.
<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 in appendix C] 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, fat electrons, magic smoke.
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 an 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.
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. 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.
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." One often hard-boots by performing a power cycle.
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.
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 Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me,
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 terms `bounce mail' and `barfmail' 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}.
/*************************************************
*
* 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 fart n. The actual result of a braino, as opposed to
the mental glitch which is the braino itself. E.g. typing
`dir' on a UNIX box after a session with DOS.
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.
braino /bray'no/ n. Syn. for thinko. See also {brain
fart}.
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 BartleMUDs, 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).
break-even point n. in the process of implementing a new computer
language, the point at which the language is sufficiently effective
that one can implement the language in itself. That is, for a new
language called, hypothetically, FOOGOL, one has reached break-even
when one can write a demonstration compiler for FOOGOL in FOOGOL,
discard the original implementation language, and thereafter use
older versions of FOOGOL to develop newer ones. This is an
important milestone; see MFTL.
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.
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.
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.
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. [abbreviation 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 (octal 200 and 400
respectively), 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 and firehose syndrome),
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 crunches 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 --- and Hopper herself reports that the term `bug' was regularly applied to problems in radar electronics during WWII. 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 in late 1990, 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. It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991. Thus, the process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug 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
fossils or misfeatures 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, Nominal Semidestructor, Telerat,
sun-stools.
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." In elder days, John McCarthy (inventor
of LISP) used to compare some efficiency-obsessed hackers
among his students to "ski bums"; thus, optimization became
"program bumming", and eventually just "bumming". 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'.
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.
Technically, `busy-wait' means to wait on an event by spinning 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: abbreviation, `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.
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.
bzzzt, wrong /bzt rong/ [USENET/Internet] From a Robin Williams
routine in the movie "Dead Poets Society" spoofing radio or
TV quiz programs, such as *Truth or Consequences*, where an
incorrect answer earns one a blast from the buzzer and condolences
from the interlocutor. A way of expressing mock-rude disagreement,
usually immediately following an included quote from another
poster. The less abbreviated "*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thank you for
playing." is also common; capitalization and emphasis of the
buzzer sound varies.
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".
C Programmer's Disease n. The tendency of the undisciplined C
programmer to set arbitrary but supposedly generous static limits
on table sizes, defined by constants in header files, rather than
taking the trouble to do proper dynamic storage allocation. If an
application user later needs to put 68 elements into a table of
size 50, the afflicted programmer reasons that he can easily reset
the table size to 68 (or even as much as 70, to allow for future
expansion), and recompile. This gives the programmer the
comfortable feeling of having done his bit to satisfy the user's
(unreasonable) demands, and often affords the user multiple
opportunities to explore the marvelous consequences of fandango on core. In severe cases of the disease, the programmer cannot
comprehend why each fix of this kind seems only to further
disgruntle the user.
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.
candygrammar n. A programming-language grammar that is mostly
syntactic sugar; the term is also a play on `candygram'.
COBOL, Apple's Hypertalk language, and a lot of the so-called
`4GL' database languages are like this. The usual intent of such
designs is that they be as English-like as possible, on the theory
that they will then be easier for unskilled people to program.
This intention comes to grief on the reality that syntax isn't what
makes programming hard; it's the mental effort and organization
required to specify an algorithm precisely that costs. Thus the
invariable result is that `candygrammar' languages are just as
difficult to program in as terser ones, and far more painful for
the experienced hacker.
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.
The word `canon' derives ultimately from the Greek `kanon' (akin to the English `cane') referring to a reed. Reeds were used for measurement, and in Latin and later Greek the word `canon' meant a rule or a standard. The establishment of a canon of scriptures within Christianity was meant to define a standard or a rule for the religion. The above non-techspeak academic usages stem from this instance of a defined and accepted body of work. Alongside this usage was the promulgation of `canons' (`rules') for the government of the Catholic Church. The techspeak usages ("according to religious law") derive from this use of the Latin `canon'.
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 thinkOBing. 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 "{A Selection
of AI Koans}" (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.
channel [IRC] n. The basic unit of discussion on IRC. Once
one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that
channel. Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings
that begin with a `+' or `#' sign, and can have topic descriptions
(which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of
discussion). Some notable channels are `+initgame',
`+hottub', and `+report'. At times of international
crisis, `+report' has hundreds of members, some of whom take
turns listening to various news services and summarizing the news,
or in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g.,
Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).
channel hopping [IRC, GEnie] n. To rapidly switch channels on
IRC, or GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly might hop
from one group to another at a party. This may derive from the TV
watcher's idiom `channel surfing'.
channel op /chan'l op/ [IRC] n. Someone who is endowed with
privileges on a particular IRC channel; commonly abbreviated
`chanop' or `CHOP'. These privileges include the right to
kick users, to change various status bits, and to make others
into CHOPs.
chanop /chan-op/ [IRC] n. See channel op.
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 April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl
in 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 boxes
(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.
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.
CHOP [IRC] n. See channel op.
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 blocks 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."
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 feature key.
COBOL /koh'bol/ [COmmon Business-Oriented Language] n.
(Synonymous with evil.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language
used by card wallopers to do boring mindless things on
dinosaur mainframes. Hackers believe all COBOL programmers
are suits or code grinders, 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.
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 weenies. "Dike out that goto or the code
police will get you!" The ironic usage is perhaps more common.
`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.
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 R.L. Clark's "A Linguistic Contribution to
GOTO-less programming", which appeared in a 1973 Datamation
issue (and was reprinted in the April 1984 issue of
`Communications of the ACM'). This 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.
command key [Mac users] n. Syn. feature key.
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 blurgle, `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, loose bytes, muddie, nadger, noddy, psychedelicware, plingnet, {raster blaster}, RTBM, seggie, spod, sun lounge, 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
features 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 crunching of a file using a particular
C implementation of compression by James A. Woods et al. and
widely circulated via USENET; use of crunch itself in
this sense is rare among UNIX hackers. Specifically, compress is
built around the Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm as described in "A
Technique for High Performance Data Compression", Terry A. Welch,
`IEEE Computer', vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8-19.
Compu$erve n. See CI$. The synonyms CompuSpend and
Compu$pend are also reported.
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}, spod, weenie.
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.
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-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.
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.
cooked mode [UNIX] n. The normal character-input mode, with
interrupts enabled and with erase, kill and other special-character
interpretations done directly by the tty driver. Oppose {raw
mode}, rare mode. This is techspeak under UNIX but jargon
elsewhere; other operating systems often have similar mode
distinctions, and the raw/rare/cooked way of describing them has
spread widely along with the C language and other UNIX exports.
Most generally, `cooked mode' may refer to any mode of a
system that does extensive preprocessing before presenting data to
a program.
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 cookies 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.
copious free time [Apple; orig. fr. the intro to Tom Lehrer's
song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"] n. 1. [used
ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in
question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to
be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the
speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that
the opportunity will not arise. "I'll add the automatic layout
stuff in my copious free time." 2. [Archly] Time reserved for
bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of
chrome, or the stroking of suits. "I'll get back to him
on that feature in my copious free time."
copybroke /ko'pee-brohk/ adj. 1. [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. 2. Copy-protected software
which is unusable because of some bit-rot or bug that has confused
the anti-piracy check.
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
metasyntactic 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." Compare
die, die horribly.
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.
Both these neologisms reflected a strong revulsion against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it's expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval stage} is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so.
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than the mundane reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have little overlap with the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon describes; though they often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life.
Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into someone else's has to be pretty losing. Some other reasons crackers are looked down on are discussed in the entries on cracking and phreaking. See also samurai, dark-side hacker, and {hacker ethic, the}.
cracking n. The act of breaking into a computer system; what a
cracker does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does not
usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but
rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly
well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of
target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre
hackers.
crash 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said
of the system (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk
drives. "Three lusers 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 (compare die horribly). 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 software
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 features 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.
This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at Harvard University which is part of the old physics building; it's said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII. To this day (early 1992) the windows appear to be full of random techno-junk. MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the term as a knock on the competition.
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).
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'.
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 abbreviation 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.
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 "True Names ... and Other Dangers" in
appendix C) 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, jack in, 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 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. 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.
dark-side hacker n. A criminal or malicious hacker; a
cracker. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the
dark side of the Force". The implication that hackers form a
sort of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended. Oppose
samurai.
Datamation /day`t*-may'sh*n/ n. A magazine that many hackers
assume all suits 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 an elaborate DD `Data
Definition' specification for I/O devices); 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 abbreviation. 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 suits took over and DEC became much more `businesslike'.
The history above is known to many old-time hackers. But there's more: Peter Samson, author of the TMRC lexicon, reports that he named `DDT' after a similar tool on the TX-0 computer, the direct ancestor of the PDP-1 built at MIT's Lincoln Lab in 1957. The debugger on that ground-breaking machine (the first transistorized computer) rejoiced in the name FLIT (FLexowriter Interrogation Tape).
dead adj. 1. Non-functional; down; crashed. Especially
used of hardware. 2. At XEROX PARC, software that is working but
not undergoing continued development and support.
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.
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.
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 linting. Confusingly, this is also referred to as
`linting' code.
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 apps 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.
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.
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.
die v. Syn. crash. Unlike {crash}, which is used
primarily of hardware, this verb is used of both hardware and
software. See also go flatline
die horribly v. The sofware equivalent of crash and burn,
and the preferred emphatic form of die. "The converter
choked on an FF in its input and died horribly".
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.
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 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 (early 1991) AT&T is attempting to recover from a
disastrously bad first six 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
(these are collectively known as power hits).
Discordianism /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of
Eris, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers.
Discordianism was popularized by Robert Shea and 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 Religion under 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 machines).
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:
Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source:
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.
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.
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.
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}.
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.
DPer /dee-pee-er/ n. Data Processor. Hackers are absolutely
amazed that suits 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'.
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. Folklore had it that PRIME
adopted the reversed-8-bit convention in order to save 25 cents per
serial line per machine; PRIME old-timers, on the other hand, claim
they inherited the disease from Honeywell via customer NASA's
compatibility requirements and struggled manfully to cure it.
Whoever was responsible, this probably qualifies as one of the
most cretinous design tradeoffs ever made. See meta bit.
A few other machines 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.
Female hackers almost never wear visible makeup, and many use none at all.
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 world and the computerized typesetting world in
general, `driver' also means a program that translates some
device-independent or other common format to something a real
device can actually understand.
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.
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.
Duff's device n. The most dramatic use yet seen of {fall
through} in C, invented by Tom Duff when he was at Lucasfilm.
Trying to bum all the instructions he could out of an inner
loop that copied data serially onto an output port, he decided to
unroll it. He then realized that the unrolled version could
be implemented by *interlacing* the structures of a switch and
a loop:
register n = (count + 7) / 8; /* count > 0 assumed */
switch (count % 8)
{
case 0: do { *to = *from++;
case 7: *to = *from++;
case 6: *to = *from++;
case 5: *to = *from++;
case 4: *to = *from++;
case 3: *to = *from++;
case 2: *to = *from++;
case 1: *to = *from++;
} while (--n > 0);
}
Having verified that the device is valid portable C, Duff announced
it. C's default fall through in case statements has long been
its most controversial single feature; Duff observed that "This
code forms some sort of argument in that debate, but I'm not sure
whether it's for or against."
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.
dumpster diving /dump'-ster di:ving/ n. The practice of sifting
refuse from an office or technical installation to extract
confidential data, especially security-compromising information
(`dumpster' is an Americanism for what is elsewhere called a
`skip'). Back in AT&T's monopoly days, before paper shredders
became common office equipment, phone phreaks (see phreaking)
used to organize regular dumpster runs against phone company plants
and offices. Discarded and damaged copies of AT&T internal manuals
taught them much. The technique is still rumored to be a favorite
of crackers operating against careless targets.
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 echoes, with different
identification information that renders dup killers
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.
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 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/ [abbreviation,
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code] n. An alleged
character set used on IBM dinosaurs. 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 hogs (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.
This term comes from the famous ELIZA program by Joseph Weizenbaum, 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.
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, brain-damaged SQL with delusions of
grandeur. The name permits marketroids to say "Yes, and you
can program our computers in English!" to ignorant suits
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/ [abbreviation, `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; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 GMT of November 17,
1858 (base date of the U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides).
System time is measured in seconds or ticks 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.
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 grovelling through
a core dump or hex image in the attempt to discover the bug that
brought a program or system down. The reference is to divination
from the entrails of a sacrified animal. Compare runes,
incantation, black art, desk check.
excl /eks'kl/ n. Abbreviation for `exclamation point'. See
bang, shriek, ASCII.
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 and VM/CMS shops, 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.
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.
factor n. See coefficient of X.
fall over [IBM] vi. Yet another synonym for crash or lose.
`Fall over hard' equates to crash and burn.
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, memory smash,
overrun screw, core.
FAQ list /F-A-Q list/ or /fak 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.
fat electrons n. Old-time hacker David Cargill's theory on the
causation of computer glitches. Your typical electric utility
draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of
coil taps located near the top of the dynamo. When the normal tap
brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean up, and use
special auxilliary taps on the *bottom* of the coil. Now,
this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary
or `thin' electrons, but the fat'n'sloppy electrons that are
heavier and so settle to the bottom of the generator. These flow
down ordinary wires just fine, but when they have to turn a sharp
corner (as in an integrated-circuit via) they're apt to get stuck.
This is what causes computer glitches. [Fascinating. Obviously,
fat electrons must gain mass by bogon absorption --- ESR]
Compare bogon, magic smoke.
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 key 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), splat, or the `command
key'. The Mac's equivalent of an ALT key. The proliferation
of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle peril of
iconic interfaces.
Many people have been mystified by the cloverleaf-like symbol that appears on the feature key. Its oldest name is `cross of St. Hannes', but it occurs in pre-Christian Viking art as a decorative motif. Throughout Scandinavia today the road agencies use it to mark sites of historical interest. Many of these are old churches; hence, the Swedish idiom for the symbol is `kyrka', cognate to English `church' and Scots-dialect `kirk' but pronounced /shir'k*/ in modern Swedish. This is in fact where Apple got the symbol; they give the translation "interesting feature"!
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.
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.
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
snarfs one or more files. Often abbreviated `FReq'; 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. Compare
hing and newsfroup.
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 flamers.
finn [IRC] v. To pull rank on somebody based on the amount of
time one has spent on IRC. The term derives from the fact
that IRC was originally written in Finland in 1987.
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.
firehose syndrome n. In mainstream folklore it is observed that
trying to drink from a firehose can be a good way to rip your lips
off. On computer networks, the absence or failure of flow control
mechanisms can lead to situations in which the sending system
sprays a massive flood of packets at an unfortunate receiving
system; more than it can handle. This is sometimes called
`firehose syndrome'. Compare overrun, buffer overflow.
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
crackers. 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'.
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.
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 flames. 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 microtapes 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 flattened 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.
flood [IRC] v. To dump large amounts of text onto an IRC
channel. This is especially rude when the text is uninteresting
and the other users are trying to carry on a serious conversation.
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 feature key.
flytrap n. See firewall machine.
FM n. *Not* `Frequency Modulation'; abbreviation for `Fucking Manual',
the back-formation of RTFM. Used to refer to the manual itself
in the RTFM. "Have you seen the Networking FM lately?"
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 MUDs 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.
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 staff of what became the MIT AI LAB was involved with TMRC, and probably picked the word up there.
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 blocks 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 variant 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,
point-and-drool interface, user-friendly.
for values of [MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is to use
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.
Historical note: this usage probably derives from the programming language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an Algol-like language that was the most common choice among mainstream (non-hacker) users at MIT in the mid-60s. It had a control structure FOR VALUES OF X = 3, 7, 99 DO ... that would repeat the indicated instructions for each value in the list (unlike the usual FOR that only works for arithmetic sequences of values).
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.
fork bomb [UNIX] n. A particular species of wabbit that can
be written in about 10 lines of C or shell on any UNIX system, or
occasionally created by an egregious coding bug. A fork bomb
process `explodes' by recursively spawning copies of itself
(using the UNIX system call `fork(2)'). Eventually it eats
all the process table entries and effectively wedges the system.
Fortunately, fork bombs are relatively easy to spot and kill, so
creating one deliberately seldom accomplishes more than to bring
the just wrath of the gods down upon the perpetrator. See also
logic bomb.
forked [UNIX;, prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj.
Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system was slowed to
a snail's pace by an inadvertent fork bomb.
fortune cookie [WAITS, via 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
postings 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 marketroids
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.
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). See also barney. 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.
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. The command is actually
`frobnicate' but is universally abbreviated to the shorter form.
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:/ [TMRC] 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.
Pete Samson, compiler of the TMRC lexicon, adds, "Under the TMRC [railroad] layout were many storage boxes, managed (in 1958) by David R. Sawyer. Several had fanciful designations written on them, such as `Frobnitz Coil Oil'. Perhaps DRS intended Frobnitz to be a proper name, but the name was quickly taken for the thing". This was almost certainly the origin of the term.
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!"
frogging [Waterloo University] v. 1. Partial corruption of a text
file or input stream by some bug or consistent glitch, as opposed
to random events like line noise or media failures. Might occur,
for example, if one bit of each incoming character on a tty were
stuck, so that some characters were correct and others were not.
See terminak for a historical example. 2. By extension,
accidental display of text in a mode where the output device emits
special symbols or mnemonics rather than conventional ASCII. Often
happens, for example, when using a terminal or comm program on a
device like an IBM PC with a special `high-half' character set and
with the bit-parity assumption wrong. A hacker sufficiently
familiar with ASCII bit patterns might be able to read the display
anyway.
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 suits;
see foobar, and foo for a fuller etymology.
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 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.
fum [XEROX PARC] n. At PARC, often the third of the standard
metasyntactic variables (after foo and bar. Competes
with baz, which is more common outside PARC.
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.
G [SI] pref.,suff. See quantifiers.
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 orthogonality. 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 metasyntactic 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 gassed. 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.
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.
In the U.S., hackerdom is predominantly Caucasian with strong minorities of Jews (East Coast) and Orientals (West Coast). The Jewish contingent has exerted a particularly pervasive cultural influence (see Food, above, and note that several common jargon terms are obviously mutated Yiddish).
The ethnic distribution of hackers is understood by them to be a function of which ethnic groups tend to seek and value education. Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon and tends to be met with freezing contempt.
When asked, hackers often ascribe their culture's gender- and color-blindness to a positive effect of text-only network channels.
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 apps 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. It was certainly in wide use among
hackers for at least five years before achieving mainstream
currency around early 1992.
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 GFRed 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 lusers 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 "{TV
Typewriters}" (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' (also power hit). 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,
`foobaz,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.
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
about. 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.
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.
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.
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 metasyntactic variable, invented by
Mike Gallaher and propagated by the GOSMACS documentation. See
corge.
gray goo n. A hypothetical substance composed of sagans 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 Worm, the n. The 1988 Internet worm perpetrated by
RTM. This is a play on Tolkien (compare elvish,
Elder Days). In the fantasy history of his Middle Earth
books, there were dragons powerful enough to lay waste to entire
regions; two of these (Scatha and Glaurung) were known as "the
Great Worms". This usage expresses the connotation that the RTM
hack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hackish history;
certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the
Internet than anything before or since.
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).
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.
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".
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.
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.
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. [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.
guru meditation n. Amiga equivalent of `panic' in UNIX
(sometimes just called a `guru' or `guru event'). 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.
This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days of the Amiga. There used to be a device called a `Joyboard' which was basically a plastic board built onto on a joystick-like device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari game machine. It is said that whenever the prototype OS crashed, the system programmer responsible would calm down by concentrating on a solution while sitting cross-legged on a Joyboard trying to keep the board in balance. This position resembled that of a meditating guru. Sadly, the joke was removed in AmigaOS 2.0.
gweep /gweep/ [WPI] 1. v. To hack, usually at night. At
WPI, from 1977 onwards, this often indicated that the speaker could
be found at the College Computing Center punching cards or crashing
the PDP-10 or, later, the DEC-20; the term has survived the
demise of those technologies, however, and is still live in late
1991. "I'm going to go gweep for a while. See you in the
morning" "I gweep from 8pm till 3am during the week." 2. n. One
who habitually gweeps in sense 1; a hacker. "He's a
hard-core gweep, mumbles code in his sleep."
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 this totipotent term see "The Meaning of `Hack'". 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 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.
The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see network, the and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see hacker ethic, the.
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). See also wannabee. xreffed under `hack'.
Most hackers subscribe to the first version of the hacker ethic, and many act on it by writing and giving away free software; a few go further and assert that *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary control of it is bad (this is the philosophy behind the GNU project). The second version of the hacker ethic is more controversial (some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering), but at least moderates the behavior of people who see themselves as `benign' crackers (see also samurai). On this view, it is one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by email from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged.
The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as USENET, {Fidonet} and Internet (see Internet address) can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset.
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 files).
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.
The adjective `long-haired' is well-attested to have been in slang use among scientists and engineers during the early 1950s; it was equivalent to modern `hairy' senses 1 and 2, and was very likely ancestral to the hackish use. In fact the noun `long-hair' was at the time used to describe a person satisfying sense 3. Both senses probably passed out of use when long hair was adopted as a signature trait by the 1960s counterculture, leaving hackish `hairy' as a sort of stunted mutant relic.
Item 41 (Gene Salamin): There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less than 2^18.
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 systems.
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.
hammer vt. Commonwealth hackish syn. for bang on.
hand-hacking n. 1. The practice of translating hot spots 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.
handle [from CB slang] n. An electronic pseudonym; a `nom de
guerre' intended to conceal the user's true identity. Network and
BBS handles function as the same sort of simultaneous concealment
and display one finds on Citzens's Band radio, from which the term
was adopted. Use of grandiose handles is characteristic of
crackers, weenies, spods, and other lower forms of
network life; true hackers travel on their own reputations rather
than invented legendry.
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.
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.
haque /hak/ [USENET] n. Variant spelling of hack, used
only of the noun form and connoting an elegant hack.
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 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. 1. 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. 2. On IBM PCs under DOS, refers
to a specific failure mode in which a screen saver has kicked in
over an ill-behaved application which bypasses the interrupts
the screen saver watches for activity. Your choices are to try to
get from the program's current state through a successful
save-and-exit without being able to see what you're doing, or
re-boot the machine. This isn't (strictly speaking) a crash.
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, 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.
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 grokked 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 lusers, 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.
hing // [IRC] n. Fortuitous typo for `hint', now in wide
intentional use among players of initgame. Compare
newsfroup, filk.
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.
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.
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).
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 Nominal Semidestructor,
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.
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 crashed 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.
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 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 `internationaliz,sation', 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.
ICBM address n. (Also `missile address') The form used to
register a site with the USENET mapping project includes a blank
for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy.
This is actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of
USENET links on a plotter; however, it has become traditional to
refer to this as one's `ICBM address' or `missile address', and
many people include it in their sig block with that name.
ice [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William
Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived 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; abbreviation 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 blocks 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 flames 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 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 of X.
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
spins or buzzes forever and goes catatonic). 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!"
initgame /in-it'gaym/ [IRC] n. An IRC version of the
venerable trivia game "20 questions", in which one user changes
his nick to the initials of a famous person or other named
entity, and the others on the channel ask yes or no questions, with
the one to guess the person getting to be "it" next. As a
courtesy, the one picking the initials starts by providing a
4-letter hint of the form sex, nationality, life-status,
reality-status. For example, MAAR means "Male, American, Alive,
Real" (as opposed to "fictional"). Initgame can be surprisingly
addictive. See also hing.
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.
DO :1 <- #0$#256any 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 ex-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 adj. 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.
IRC /I-R-C/ [Internet Relay Chat] n. A world-wide "party
line" network that allows one to converse with others in real
time. IRC is structured as a network of Internet servers, each of
which accepts connections from client programs, one per user. The
IRC community and the USENET and MUD communities overlap
to some extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have
discovered the wonders of computer networks. Some USENET jargon
has been adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as
emoticons. There is also a vigorous native jargon,
represented in this lexicon by entries marked `[IRC]'. See also
talk mode.
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} dinosaurs 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 cracker'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 in appendix C). 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 // [abbreviation] `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. 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.
jack in v. To log on to a machine or connect to a network or
BBS, esp. for purposes of entering a virtual reality
simulation such as a MUD or IRC (leaving is "jacking
out"). This term derives from cyberpunk SF, in which it was
used for the act of plugging an electrode set into neural sockets
in order to interface the brain directly to a virtual reality.
It's primarily used by MUD & IRC fans and younger hackers on BBS
systems.
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 retconned 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.
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. Even more confusingly, physicists
semi-jokingly use `jiffy' to mean the time required for light to
travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to be close to one
*nanosecond*. 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 and WAITS; 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.
jupiter [IRC] vt. To kill an IRC robot or user, and
then take its place by adopting its nick so that it cannot
reconnect. Named after a particular IRC user who did this to
NickServ, the robot in charge of preventing people from
inadvertently using a nick claimed by another user.
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.
K-line [IRC] v. To ban a particular person from an IRC
server, usually for grossly bad netiquette. Comes from the
`K' code used to accomplish this in IRC's configuration file.
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.
kick [IRC] v. To cause somebody to be removed from a IRC
channel, an option only available to CHOPs. This is an
extreme measure, often used to combat extreme flamage or
flooding, but sometimes used at the chop's whim.
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.
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 boxes 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/ [abbreviation, 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 farts are consistent that `kluge' was the original spelling, reported around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of *hardware* kluges. In 1947, the `New York Folklore Quarterly' reported a classic shaggy-dog story `Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces, in which a `kluge' was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial function.
The variant `kludge' was apparently popularized by the Datamation article mentioned above; it was titled "How to Design a Kludge" (February 1962, pages 30 and 31). 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."
Knuth /nooth/ [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, senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from there up to mid-1991, 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]
In an even more ironic historical footnote, kremvax became an electronic center of the anti-communist resistance during the bungled hard-line coup of August 1991. During those three days the Soviet UUCP network centered on kremvax became the only trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR. Though the sysops were concentrating on internal communications, cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the demonstrations in Moscow's streets. In those hours, years of speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer networking proved out --- and the original kremvax joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian revolutionaries of `glasnost' and `perestroika' made kremvax one of the timeliest means of their outreach to the West.
kyrka /shir'k*/ n. See feature key.
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 programmers, 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.
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, suits, 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.
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 (see cycle, sense
3) 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.
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
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 noise n. 1. [techspeak] Spurious characters due to electrical
noise in a communications link, especially an RS-232 serial
connection. Line noise may be induced by poor connections,
interference or crosstalk from other circuits, electrical storms,
cosmic rays, or (notionally) birds crapping on the phone
wires. 2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that
looks like the results of line noise in sense 1. 3. Stuff that is
theoretically a readable text or program source but employs syntax
so bizarre that it looks like line noise in senses 1 or 2. Yes,
there are languages this ugly; TECO and INTERCAL, to
name just two.
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 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!"
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 crocks. 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 hooks
(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!"
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.
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 suits!" Compare zero-content,
bandwidth, math-out.
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 [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, point-and-drool interface,
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 HLLs, 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 Two Stories About `Magic' (in 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 dinosaurs 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 in
appendix C).
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.
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 winning. "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 also 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.
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).
3. Some people refer to the totality of present networks this way.
maximum Maytag mode What a washing machine or, by extension,
any hard disk is in when it's being used so heavily that it's
shaking like an old Maytag with an unbalanced load. If prolonged
for any length of time, can lead to disks becoming {walking
drives}.
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 urchins. [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]
mega- /me'g*/ [SI] pref. See quantifiers.
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 TLAs. 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.
memory smash [XEROX PARC] n. Writing through a pointer that
doesn't point to what you think it does. This occasionally reduces
your machine to a rubble of bits. Note that this is subtly
different from (and more general than) related terms such as a
memory leak or fandango on core because it doesn't imply
an allocation error or overrun condition.
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 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.
Historical note: although in modern usage shaped by a universe of 8-bit bytes the meta bit is invariably hex 80 (octal 0200), things were different on earlier machines with 36-bit words and 9-bit bytes. The MIT and Stanford keyboards (see {space-cadet keyboard}) generated hex 100 (octal 400) from their meta keys.
metasyntactic variable n. 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. The word foo is
the canonical example. 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 with
a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted
at any time.
To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: foo, bar, baz, quux, quuux, quuuux...: MIT/Stanford usage, now found everywhere. At MIT, baz dropped out of use for a while in the 1970s and '80s. A common recent mutation of this sequence inserts qux before quux. foo, bar, thud, grunt: This series was popular at CMU. Other CMU-associated variables include gorp. foo, bar, fum: This series is reported common at XEROX PARC. fred, barney: See the entry for fred. These tend to be Britishisms. toto, titi, tata, tutu: Standard series of metasyntactic variables among francophones. corge, grault, flarp: Popular at Rutgers University and among GOSMACS hackers.
Of all these, only `foo' and `bar' are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and `foobaz' also enjoy very wide currency.
Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also Commonwealth Hackish: for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
MFTL /M-F-T-L/ [abbreviation: `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. See break-even point.
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.
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 macrotapes, 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 marketroids (another
version of the story holds than someone discovered a conflict with
another company's `microtape' trademark).
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.
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/ [abbreviation] 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
marketroids. 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 computrons. "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.
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.
missile address n. See ICBM address.
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 character under the cursor with the one before it 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 "The Meaning of `Hack'"). 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".
In a usage much closer to techspeak, a mode is a special state through which certain user interfaces must pass into in order to perform certain functions. For example, in order to insert characters into a document in the UNIX editor `vi', one must type the "i" key, which invokes the "Insert" command. The effect of this command is to put Bravo into "insert mode", in which typing the "i" key has a quite different effect (to whit, it inserts an "i" into the document). One must then hit another special key, "ESC", in order to leave "insert mode". Nowadays, moded interfaces are generally considered losing, but survive in quite a few widely-used tools built in less enlightened times.
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 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 in appendix C),
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: An Eternal Golden Braid' (pointer in the Bibliography in appendix C).
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 a hack 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). There is a widespread myth (repeated, unfortunately, by earlier versions of this lexicon) that the name MUD 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 is false --- Richard Bartle explicitly placed `MUD' in PD in 1985. BT was upset at this they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth.
Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD1 concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social interaction. Because these had an image as `research' they often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, together with the fact that USENET feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the U.K., made the MUDs 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.
muddie n. Syn. mudhead. Commoner in Great Britain, possibly
because system administrators there like to mutter "bloody
muddies" when annoyed at the species.
mudhead n. Commonly used to refer to a MUD player who eats,
sleeps, and breathes 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, on a MUD, or in a
chat system, all a mudhead will talk about is three topics: the
tactic, character, or wizard that is supposedly always unfairly
stopping him/her from becoming a wizard or beating a favorite MUD;
why the specific game he/she has experience with is so much better
than any other, and the MUD he or she is writing or going to write
because his/her design ideas are so much better than in any
existing MUD. 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." 6. A conversational wild card used to designate
something one doesn't want to bother spelling out, but which can be
glarked from context. Compare blurgle. 7. [XEROX PARC]
A colloquialism used to suggest that further discussion would be
fruitless.
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!)
Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at TMRC; it was already in use there in 1958. Peter Samson (compiler of the TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact) being twanged.
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 (USAF project MX981). 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/ 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.
nailing jelly vi. See like nailing jelly to a tree.
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.
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 "The Meaning of `Hack'", appendix A). See
hack.
neats vs. scruffies n. The label used to refer to one of the
continuing holy wars in AI research. This conflict tangles
together two separate issues. One is the relationship between
human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try to build systems
that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to the way humans
report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess not to
care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as
long as it works. More importantly, `neats' tend to believe
that logic is king, while `scruffies' favor looser, more ad-hoc
methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a `neat',
`scruffy' methods appear promiscuous and successful only by
accident; to a `scruffy', `neat' methods appear to be hung up
on formalism and irrelevant to the hard-to-capture `common
sense' of living intelligences.
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.gods, `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.godhood.
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.
netburp [IRC] n. When netlag gets really bad, and delays
between servers exceed a certain threshhold, the IRC network
effectively becomes partitioned for a period of time, and large
numbers of people seem to be signing off at the same time and then
signing back on again when things get better. An instance of this
is called a `netburp' (or, sometimes, netsplit).
netdead [IRC] n. The state of someone who signs off of IRC,
perhaps during a netburp, and doesn't sign back on until
later. In the interim, he is "dead to the net".
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.
netlag [IRC, MUD] n. A condition that occurs when the delays in
the IRC network or on a MUD become severe enough that
servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact, causing messages
to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up to a minute.
Note that this term does not have the sense of "jetlag", a
syndrome affecting people who travel to distant places and are
forced into odd sleeping patterns, probably because for hackers
this is quite normal.
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.
netter n. 1. Loosely, anyone with a network address. 2. More
specifically, a USENET regular. Most often found in the
plural. "If you post *that* in a technical group, you're
going to be flamed by angry netters for the rest of time!"
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 thrashing. 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 flamers, 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).
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. Compare hing and filk.
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 lists 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).
nick [IRC] n. Short for nickname. On IRC, every user must
pick a nick, which is sometimes the same as the user's real name or
login name, but is often more fanciful.
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[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.
Nominal Semidestructor n. Sound-alike slange for `National
Semiconductor', found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking
sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed
a series of microprocessors including the NS16000 and NS32000 and
several variants. At one point early in the great microprocessor
race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious
competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series.
Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never
implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature,
apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask
steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace,
joining the Zilog Z80,000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in
the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors. Compare HP-SUX,
buglix, Telerat, sun-stools.
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.
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 blocks
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.
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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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_
}
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.
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 blocks 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.
At IBM, folklore divides the world into one, two and three-banana problems. Other cultures have different hierarchies and may divide them more finely; at ICL, for example, five grapes (a bunch) equals a banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two bananas and three grapes. At any more complicated than that, one asks the manufacturers to send someone around to check things.
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 <- iNwhere `o' is the APL null character, the assignment arrow is a single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.
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.
op /op/ [IRC] n. Someone who is endowed with privileges on
IRC, not limited to a particular channel. These are generally
people who are in charge of the IRC server at their particular
site. Sometimes used interchangably with CHOP. Compare
sysop.
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.
OS /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An abbreviation heavily used in email,
occasionally in speech. 2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy. See
"OS and JEDGAR" (in appendix A).
This story says a lot about the the ITS ethos.
But there's more. JEDGAR would ask the user for `license to kill'. If the user said yes, then JEDGAR would actually gun the job of the luser who was spying. Unfortunately, people found that this made life too violent, especially when tourists learned about it. One of the systems hackers solved the problem by replacing JEDGAR with another program that only pretended to do its job. It took a long time to do this, because every copy of JEDGAR had to be patched. To this day no one knows how many people never figured out that JEDGAR had been defanged.
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 apps 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".
overflow pdl [MIT] n. The place where you put things when your
pdl is full. If you don't have one and too many things get
pushed, you forget something. The overflow pdl for a person's
memory might be a memo pad. This usage inspired the following
doggerel:
Hey, diddle, diddle
The overflow pdl
To get a little more stack;
If that's not enough
Then you lose it all,
And have to pop all the way back.
--The Great Quux
The term pdl seems to be primarily an MITism; outside MIT this
term would logically be replaced by `overflow stack', but
the editors have heard no report of the latter term actually being
in use.
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 thrashing at tasks, the next person to make a request
might be told "Overrun!" Compare firehose syndrome. 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 heisenbugs 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, memory smash, aliasing bug,
precedence lossage, fandango on core, {secondary
damage}.
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 lusers 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.
paper-net n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service,
analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network. USENET
sig blocks 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.
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.
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 turned down by the
technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies. It was
eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming
Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall,
1984). 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 escapePascal 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.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.
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).
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/ [abbreviation for `Push Down List'] 1. In
ITS days, the preferred MITism for stack. See {overflow
pdl}. 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 peeking 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 pokes 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.
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.
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.
phase-wrapping [MIT] n. Unintentional cycling of phase due
to waking up 2 or 3 hours later each waking cycle. Sometimes it
meant the intentional shift of phase over several days in order to
be awake at a particularly important time, say, a final exam.
Compare wrap around.
phreaking /freek'ing/ [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) (see cracking).
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." 5. n. A quantum packet of
happiness. People who are very happy tend to exude pings;
furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and aim them at a
needy party (e.g. a depressed person). This sense of ping may
appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a
quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of
happiness). The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe
people who exude pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of
language, "pingfulness" can also be used as an exclamation, in
which case it's a much stronger exclamation than just "ping"!).
Oppose blargh.
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.
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, 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}.
plaid screen [XEROX PARC] n. A `special effect' which occurs
when certain kinds of memory smashes overwrite the control
blocks or image memory of a bit-mapped display. The term "salt &
pepper" may refer to a different pattern of similar origin.
Though the term as coined at PARC refers to the result of an error,
some of the X demos induce plaid-screen effects deliberately
as a display hack.
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).
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. A few other OSs such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar
facilities. 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 the 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 abbreviation 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.
point-and-drool interface n. Parody of the techspeak term
`point-and-shoot interface', describing a windows, icons and
mice-based interface such as is found on the Macintosh. The
implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable
for idiots. See for the rest of us, WIMP environment,
Macintrash, drool-proof paper. Also `point-and-grunt
interface'.
POM /P-O-M/ n. Common abbreviation 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.
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 gronked state.
Syn. 120 reset; see also Big Red Switch. Compare
Vulcan nerve pinch, bounce, and boot, and see the
AI Koan in "A Selection of AI Koans" (in
appendix A) about Tom Knight and the novice.
power hit n. A spike or drop-out in the electricity supplying
your machine; a power glitch. These can cause crashes and
even permanent damage to your machine(s).
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,
memory smash, smash the stack, fandango on core,
overrun screw.
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 grinding (sense 2)
LISP code. 2. To format in some particularly slick and
nontrivial way.
pretzel key [Mac users] n. See feature 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 spots 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.
propeller key [Mac users] n. See feature 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.
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. 1. The `System V Interface Definition'. The covers
of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of
off-lavender. 2. Syn. Wizard Book. 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-line [IRC] v. To ban a particular IRC server from
connecting to one's own; does to it what K-line does to an
individual. Since this is applied transitively, it has the effect
of partitioning the IRC network, which is generally a {bad
thing}.
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.
Here are the SI magnifying prefixes:
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
zetta- 1000^7 1024^7 = 2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424
yotta- 1000^8 1024^8 = 2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176
Here are the SI 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)
zepto- 1000^-7 (not used in jargon---yet)
yocto- 1000^-8 (not used in jargon---yet)
The prefixes zetta-, yetta-, zepto-, and yocto- have been included
in these tables purely for completeness and giggle value; they were
adopted in 1990 by the `19th Conference Generale des Poids et
Mesures'. The binary peta- and exa- loadings, though well
established, are not in jargon use either---yet. 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 suits 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 silver crowns 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 of X.
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
variable}, 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,
....
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 demos. The jamming problem was essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but the keyboard layout lives on.
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, study 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. See also {for
values of}.
randomness n. 1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous
inelegance. 2. 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!" 3. Of people, synonymous with
`flakiness'. The connotation is that the person so described is
behaving weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons
which are (a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are
probably as inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are
likely to pass with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe
it's just randomness. See if he calls back."
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.
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 mode, cooked mode. 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.
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 bummed
into a state of tenseness 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, a Real Programmer}" in appendix A.
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. It's also noteworthy that on the
campus of Cambridge University in England, there is a gaily-painted
lamp-post which bears the label `REALITY CHECKPOINT'. It marks the
boundary between university and the Real World; check your notions
of reality before passing. 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 GFRs 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/abbreviations that refer humorously to
themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations. 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).
register dancing n. Many older processor architectures suffer
from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers. This is
especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their generated
code needs places to store temporaries for things like intermediate
values in expression evaluation. Some designs with this problem,
like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of special-purpose
registers that can be pressed into service, providing suitable care
is taken to avoid unpleasant side-effects on the state of the
processor. The act of coding around these restrictions is
sometimes called register dancing.
reincarnation, cycle of n. See cycle of reincarnation.
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.
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." "Darth Vader was retconned
into Luke Skywalker's father in "The Empire Strikes Back".
[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]
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.
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.
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 toasted or fried, software gets roached.
robot [IRC, MUD] n. An IRC or MUD user who is actually
a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some useful
service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random
users from adopting nicks already claimed by others, and
MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be
delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are
"annoybots", such as KissServ, which perform no useful function
except to send cute messages to other people. Service robots are
less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the `Julia' robot
active in 1990-91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test
experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen
minutes of conversation.
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. Alan Perlis said: "Every program eventually
becomes rococo, and then rubble." Compare {critical
mass}.
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.
RTBM /R-T-B-M/ [UNIX] imp. Commonwealth Hackish variant of
RTFM; expands to `Read The Bloody Manual'. RTBM is often the
entire text of the first reply to a question from a newbie;
the *second* would escalate to "RTFM".
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.
RTFB n. /R-T-F-B/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Binary'. Used when no manuals nor the the source for the
problem at hand exist and the only thing to do is use some
debugger or monitor and directly analyze the assembler or even
the machine code. "No source for the buggy port driver? Aaargh! I
*hate* proprietary operating systems. Time to RTFB."
RTFM /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Manual'. 1. Used by gurus 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 FM,
RTFAQ, RTFB, RTFS, RTM, all of which mutated
from RTFM, and compare UTSL.
RTFS n. /R-T-F-S/ [UNIX] 1. imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Source'. Stronger form of RTFM, used when the problem
at hand is not necessarily obvious and not available from
the manuals --- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe
never will be. For even more tricky situations, see RTFB.
2. imp. Variant of RTFM, where `S' stands for `Standard'.
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: abbreviation for `Read The Manual'] 1. Politer
variant of RTFM. 2. Robert T. Morris, perpetrator of the
great Internet worm of 1988 (see Great Worm, the); 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. Oppose cuspy.
3. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without regard for
its other users in such a way as to cause a (non-fatal) problem is
said to be `rude'. Examples: programs that change tty modes
without resetting them on exit, or windowing programs that keep
forcing themselves to the top of the window stack. Compare
all-elbows.
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 machines). Compare donuts.
S/N ratio // n. (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio'). Syn.
signal-to-noise ratio. Often abbreviated `SNR'.
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 Avenue, 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 Avenue; 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 Avenue. 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!"
[My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative of the strawberry found out there called an `olalliberry' --- ESR]
[Ironic footnote: it appears that the meme about ginger vs. rotting meat may be an urban legend. It's not born out by an examination of medieval recipes or period purchase records for spices, and appears full-blown in the works of Samuel Pegge, a gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food myths. --- ESR]
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, XEROX PARC, 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.
Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a
computer salesman?
A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying. [Some versions add:
...and probably knows how to drive.]
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.
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.
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.
samurai n. A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs,
snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers
pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other
parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith.
In 1991, mainstream media reported the existence of a loose-knit
culture of samurai that meets electronically on BBS systems, mostly
bright teenagers with personal micros; they have modelled
themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan and on the
"net cowboys" of William Gibson's cyberpunk novels. Those
interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their
employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by
criminal crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic;
some quote Miyamoto Musashi's `Book of Five Rings', a classic
of historical samurai doctrine, in support of these principles.
See also Stupids, social engineering, cracker,
hacker ethic, the, and dark-side hacker.
sandbender [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and
the physical design of chips. Compare ironmonger, {polygon
pusher}.
sandbox n. 1. (also `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. 2. Syn. link farm
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
mundanes.
scag vt. To destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the
filesystem or by causing media damage. "That last power hit scagged
the system disk." Compare scrog, roach.
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 scribbled 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 PMed the PDP-11 controlling her regulator (see also provocative maintenance).
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". Compare scag; possibly the two are related. Equivalent
to scribble or mangle.
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 grovelling 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: There are conflicting stories about the origin of this term. It has been claimed 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). ITS fans, on the other hand, say it was coined years earlier in opposition to the incredibly paranoid Multics people down the hall, for whom security was everything. In the ITS culture it referred to (1) the fact that that by the time a tourist figured out how to make trouble he'd generally gotten over the urge to make it, because he felt part of the community; and (2) (self-mockingly) the poor coverage of the documentation and obscurity of many commands. One instance of *deliberate* security through obscurity is recorded; the command to allow patching the running ITS system (altmode altmode control-R) echoed as $$^D. If you actually typed alt alt ^D, that set a flag which would prevent patching the system even if you later got it right.
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 dumps
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.
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. The RCA 1802 chip used in the
early Elf and SuperElf personal computers had a `SEt X register'
SEX instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloric
impact.
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 (on some theoritical level) 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.
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.
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, the); 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."
sig virus n. A parasitic meme embedded in a sig block.
There was a meme plague or fad for these on USENET in late
1991. Most were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus. Please reproduce
me in your .sig block.". Of course, the .sig virus's memetic hook
was the giggle value of going along with the gag; this, however,
was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more people picked up
on the idea. There were creative variants on it; some people
stuck `sig virus antibody' texts in their sigs, and there was at
least one instance of a sig virus eater.
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 wars.
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 fabs 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 HLLs 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.
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.
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, memory smash,
precedence lossage, overrun screw.
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.
smurf /smerf/ [from the soc.motss newsgroup on USENET,
after some obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters] n. A newsgroup
regular with a habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and
cute. Like many other hackish terms for people, this one may
be praise or insult depending on who uses it. In general, being
referred to as a smurf is probably not going to make your day
unless you've previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of
irony. Compare old fart.
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 suits 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 --- FTPing 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 :snarf & barf: 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).
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 engineering n. Term used among crackers and
samurai for cracking techniques that rely on weaknesses in
wetware rather than software; the aim is to trick people into
revealing passwords or other information that compromises a target
system's security. Classic scams include phoning up a mark who has
the required information and posing as a field service tech or a
fellow employee with an urgent access problem.
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}.
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. A now-legendary device used on MIT LISP
machines, which inspired several still-current jargon terms and
influenced the design of EMACS. It was 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.
Note: early versions of this entry incorrectly identified the space-cadet keyboard with the `Knight keyboard'. Though both were designed by Tom Knight, the latter term was properly applied only to a keyboard used for ITS on the PDP-10 and modelled on the Stanford keyboard (as described under bucky bits). The true space-cadet keyboard evolved from the Knight keyboard.
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 nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of
the first video games; descendants are still feeping in video
arcades everywhere.
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 flags in the input of a batch program or filter.
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 feature 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.
spod [Great Britain] n. A lower form of life found on {talker
system}s and MUDs. The spod has few friends in RL and
uses talkers instead, finding communication easier and preferable
over the net. He has all the negative traits of the {computer
geek} without having any interest in computers per se. Lacking any
knowledge of or interest in how networks work, and considering his
access a God-given right, he is a major irritant to sysadmins,
clogging up lines in order to reach new MUDs, following passed-on
instructions on how to sneak his way onto internet ("Wow! It's in
America!") and complaining when he is not allowed to use busy
routes. A true spod will start any conversation with "Are you
male or female?" and will not talk to someone physically present
in the same terminal room as he until they log onto the same
machine that he is using. Compare newbie, tourist,
weenie, twink, terminal junkie.
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.
spool [from early IBM `Simultaneous Peripheral Operation
On-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) and occasionally even for input 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!
stale pointer bug n. Synonym for aliasing bug used esp. among
microcomputer hackers.
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 dinosaurs. 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).
stone knives and bearskins [ITS] n. A term traditionally used by
ITS fans to describe (and deprecate) computing environments
they regarded as less advanced, with the (often correct)
implication that said environments are grotesquely primitive in
light of what's known about good ways to design things. As in
"Don't get too used to the facilities here. Once you leave MIT
it's stone knives and bearskins as far as the eye can see".
Compare steam-powered.
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 swapped in.
stroke n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)
character. See ASCII for other synonyms.
strudel n. Common (spoken) name for the at-sign (`@', ASCII
1000000) character. See ASCII for other synonyms.
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.
stupid-sort n. Syn. bogo-sort.
Stupids n. Term used by samurai for the suits who
employ them; succinctly expresses an attitude at least as common,
though usually better disguised, among other subcultures of
hackers.
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.
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, Stupids, {SNAFU
Principle}, and brain-damaged. English, by the way, is
relatively kind; our Moscow correspondent informs us that the
corresponding idiom in Russian hacker jargon is `sovok', lit. a
tool for grabbing garbage.
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}.
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.
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. Compare candygrammar.
sysadmin /sis'ad-min/ n. Common contraction of `system
admin'; see admin.
sysape n. A rather derogatory term for a computer operator; a play
on sysop common at sites that use the banana hierarchy of
problem complexity (see one-banana problem).
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.
systems jock n. See jock, (sense 2).
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.
SysVile /sis-vi:l'/ n. See Missed'em-five.
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. 5. A dialect of LISP developed at Yale.
tail recursion n. If you aren't sick of it already, see {tail
recursion}.
`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 form 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
`NHOH'
Never Heard of Him/Her (often used in initgame)
`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
`TTYL'
talk to you later
`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)
`FOAD'
fuck off and die (use of this is often OTT)
Some BIFFisms (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.
TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's
classic `The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.] "There Ain't No
Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking
at an ugly design requirement or the prospect of using an
unpleasantly heavyweight technique. "What? Don't tell me I
have to implement a database back end to get my address book
program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you know." This phrase owes
some of its popularity to the high concentration of science-fiction
fans and political libertarians in hackerdom (see Appendix
B).
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.
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,
Nominal Semidestructor, 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."
tense adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece
of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, 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.
tera- /te'r*/ [SI] pref. See quantifiers.
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 {Nominal
Semidestructor}, 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 word hack doesn't really have 69 different meanings", according to MIT hacker Phil Agre. "In fact, hack has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation. Which connotation is implied by a given use of the word depends in similarly profound ways on the context. Similar remarks apply to a couple of other hacker words, most notably random."
Hacking might be characterized as `an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it.
An important secondary meaning of hack is `a creative practical joke'. This kind of hack is easier to explain to non-hackers than the programming kind. Of course, some hacks have both natures; see the lexicon entries for pseudo and kgbvax. But here are some examples of pure practical jokes that illustrate the hacking spirit:
While the director was eating, the students (who called themselves the `Fiendish Fourteen') picked a lock and stole a blank direction sheet for the card stunts. They then had a printer run off 2300 copies of the blank. The next day they picked the lock again and stole the master plans for the stunts --- large sheets of graph paper colored in with the stunt pictures. Using these as a guide, they made new instructions for three of the stunts on the duplicated blanks. Finally, they broke in once more, replacing the stolen master plans and substituting the stack of diddled instruction sheets for the original set.
The result was that three of the pictures were totally different. Instead of `WASHINGTON', the word ``CALTECH' was flashed. Another stunt showed the word `HUSKIES', the Washington nickname, but spelled it backwards. And what was supposed to have been a picture of a husky instead showed a beaver. (Both Caltech and MIT use the beaver --- nature's engineer --- as a mascot.)
After the game, the Washington faculty athletic representative said: "Some thought it ingenious; others were indignant." The Washington student body president remarked: "No hard feelings, but at the time it was unbelievable. We were amazed."
Here is another classic hack:
The `Boston Globe' later reported: "If you want to know the truth, MIT won The Game."
The prank had taken weeks of careful planning by members of MIT's Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The device consisted of a weather balloon, a hydraulic ram powered by Freon gas to lift it out of the ground, and a vacuum-cleaner motor to inflate it. They made eight separate expeditions to Harvard Stadium between 1 and 5 A.M., locating an unused 110-volt circuit in the stadium and running buried wires from the stadium circuit to the 40-yard line, where they buried the balloon device. When the time came to activate the device, two fraternity members had merely to flip a circuit breaker and push a plug into an outlet.
This stunt had all the earmarks of a perfect hack: surprise, publicity, the ingenious use of technology, safety, and harmlessness. The use of manual control allowed the prank to be timed so as not to disrupt the game (it was set off between plays, so the outcome of the game would not be unduly affected). The perpetrators had even thoughtfully attached a note to the balloon explaining that the device was not dangerous and contained no explosives.
Harvard president Derek Bok commented: "They have an awful lot of clever people down there at MIT, and they did it again." President Paul E. Gray of MIT said: "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that I had anything to do with it, but I wish there were."
Brian Leibowitz has researched MIT hacks both real and mythical extensively; the interested reader is referred to his delightful pictorial compendium `The Journal of the Institute for Hacks, Tomfoolery, and Pranks' (MIT Museum, 1990; ISBN 0-917027-03-5).
Finally, here is a story about one of the classic computer hacks.
Motorola quite properly reported this problem to Xerox via an official `level 1 SIDR' (a bug report with an intended urgency of `needs to be fixed yesterday'). Because the text of each SIDR was entered into a database that could be viewed by quite a number of people, Motorola followed the approved procedure: they simply reported the problem as `Security SIDR', and attached all of the necessary documentation, ways-to-reproduce, etc.
The CP-V people at Xerox sat on their thumbs; they either didn't realize the severity of the problem, or didn't assign the necessary operating-system-staff resources to develop and distribute an official patch.
Months passed. The Motorola guys pestered their Xerox field-support rep, to no avail. Finally they decided to take direct action, to demonstrate to Xerox management just how easily the system could be cracked and just how thoroughly the security safeguards could be subverted.
They dug around in the operating-system listings and devised a thoroughly devilish set of patches. These patches were then incorporated into a pair of programs called `Robin Hood' and `Friar Tuck'. Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were designed to run as `ghost jobs' (daemons, in UNIX terminology); they would use the existing loophole to subvert system security, install the necessary patches, and then keep an eye on one another's statuses in order to keep the system operator (in effect, the superuser) from aborting them.
One fine day, the system operator on the main CP-V software development system in El Segundo was surprised by a number of unusual phenomena. These included the following:
!X id1
id1: Friar Tuck... I am under attack! Pray save me!
id1: Off (aborted)
id2: Fear not, friend Robin! I shall rout the Sheriff
of Nottingham's men!
id1: Thank you, my good fellow!
Each ghost-job would detect the fact that the other had been
killed, and would start a new copy of the recently slain program
within a few milliseconds. The only way to kill both ghosts was to
kill them simultaneously (very difficult) or to deliberately crash
the system.
Finally, the system programmers did the latter --- only to find that the bandits appeared once again when the system rebooted! It turned out that these two programs had patched the boot-time OS image (the kernel file, in UNIX terms) and had added themselves to the list of programs that were to be started at boot time.
The Robin Hood and Friar Tuck ghosts were finally eradicated when the system staff rebooted the system from a clean boot-tape and reinstalled the monitor. Not long thereafter, Xerox released a patch for this problem.
It is alleged that Xerox filed a complaint with Motorola's management about the merry-prankster actions of the two employees in question. It is not recorded that any serious disciplinary action was taken against either of them.
The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer
This was posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather (utastro!nather), on May 21, 1983.
Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.
Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators, and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes, Real Programmers wrote in machine code. Not FORTRAN. Not RATFOR. Not, even, assembly language. Machine Code. Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers. Directly.
Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name.
I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corp., a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the LGP-30, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) drum-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster --- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)
I had been hired to write a FORTRAN compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.
"If a program can't rewrite its own code", he asked, "what good is it?"
Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed.
Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000. (Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the operation code and the address of the needed operand, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located.
In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a GO TO! Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.
Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it.
"You never know where it's going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants".
It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify.
I compared Mel's hand-optimized programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "top-down" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way.
Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum".
After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run ("Even the initializer is optimized", he said proudly), he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimized) random number generator to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win.
Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backwards, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it.
After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure.
I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.
Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out.
The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it.
Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account --- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it.
The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on --- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me.
He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory --- the largest locations the instructions could address --- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way.
I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised.
When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.
This is one of hackerdom's great heroic epics, free verse or no. In a few spare images it captures more about the esthetics and psychology of hacking than all the scholarly volumes on the subject put together. For an opposing point of view, see the entry for real programmer.
[1992 postscript --- the author writes: "The original submission to the net was not in free verse, nor any approximation to it --- it was straight prose style, in non-justified paragraphs. In bouncing around the net it apparently got modified into the `free verse' form you printed. In other words, it got hacked on the net. That seems appropriate, somehow."]
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.
Things Hackers Detest and Avoid
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; see also brain fart.
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 metasyntactic 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 handwaved. 3. In the FORTH
language, a single quote character.
tiger team [U.S. military jargon] n. 1. Originally, 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).
2. Recently, and more generally, any official inspection team or
special firefighting group called in to look at a problem.
A subset of tiger teams are professional crackers, 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 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 was a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto
that was 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.
tinycrud /ti:'nee-kruhd/ n. 1. 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. 2. TinyMud-oriented
chat on the USENET group rec.games.mud and elsewhere,
especially newbie questions and flamage.
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
abbreviation 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 switches 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 in appendix C), 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 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 tools with which
other programmers create applications. Many hackers consider this
more fun than applications per se; to understand why, see
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!"
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. It is reported that the phonetic mutations
"titi", "tata", and "tutu" canonically follow `toto',
analogously to bar, baz and quux in English.
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.
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 computrons 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 Things
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.
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 suits are tree-killers. The negative
loading of this term may reflect the epithet `tree-killer'
applied by Treebeard the Ent to the Orcs in J.R.R. Tolkien's
`Lord of the Rings' trilogy (see also elvish, {elder
days}).
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?"
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 droids. 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 hooks 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.
Turing tar-pit n. 1. A place where anything is possible but
nothing of interest is practical. Alan Turing helped lay the
foundations of computer science by showing that all machines and
languages capable of expressing a certain very primitive set of
operations are logically equivalent in the kinds of computations
they can carry out, and in principle have capabilities that differ
only in speed from those of the most powerful and
elegantly-designed computers. However, no machine or language
exactly matching Turing's primitive set has ever been built (other
than possibly as a classroom exercise), because it would be
horribly slow and far too painful to use. A `Turing tar-pit' is
any computer language or other tool which shares this property.
That is, it's theoretically universal --- but in practice, the
harder you struggle to get any real work done, the deeper its
inadequacies suck you in. Compare {bondage-and-discipline
language}. 2. The perennial holy wars over whether language A
or B is the "most powerful".
turist /too'rist/ n. Var. sp. of tourist, q.v. Also in
adjectival form, `turistic'. Poss. influenced by luser and
`Turing'.
TV Typewriters A Tale of Hackish Ingenuity
Here is a true story about a glass tty: One day an MIT hacker was in a motorcycle accident and broke his leg. He had to stay in the hospital quite a while, and got restless because he couldn't hack. Two of his friends therefore took a terminal and a modem for it to the hospital, so that he could use the computer by telephone from his hospital bed.
Now this happened some years before the spread of home computers, and computer terminals were not a familiar sight to the average person. When the two friends got to the hospital, a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They explained that they wanted to take a computer terminal to their friend who was a patient.
The guard got out his list of things that patients were permitted to have in their rooms: TV, radio, electric razor, typewriter, tape player, ... no computer terminals. Computer terminals weren't on the list, so the guard wouldn't let it in. Rules are rules, you know. (This guard was clearly a droid.)
Fair enough, said the two friends, and they left again. They were frustrated, of course, because they knew that the terminal was as harmless as a TV or anything else on the list... which gave them an idea.
The next day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They said: "This is a TV typewriter!" The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and demonstrated it. "See? You just type on the keyboard and what you type shows up on the TV screen." Now the guard didn't stop to think about how utterly useless a typewriter would be that didn't produce any paper copies of what you typed; but this was clearly a TV typewriter, no doubt about it. So he checked his list: "A TV is all right, a typewriter is all right ... okay, take it on in!"
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.
tweeter [University of Waterloo] n. Syn. perf, chad
(sense 1). This term (like woofer) has been in use at
Waterloo since 1972, but is elsewhere unknown. The word originally
referred to the treble speaker(s) on a hi-fi.
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 wreath' 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).
twilight zone [IRC] n. Notionally, the area of cyberspace where IRC
operators live. An op is said to have a "connection to the
twilight zone".
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 (compare
mainstream `chick').
Two Stories About `Magic' (by GLS)
The computer promptly crashed.
This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and diked it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since.
We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was magic.
I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on `more magic'.
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.
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.
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 unixisms 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.
unroll v. To repeat the body of a loop several times in succession.
This optimization technique reduces the number of times the
loop-termination test has to be executed. But it only works if
the number of iterations desired is a multiple of the number of
repetitions of the body. Something has to be done to take care
of any leftover iterations --- such as Duff's device.
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."
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.
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 newsgroups 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 lusers. 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 wizards 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 microkernel,
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.
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.
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 micros 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..."). 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.
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 many embedded-systems C environments and even under a few flavors of UNIX.
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, and is sometimes more
specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical
printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot
differences (this method is poor for detecting omissions in one
file). 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 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 Horses. 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 hacks). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly
perversely minded crackers, 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 lusers 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.
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 blocks 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.
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 fork bomb, 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 metasyntactic 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 grovelling 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.
wart n. A small, crocky 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.
Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality
As a result of all the above traits, many hackers have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. At worst, they can produce the classic computer geek: withdrawn, relationally incompetent, sexually frustrated, and desperately unhappy when not submerged in his or her craft. Fortunately, this extreme is far less common than mainstream folklore paints it --- but almost all hackers will recognize something of themselves in the unflattering paragraphs above.
Hackers are often monumentally disorganized and sloppy about dealing with the physical world. Bills don't get paid on time, clutter piles up to incredible heights in homes and offices, and minor maintenance tasks get deferred indefinitely.
The sort of person who uses phrases like `incompletely socialized' usually thinks hackers are. Hackers regard such people with contempt when they notice them at all.
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 deadlocks 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 deadlocked 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.
weenie n. 1. [on BBSes] Any of a species of luser resembling a
less amusing version of BIFF that infests many BBS
systems. The typical weenie is a teenage boy with poor social
skills travelling under a grandiose handle derived from
fantasy or heavy-metal rock lyrics. Among sysops, `the weenie
problem' refers to the marginally literate and profanity-laden
flamage weenies tend to spew all over a newly-discovered BBS.
Compare spod, computer geek, terminal junkie.
2. [Among hackers] 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. 3. 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.
whack v. According to arch-hacker James Gosling, to "...modify a
program with no idea whatsoever how it works." (see whacker).
It is actually possible to do this in nontrivial circumstances if
the change is small and well-defined and you are very good at
glarking things from context. As a trivial example, it's
relatively easy to change all `stderr' writes to `stdout'
writes in a piece of C filter code which remains otherwise
mysterious.
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 unwedge the hung tape drives." (see wedged, sense
1.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 groks 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 bibles of the LISP/Scheme
world. Also, less commonly, known as the Purple Book.
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.
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 metasyntactic 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.
woofer [University of Waterloo] n. Some varieties of wide paper
for printers have a perforation 8.5 inches from the left margin
that allows the excess on the right-hand side to be torn off when
the print format is 80 columns or less wide. The right-hand excess
may be called `woofer'. This term (like tweeter, which see)
has been in use at Waterloo since 1972, but is elsewhere unknown.
The word originally referred to the base speaker(s) on a
hi-fi.
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 fixes; 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 crackers 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, and Great Worm, the.
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). See also phase-wrapping.
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).
WYSIAYG /wiz'ee-ayg/ adj. Describes a user interface under
which "What You See Is *All* You Get"; an unhappy variant of
WYSIWYG. Visual, `point-and-shoot'-style interfaces tend to
have easy initial learning curves, but also to lack depth; they
often frustrate advanced users who would be better served by a
command-style interface. When this happens, the frustrated user
has a WYSIAYG problem. This term is most often used of editors,
word processors, and document formatting programs. WYSIWYG
`desktop publishing' programs, for example, are a clear win for
creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in them,
especially things like newsletters and presentation slides. When
typesetting book-length manuscripts, on the other hand, scale
changes the nature of the task; one quickly runs into WYSIAYG
limitations, and the increased power and flexibility of a
command-driven formatter like TeX or UNIX's `troff(1)' becomes
not just desirable but a necessity.
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. True WYSIWYG is environments supporting multiple
fonts or graphics is a a rarely-attained ideal; there are variants
of this of this to express real-world manifestations including
WYSIAWYG (What You See Is *Almost* What You Get) and
WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get). All these
can be mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to
dumbed-down user-friendly interfaces targeted at
non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands (compare
WYSIAYG). 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, WYSIWYG has already made it into the
OED, in lower case yet. --- ESR]
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.
xref /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for
`cross-reference'.
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. In more recent 32-bit versions, by the way, AOS/VS
responds "Twice as much happens". See also plugh.
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.
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.
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.
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 parsed) 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.
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.
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 errors, 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.
'Snooze /snooz/ [FidoNet] n. Fidonews, the weekly official on-line
newsletter of FidoNet. As the editorial policy of Fidonews is
"anything that arrives, we print", there are often large articles
completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend to elicit
flamage in subsequent issues.
(TM) // [USENET] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol
appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for
posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes
used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of
software and algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See
also UN*X.
-oid [from `android'] suff. 1. This suffix is used as in
mainstream English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or
some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily
use it with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wouldn't
keep company with it in mainstream English. For example, "He's a
nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't
make the grade; a `modemoid' might be a 300-baud box (Real Modems
run at 9600); a `computeroid' might be any bitty box. The
word `keyboid' could be used to describe a chiclet keyboard,
but would have to be written; spoken, it would confuse the listener
as to the speaker's city of origin. 2. There is a more specific
sense of `oid' as an indicator for `resembling an android'
which in the past has been confined to science-fiction fans and
hackers. It too has recently (in 1991) started to go mainstream
(most notably in the term `trendoid' for victims of terminal
hipness). This is probably traceable to the popularization of the
term droid in "Star Wars" and its sequels.
Coinages in both forms have been common in science fiction for at least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have probably been making `-oid' jargon for almost that long [though GLS and I can personally confirm only that they were already common in the mid-1970s --- ESR].
-ware [from `software'] suff. Commonly used to form jargon terms
for classes of software. For examples, see careware,
crippleware, crudware, freeware, fritterware,
guiltware, liveware, meatware, payware,
psychedelicware, shareware, shelfware, vaporware,
wetware.
/dev/null /dev-nuhl/ [from the UNIX null device, used as a data
sink] n. A notional `black hole' in any information space being
discussed, used, or referred to. A controversial posting, for
example, might end "Kudos to rasputin@kremlin.org, flames to
/dev/null". See bit bucket.
120 reset /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ [from 120 volts, U.S. wall
voltage] n. To cycle power on a machine in order to reset or unjam
it. Compare Big Red Switch, power cycle.
@-party /at'par`tee/ [from the @-sign in an Internet address]
n. (alt. `@-sign party' /at'si:n par`tee/) A semi-closed
party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp.
the annual Worldcon); one must have a network address to
get in, or at least be in company with someone who does. One of
the most reliable opportunities for hackers to meet face to face
with people who might otherwise be represented by mere phosphor
dots on their screens. Compare boink.
\beginflame
Predicate logic is the only good programming
language. Anyone who would use anything else
is an idiot. Also, all computers should be
tredecimal instead of binary.
\endflame
The Scribe users at CMU and elsewhere used to use @Begin/@End in
an identical way (LaTeX was built to resemble Scribe). On USENET,
this construct would more frequently be rendered as `<FLAME ON>'
and `<FLAME OFF>'.