Amethyst
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Brooks's Law is 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 ...
Brooks's Law2 is 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 ...
Brooks's Law3 is 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 {cr...
BRS is /B-R-S/ n. Syn. {Big Red Switch}. This abbreviation is fairly common on-line.
brute force is adj. Describes a primitive programming style, one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and apply...
brute force2 is directly to large ones. The {canonical} example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the `traveling salesman problem' (TSP), a classical NP-hard problem Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N o...
brute force3 is 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 ...
brute force4 is 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 alr...
brute force5 is 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...
brute force6 is 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 pr...
brute force7 is `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 hav...
brute force8 is 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...
brute force9 is 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 is 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 te...
brute force and ignorance2 is 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 is /B-S-D/ n. [acronym for `Berkeley System Distribution'] a family of {{UNIX}} versions for the DEC {VAX} and PDP-11 developed by Bill Joy and others at {Berzerkeley} starting around 1980, incorporating paged virtual memory, TCP/IP networ...
BSD2 is 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 stil...
bubble sort is 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 in...
bubble sort2 is 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...
bubble sort3 is might be used out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only from brain damage or willful perversity.
bucky bits is /buh'kee bits/ n. 1. obs. The bits produced by the CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard, resulting in a 9-bit keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards extended this with TOP and separate left and right ...
bucky bits2 is 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 ...
bucky bits3 is 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...
bucky bits4 is 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 b...
buffer overflow is n. What happens when you try to stuff more data into a buffer (holding area) than it can handle. This may be due to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and consuming processes (see {overrun}), or because the...
buffer overflow2 is data that must accumulate before a piece of it can be processed. For example, in a text-processing tool that {crunch}es a line at a time, a short line buffer can result in {lossage} as input from a long line overflows the ...
buffer overflow3 is 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...
buffer overflow4 is phone my buffer is going to overflow." See also {spam}, {overrun screw}.
bug is 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 har...
bug2 is 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 appe...
bug3 is 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 t...
bug4 is 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...
bug5 is 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 (f...
bug6 is Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being found". This wording seems to establish that the term was already in use at the time in its current specific sense. Indeed, the use of `bug' to mean an industrial defect was al...
bug7 is 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...
bug8 is 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 hap...
bug9 is "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 t...
bug10 is there. While investigating this, your editor discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it --- and that the present curator of the History of American Technology Museum d...
bug11 is a worthwhile exhibit. Thus, the process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug may have fixed it in an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth true! --- ESR]
bug-compatible is adj. Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with {fossil}s or {misfeature}s in other programs or (esp.) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separ...
bug-compatible2 is choice of / as an option character in 1.0."
bug-for-bug compatible is n. Same as {bug-compatible}, with the additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring that each (known) bug was replicated.
buglix is /buhg'liks/ n. Pejorative term referring to DEC's ULTRIX operating system in its earlier *severely* buggy versions. Still used to describe ULTRIX, but without venom. Compare {HP-SUX}.
bulletproof is 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 is 1. vt. To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code." 2. To squeeze out excess; to...
bum2 is 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 t...
bum3 is 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...
bump is vt. Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as C's ++ operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers, and index dummies in `for', `while', and `do-while' loops.
burble is [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 ...
buried treasure is 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. Use...
buried treasure2 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 is 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 m...
burn-in period2 is 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 stag...
burst page is n. Syn. {banner}, sense 1.
busy-wait is vi. Used of human behavior, conveys that the subject is busy waiting for someone or something, intends to move instantly as soon as it shows up, and thus cannot do anything else at the moment. "Can't talk now, I'm busy-waiting ti...
busy-wait2 is `busy-wait' means to wait on an event by {spin}ning through a tight or timed-delay loop that polls for the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. T...
busy-wait3 is time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may {hog} the processor.
buzz is 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 yo...
buzz2 is 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 cont...
buzz3 is 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 is /B-W-Q/ [IBM acronym, `Buzz Word Quotient'] The percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents. Usually roughly proportional to {bogosity}. See {TLA}.
by hand is 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 ...
by hand2 is 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, r...
by hand3 is 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 ...
byte is /bit/ [techspeak] n. A unit of memory or data equal to the amount used to represent one character; on modern architectures this is usually 8 bits, but may be 9 on 36-bit machines. Some older architectures used `byte' for quantities of...
byte2 is `bytes' that were actually bitfields of 1 to 36 bits! These usages are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes. Historical note The term originated in 1956 during the earl...
byte3 is 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 th...
byte4 is mutating the word `bite' so it would not be accidentally misspelled as {bit}. See also {nybble}.
bytesexual is /bit`sek'shu-*l/ adj. Said of hardware, denotes willingness to compute or pass data in either {big-endian} or {little-endian} format (depending, presumably, on a {mode bit} somewhere). See also {NUXI problem}.*C n. 1. The third ...
bytesexual2 is 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 comme...
bytesexual3 is 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 langua...
bytesexual4 is 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 la...
bytesexual5 is maintainability of assembly language".
calculator is [Cambridge] n. Syn. for {bitty box}.
can is 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 sprock...
can2 is that the ASCII character with mnemonic CAN (0011000) was used as a kill-job character on some early OSes.
canonical is [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...
canonical2 is 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 re...
canonical3 is 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 inter...
canonical4 is 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...
canonical5 is 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 ...
canonical6 is non-techspeak academic usages derive ultimately from the historical meaning, specifically the classification of the books of the Bible into two groups by Christian theologians. The `canonical' books were the ones widely accepted...
canonical7 is authority. The `deuterocanonical' books (literally `secondarily canonical'; also known as the `Apochrypha') were held to be of lesser authority --- indeed they have been held in such low esteem that to this day they are omitte...
canonical8 is 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 m...
canonical9 is in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used the word `canonical' in jargon-like fashion without thinking. Steele "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman "What...
canonical10 is `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 ...
card is n. 1. An electronic printed-circuit board (see also {tall card}, {short card}. 2. obs. Syn. {{punched card}}.
card walloper is 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 is /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 {cripplewa...
cargo cult programming is 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 s...
cargo cult programming2 is 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 gr...
cargo cult programming3 is 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 t...
cargo cult programming4 is 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 is [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...
case and paste2 is 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 ...
case and paste3 is 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 is [IBM] n. Yet another synonym for `broken' or `down'.
casting the runes is 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...
casting the runes2 is {examining the entrails}; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight in appendix A.
cat is [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 bro...
cat2 is 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 fil...
cat3 is 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 ...
cat4 is `cat' for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's {cdr}. Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made....
catatonic is 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 a...
catatonic2 is 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 is /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...
cdr2 is 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...
cdr3 is 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. GL...
cdr4 is in which strings were represented as linked lists; the get-character and skip-character operations were of course called CHAR and CHDR.
chad is /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 al...
chad2 is `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, rathe...
chad3 is clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'.
chad box is 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 box2 is the equivalent device in the CPU enclosure, which was typically across the room in another great gray-and-blue box.
chain is [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. Th...
chain2 is memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most UNIX programmers will think of this as an {exec}. Oppose the more modern {subshell}.
char is /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ n. Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data.
charityware is /char'it-ee-weir`/ n. Syn. {careware}.
chase pointers is 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 ja...
chase pointers2 is 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 ...
chase pointers3 is following dynamic data-structures. Used only in a debugging context.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
control-C is vi. 1. "Stop whatever you are doing." From the interrupt character used on many operating systems to abort a running program. Considered silly. 2. interj. Among BSD UNIX hackers, the canonical humorous response to "Give me a br...
control-O is vi. "Stop talking." From the character used on some operating systems to abort output but allow the program to keep on running. Generally means that you are not interested in hearing anything more from that person, at least on t...
control-O2 is who is flaming. Considered silly.
control-Q is 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 is 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...
control-S2 is listen to him --- as opposed to control-O, which has more of the meaning of "Shut up." Considered silly.
Conway's Law is prov. The rule that the organization of the software and the organization of the software team will be congruent; originally stated as "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler". This was or...
Conway's Law2 is early proto-hacker who wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called SAVE. The name `SAVE' didn't stand for anything; it was just that you lost fewer card decks and listings because they all had SAVE written on them.
cookbook is [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 ...
cookbook2 is 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 unk...
cookbook3 is of phrasebooks in human languages.
cookie is 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...
cookie2 is later transaction to this one (so you get the same clothes back). Compare {magic cookie}; see also {fortune cookie}.
cookie bear is n. Syn. {cookie monster}.
cookie file is n. A collection of {fortune cookie}s in a format that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program. There are several different ones in public distribution, and site admins often assemble their own from various sources including ...
cookie monster is [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 ...
cookie monster2 is "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. See also {wabbit}.
copper is n. Conventional electron-carrying network cable with a core conductor of copper --- or aluminum! Opposed to {light pipe} or, say, a short-range microwave link.
copy protection is n. A class of clever methods for preventing incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using it. Considered silly.
copybroke is /ko'pee-brohk/ adj. [play on `copyright'] Used to describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been `broken'; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled. Syn. {copywronged}.
copyleft is /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 {Gen...
copyleft2 is copyright notice intended to achieve similar aims.
copywronged is /ko'pee-rongd/ [play on `copyright'] adj. Syn. for {copybroke}.
core is 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 ...
core2 is 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 is 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 r...
core dump2 is 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...
core dump3 is 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 is n. Syn. {memory leak}.
Core Wars is 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 ...
Core Wars2 is 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 is /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation. See {grault}.
cosmic rays is 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 -...
cosmic rays2 is {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 passin...
cosmic rays3 is 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 ran...
cosmic rays4 is 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 r...
cosmic rays5 is 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 emissio...
cosmic rays6 is 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 beca...
cosmic rays7 is to withstand these hits.
cough and die is v. Syn. {barf}. Connotes that the program is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."
cowboy is [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 is /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 ...
CP/M2 is 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 stro...
CP/M3 is systems such as {{TOPS-10}}, OS/8, RSTS, and RSX-11. See {{MS-DOS}}, {operating system}.
CPU Wars is /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)....
CPU Wars2 is 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 com...
CPU Wars3 is 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 is 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 fa...
crank is [from automotive slang] vt. Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 {megaflops}, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorized operations."
crash is 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk drives. "Three {luser}s lost their files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that involves the read/write he...
crash2 is 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 s...
crash3 is 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 l...
crash and burn is vi.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and many subsequent imitators. Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backpla...
crash and burn2 is 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...
crash and burn3 is would be inconvenienced.
crawling horror is 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...
crawling horror2 is "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 is /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 Cr...
cray2 is 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 is 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 o...
crayola is /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 is 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 backgrou...
crayon2 is 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 gim...
creationism is n. The (false) belief that large, innovative designs can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers. In fact, experience has ...
creationism2 is 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. Unfortunat...
creationism3 is planning models beloved of {management}, they are generally ignored.
creeping elegance is 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 ...
creeping elegance2 is {creeping featurism}, {second-system effect}, {tense}.
creeping featurism is /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ n. 1. Describes a systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and {feature}s onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. See also {feeping crea...
creeping featurism2 is {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 ...
creeping featurism3 is 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.... ...
creeping featurism4 is 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 redesign...
creeping featuritis is /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, a...
creeping featuritis2 is designers' minds. (After all, -ism means `condition' or `pursuit of', whereas -itis usually means `inflammation of'.)
cretin is /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/...
cretin2 is insidious phonetic influence of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
cretinous is /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 {bagbite...
crippleware is 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})...
crippleware2 is can be upgraded to a more expensive model by a trivial change (e.g., cutting a jumper).
critical mass is 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 s...
critical mass2 is be discarded and rewritten.
crlf is /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...
crlf2 is {{UNIX}} influence this usage has become less common (UNIX uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').
crock is [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 exa...
crock2 is 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 y...
crock3 is tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge}, {brittle}. Also in the adjectives `crockish' and `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude'.
cross-post is [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). Gratui...
cross-post2 is 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 is /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 cr...
cruft is /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...
cruft2 is pun on `hand craft'] To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. n. Excess; superfluous junk. Esp. used of redundant or superseded code.
cruft together is 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 togeth...
cruft together2 is together}, {hack up}, {kluge up}, {crufty}.
cruftsmanship is /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from {cruft}] The antithesis of craftsmanship.
crufty is /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...
crufty2 is `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 b...
crufty3 is (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 is n. Two binary digits; a {quad}. Larger than a {bit}, smaller than a {nybble}. Considered silly. Syn. {tayste}.
crunch is 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 1,000,0...
crunch2 is {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 documen...
crunch3 is 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 i...
crunch4 is 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 ...
crunch5 is 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 is /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} (se...
cryppie is /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
CTSS is /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)...
CTSS2 is and to express some basic differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be presented to user programs.
CTY is /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 l...
CTY2 is refer to the CTY as `the console'.
cube is n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).
cubing is [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing *again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles, either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable fo...
cursor dipped in X is 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 move...
cursor dipped in X2 is composing on-line). "Talk about a {nastygram}! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
cuspy is /kuhs'pee/ [WPI from the DEC acronym CUSP, for `Commonly Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people] adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program that performs well and interfaces ...
cuspy2 is [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one regarded as available. Implies a certain curvaceousness.
cut a tape is [poss. fr. mainstream `cut a check' or from the recording industry's `cut a record'] vi. To write a software or document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically cutting the medium! Though t...
cut a tape2 is speaks of analogously `cutting a disk' or anything else in this sense.
cybercrud is /si'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The computer equivalent of bureaucratese.
cyberpunk is /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 Na...
cyberpunk2 is 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...
cyberpunk3 is tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See {cyberspace}, {ice}, {go flatline}.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
cycle crunch is 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 ...
cycle crunch2 is 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 ...
cycle crunch3 is opposed to traditional timesharing systems.
cycle drought is 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...
cycle drought2 is There will be a cycle drought until it's fixed."
cycle of reincarnation is [coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970] n. Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evo...
cycle of reincarnation2 is its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again. Several iteratio...
cycle of reincarnation3 is graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theolog...
cycle server is 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 {...
cycle server2 is funny because the obvious connection to electrical engineering was nonexistent --- the lab was named for a Donald C. Power. Compare {Marginal Hacks}.
daemon is /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 t...
daemon2 is 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 in...
daemon3 is 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 a...
daemon4 is 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 pronounce...
daemon5 is ITS called a {dragon}. Although the meaning and the pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary reflects current (1991) usage.
dangling pointer is n. A reference that doesn't actually lead anywhere (in C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't actually point at anything valid). Usually this is because it formerly pointed to something that has moved or disapp...
dangling pointer2 is of its techspeak meaning; for example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved to the other coast is a dangling pointer.
Datamation is /day`t*-may'sh*n/ n. A magazine that many hackers assume all {suit}s read. Used to question an unbelieved quote, as in "Did you read that in `Datamation?'" It used to publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like...
Datamation2 is but it has since become much more exclusively {suit}-oriented and boring.
day mode is n. See {phase} (sense 1). Used of people only.
dd is /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...
dd2 is the boot PROM to load it back on to a new disk". The UNIX `dd(1)' was designed with a weird, distinctly non-UNIXy keyword option syntax reminiscent of IBM System/360 JCL (which had a similar DD command); though the command filled a n...
dd3 is 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 is /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, havin...
DDT2 is 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 o...
DDT3 is 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...
DDT4 is 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. Sin...
DDT5 is used, the more descriptive name "Dynamic Debugging Technique" has been adopted, retaining the DDT acronym. Confusion between DDT-10 and another well known pesticide, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (C14-H9-Cl5) should be minim...
DDT6 is apparently mutually exclusive, class of bugs. Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more `businesslike'.
de-rezz is /dee-rez'/ [from `de-resolve' via the movie "Tron"] (also `derez') 1. vi. To disappear or dissolve; the image that goes with it is of an object breaking up into raster lines and static and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a pe...
de-rezz2 is mentally rather than physically. Usage extremely silly, also rare. This verb was actually invented as *fictional* hacker jargon, and adopted in a spirit of irony by real hackers years after the fact. 2. vt. On a Macintosh, many ...
de-rezz3 is are managed in small segments of the program file known as `resources'. The standard resource compiler is Rez. The standard resource decompiler is DeRez. Thus, decompiling a resource is `derezzing'. Usage very common.
dead code is 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 presen...
dead code2 is 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. ...
DEADBEEF is /ded-beef/ n. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for freshly allocated memory (decimal -21524111) under a number of IBM environments, including the RS/6000. As in "Your program is DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memo...
DEADBEEF2 is boundary, of course, you have BEEFDEAD.
deadlock is 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 waitin...
deadlock2 is 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 deadlo...
deadlock3 is 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 ...
deadlock4 is 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 t...
deadlock5 is they always both move the same way at the same time.
deadly embrace is 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 is [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,...
Death Star2 is 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 maga...
Death Star3 is 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 is 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...
DEC Wars2 is WARS"; the two are often confused.
DEChead is /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}. Not flattering. 2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.
deckle is /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 is n. See {hack mode}.
deep magic is [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 co...
deep magic2 is 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 "De...
deep space is 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 gott...
deep space2 is 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 coherent...
defenestration is [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" 2. The act of...
defenestration2 is better response time from a full-screen program. This comes from the dictionary meaning of `defenestrate', which is to throw something out a window. 3. The act of discarding something under the assumption that it will im...
defenestration3 is left." "Well, why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?" 4. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface. "It has to run on a VT100." "Curses! I've been defenestrated!"
defined as is adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart sense. "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer." Compare {logical}.
dehose is /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a {hosed} condition.
delint is /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected when {lint}ing.
delta is 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." (...
delta2 is 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 ...
delta3 is {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} i...
delta4 is 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 construct...
delta5 is epsilon of ---' that is, close to and even closer to.
demented is 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 e...
demented2 is brink of imminent collapse. Compare {wonky}, {bozotic}.
demigod is 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 ...
demigod2 is 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 ...
demigod3 is 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 is /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 d...
demo mode is [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 ...
demo mode2 is 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 is 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 ...
demon2 is 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 de...
demon3 is 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. Mean...
demon4 is whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used equivalently to {daemon} --- especially in the {{UNIX}} world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic.
depeditate is /dee-ped'*-tayt/ [by (faulty) analogy with `decapitate'] vt. Humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of text blocks within a page or above a rule can resul...
depeditate2 is letters are said to have been depeditated.
deprecated is adj. Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in favor of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for many years.
deserves to lose is 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...
deserves to lose2 is ({{ITS}} fans used to say this of {{UNIX}}; many still do.) See also {screw}, {chomp}, {bagbiter}.
desk check is 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 so...
desk check2 is Compare {eyeball search}, {vdiff}, {vgrep}.
Devil Book is 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 ...
Devil Book2 is 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 is /dee'voh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A person in a development group. See also {doco} and {mango}.
dickless workstation is n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for `diskless workstation', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50 and other machines designed exclusively to network with an expensive central disk server. These combine all the di...
dickless workstation2 is disadvantages of distributed personal computers.
dictionary flame is [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...
diddle is 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 {twiddl...
diddle2 is See also {tweak}, {twiddle}, {frob}.
diff is /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. Specifical...
diff2 is 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...
digit is n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation. See also {VAX}, {VMS}, {PDP-10}, {{TOPS-10}}, {DEChead}, {double DECkers}, {field circus}.
dike is vt. To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is "When in doubt, dike it out". (The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software pr...
dike2 is increasing it.) The word `dikes' is widely used among mechanics and engineers to mean `diagonal cutters', esp. a heavy-duty metal-cutting device, but may also refer to a kind of wire-cutters used by electronics techs. To `dike so...
dike3 is remove something. Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with dikes". Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended to informational objects such as sections of code.
ding is 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 havin...
dink is /dink/ n. Said of a machine that has the {bitty box} nature; a machine too small to be worth bothering with --- sometimes the system you're currently forced to work on. First heard from an MIT hacker (BADOB) working on a CP/M system w...
dink2 is 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 is 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 m...
dinosaur2 is 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 is 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 is 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...
dinosaurs mating2 is 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 ...
dinosaurs mating3 is Unisys (in 1984 --- this was when the phrase `dinosaurs mating' was coined); and as this is written AT&T is attempting to recover from a disastrously bad first 6 years in the hardware industry by absorbing NCR. More such ...
dirty power is 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 subtlet...
Discordianism is /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of {Eris}, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's `Illuminatus!' trilogy as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Western...
Discordianism2 is 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 usuall...
Discordianism3 is theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati. See appendix B, {Church of the SubGenius}, and {ha ha only ...
disk farm is n. (also {laundromat}) A large room or rooms filled with disk drives (esp. {washing machine}s).
display hack is 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, ...
display hack2 is 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 twinkli...
display hack3 is 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 is [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 pass...
Dissociated Press2 is 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 l...
Dissociated Press3 is Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of this Jargon File wart n. A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively...
Dissociated Press4 is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source window sysIWYG n. A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer ...
Dissociated Press5 is cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem! A hackish idle pastime is to apply let...
Dissociated Press6 is 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...
Dissociated Press7 is `travesty generators' have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of USENET flamers; see {pseudo}.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
paper-net2 is {voice-net}, {snail-mail}.
param is /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'. See also {parm}; Compare {arg}, {var}.
parent message is n. See {followup}.
parity errors is pl.n. Little lapses of attention or (in more severe cases) consciousness, usually brought on by having spent all night and most of the next day hacking. "I need to go home and crash; I'm starting to get a lot of parity errors...
parity errors2 is nearly always correctable transient error in RAM hardware.
Parkinson's Law of Data is 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 ...
Parkinson's Law of Data2 is 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 ind...
parm is /parm/ n. Further-compressed form of {param}. This term is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown outside IBM shops; spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but the synonym {arg} is favored among hackers. Compare {arg}, {var}...
parse is [from linguistic terminology] vt. 1. To determine the syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the standard English meaning). "That was the one I saw you." "I can't parse that." 2. More generally, to understan...
parse2 is just kretch the glims and then aos the zotz." "I can't parse that." 3. Of fish, to have to remove the bones yourself. "I object to parsing fish", means "I don't want to get a whole fish, but a sliced one is okay". A `parsed fis...
parse3 is over whether `unparsed' should mean `bony', or also mean `deboned'.
Pascal is 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 an...
Pascal2 is 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}). T...
Pascal3 is probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language", which was never formally published ...
Pascal4 is 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 th...
Pascal5 is Pascal, Kernighan wrote 9. There is no escape This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no casts to disable ...
Pascal6 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 in...
Pascal7 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, interna...
Pascal8 is 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...
Pascal9 is for teaching but not for real programming. Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language ...
patch is 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. Distingu...
patch2 is 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 ori...
patch3 is 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 op...
patch4 is 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 of...
patch5 is 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...
patch6 is 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. Th...
patch7 is 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...
patch space is 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 ...
patch space2 is 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 is 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 di...
path2 is `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, simila...
path3 is the C preprocessor has a `search path' it uses in looking for `#include' files).
pathological is adj. 1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, esp. one that exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using. An algorithm that can be broken by pathological...
pathological2 is are very unlikely to occur in practice. 2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully engineered as a worst case. The implication in both senses is that the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone...
pathological3 is algorithm in order to come up with such a crazy example. 3. Also said of an unlikely collection of circumstances. "If the network is down and comes up halfway through the execution of that command by root, the system may j...
pathological4 is case." Often used to dismiss the case from discussion, with the implication that the consequences are acceptable since that they will happen so infrequently (if at all) that there is no justification for going to extra trou...
payware is /pay'weir/ n. Commercial software. Oppose {shareware} or {freeware}.
PBD is /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 is /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 har...
PC-ism2 is {vaxism}, {unixism}. Also, `PC-ware' n., a program full of PC-isms on a machine with a more capable operating system. Pejorative.
PD is /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 copyright...
PD2 is anyone who can {snarf} a copy. See {copyleft}.
pdl is /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ [acronym for `Push Down List'] 1. In ITS days, the preferred MITism for {stack}. 2. Dave Lebling, one of the co-authors of {Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS machines was at one time pdl@dms). 3. `Program De...
pdl2 is 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 des...
pdl3 is eyes won't focus beyond 2 feet."
PDP-10 is [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 ...
PDP-102 is 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 we...
PDP-103 is 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 o...
PDP-104 is 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 hav...
PDP-105 is {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT}, {DPB}, {EXCH}, {HAKMEM}, {JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop}, {push}, appendix A.
PDP-20 is 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 lab...
PDP-202 is 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 syst...
PDP-203 is 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 is 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 ...
peek2 is {peek}ing around memory, more or less at random, to find the location where the system keeps interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate) lists of such addresses for various computers circulate (see {{interrupt list, the}}). Th...
peek3 is highly useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or (most likely) total {lossage} (see {killer poke}).
pencil and paper is 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 w...
pencil and paper2 is 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 h...
pencil and paper3 is 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 append...
peon is 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 is /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 is /perf/ n. See {chad} (sense 1). The term `perfory' /per'f*-ree/ is also heard.
perfect programmer syndrome is 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 per...
perfect programmer syndrome2 is 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 is /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. Su...
Perl2 is 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...
pessimal is /pes'im-l/ [Latin-based antonym for `optimal'] adj. Maximally bad. "This is a pessimal situation." Also `pessimize' vt. To make as bad as possible. These words are the obvious Latin-based antonyms for `optimal' and `optimize', b...
pessimal2 is most English dictionaries, although `pessimize' is listed in the OED.
pessimizing compiler is /pes'*-miz`ing k*m-pil'r/ [antonym of `optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually ...
pessimizing compiler2 is excessive cleverness is doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.
peta- is /pe't*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
PETSCII is /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 m...
PETSCII2 is and up-arrow (as in old-style ASCII) instead of underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at positions 65--90, put the shifted alphabet at positions 193--218, and added graphics characters.
phase is 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle. This is a useful concept among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's ph...
phase2 is regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to {wrap around} to the day schedule by Friday." A person who is roughly 12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'. ...
phase3 is frequently) used, meaning you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).) The act of altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech. 2. `change phase the hard way'...
phase4 is to get into a different phase. 3. `change phase the easy way' To stay asleep, etc. However, some claim that either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it is *shortening* your day or night that's hard (see {wra...
phase5 is travelers who cross many time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct causes the strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing phase. Hackers who suddenly find that they must change phase drastically in a short per...
phase6 is experience something very like jet lag without traveling.
phase of the moon is n. Used humorously as a random parameter on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to dete...
phase of the moon2 is channel open in mumble mode, having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." True story Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend on the phase of the moon. There is a little subroutine that had ...
phase of the moon3 is 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 t...
phase of the moon4 is 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 specificatio...
phase of the moon5 is 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. Th...
phreaking is [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 co...
phreaking2 is 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 c...
phreaking3 is 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 ...
phreaking4 is 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 an...
phreaking5 is 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- is [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 recog...
pico-2 is {{quantifiers}}, {micro-}.
run like a pig is v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of software. Distinct from {hog}.
pilot error is [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 ...
ping is [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 ...
ping2 is 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 ...
ping3 is order to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends." The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in Janua...
ping4 is 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 th...
ping5 is 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 ......
ping6 is 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 is `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...
Pink-Shirt Book2 is pink shirt. See also {{book titles}}.
PIP is /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, and OS/8 (derived from a utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8 and RT-11 for just about every other file ...
PIP2 is that when the program was originated, during the development of the PDP-6 in 1963, it was called ATLATL (`Anything, Lord, to Anything, Lord').
pistol is [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice pistol!"
pizza box is [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes. Two meg single-platter removable disk packs ...
pizza box2 is they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza oven. It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
ANSI standard pizza is /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}; comp...
plain-ASCII is /playn-as'kee/ Syn. {flat-ASCII}.
plan file is [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 locatio...
plan file2 is almost universally to humorous and self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}). See {Hacking X for Y}.
platinum-iridium is 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...
platinum-iridium2 is 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 di...
platinum-iridium3 is 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 ...
platinum-iridium4 is 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-c...
platinum-iridium5 is platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare {golden}.
playpen is [IBM] n. A room where programmers work. Compare {salt mines}.
playte is /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and {{byte}}. Usage rare and extremely silly. See also {dynner} and {crumb}.
plingnet is /pling'net/ n. Syn. {UUCPNET}. Also see {{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for {bang} (as in {bang path}).
plokta is /plok't*/ [Acronym for `Press Lots Of Keys To Abort'] v. To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a program is not known, or when trying to figure out if...
plokta2 is Plokta can also be used while trying to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation. Someone going into `plokta mode' usually places both hands flat on the keyboard and presses down, hoping for some useful resp...
plonk is [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*...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
segmentation fault is n. [UNIX] 1. An error in which a running program attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s with a segmentation violation error. 2. To lose a train of thought or a line of reasoning. Also uttered as ...
segv is /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').
self-reference is n. See {self-reference}.
selvage is /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense 1).
semi is /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 q...
semi2 is "Semi-immediately." (That is, maybe not for an hour.) "We did consider that possibility semi-seriously." See also {infinite}.
semi-infinite is n. See {infinite}.
senior bit is [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.
server is 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 s...
SEX is /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 ...
SEX2 is 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 ...
SEX3 is the PDP-11 and many other architectures. DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the `SEX' mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once) marketing wasn't asleep and forced a change. That wasn't the last time th...
SEX4 is 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 in...
SEX5 is (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 ...
SEX6 is actually had an official `SEX' instruction; the 6502 in the Apple II it competed with did not. British hackers thought this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly observed, you could have sex with a dragon, but you can'...
sex changer is n. Syn. {gender mender}.
shareware is /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 suppor...
shelfware is /shelfweir/ n. Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or government agency), but not actually required for any particular use. Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.
shell is [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 outsid...
shell2 is 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 is [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 logical is [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 ...
shift left logical2 is instead of `shift left'. Sometimes heard as LSH /lish/, from the {PDP-10} instruction set. See {Programmer's Cheer}.
shitogram is /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email. Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.
short card is 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 is n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging}; the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope that a bug will be perturbed out of existence. This almost never works, and usually introduces more bugs.
showstopper is n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation from its original theatrical use, which ref...
shriek is n. See {excl}. Occasional CMU usage, also in common use among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.
Shub-Internet is /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, Ava...
Shub-Internet2 is 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...
Shub-Internet3 is 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 use...
Shub-Internet4 is 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 is 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 com...
sidecar2 is other peripherals, it was by {magic}.
sig block is /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 ne...
sig block2 is quite an art form, including an ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote}, {fool file}); but many consider large sigs a waste of {bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usual...
sig block3 is and level of prestige on the net.
sig quote is /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."
signal-to-noise ratio is [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. He...
signal-to-noise ratio2 is paying attention to the medium in question. Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given. The term is most often applied to {USENET} newsgroups during {flame war}s. Compare {bandwidth}. See also {coefficient...
silicon is n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer systems (compare {iron}). Contrasted with software. See also {sandbender}.
silicon foundry is n. A company that {fab}s chips to the designs of others. As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon foundries and good computer-aided design software made it much easier for hardware-designing startup companies to com...
silicon foundry2 is silicon foundry is that the distance from the actual chip-fabrication processes reduces designers' control of detail. This is somewhat analogous to the use of {HLL}s versus coding in assembler.
silly walk is [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. ...
silo is n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card. So called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for fungible stuff that you put in the top and to...
Silver Book is 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 is 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 is /sit'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 creat...
sitename2 is 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, institutiona...
sitename3 is 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, an...
sitename4 is probably the most popular sources for sitenames (in roughly descending order). The obligatory comment when discussing these is Harris's Lament "All the good ones are taken!" See also {network address}.
skrog is v. Syn. {scrog}.
skulker is n. Syn. {prowler}.
slap on the side is 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'). ...
slap on the side2 is as memory, hard drive controllers, and conventional expansion slots.
slash is n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
sleep is 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. {blo...
sleep2 is 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 ...
slim is n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).
slop is 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 ...
slop2 is 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 {fence...
slop3 is 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 ...
slop4 is 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 program...
slopsucker is /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...
slopsucker2 is slopsucker hunts for large prime numbers. Compare {background}.
slurp is 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...
smart is 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 pr...
smart2 is {robust} (smart programs can be {brittle}).
smart terminal is 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 a...
smart terminal2 is 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}'...
smart terminal3 is 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 proble...
smart terminal4 is 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...
smash case is 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 is [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 re...
smash the stack2 is 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 n...
smash the stack3 is also {aliasing bug}, {fandango on core}, {memory leak}, {precedence lossage}, {overrun screw}.
smiley is n. See {emoticon}.
smoke test is 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 {mag...
smoke test2 is 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 han...
smoke test3 is smoke, then press it onto paper) is used to check out new dies.
smoking clover is [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...
smoking clover2 is 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...
smoking clover3 is Administration) lest its hallucinogenic properties cause it to be banned.
SMOP is /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n. 1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity. Used to refer to a program that could obviously be written, but is not ...
SMOP2 is imply that a difficult problem can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it; the irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be a great deal of work. "It's easy to enhance a FORTRAN compiler to ...
SMOP3 is Often used ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the victim) a lot of work.
SNAFU principle is /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 pleasan...
SNAFU principle2 is 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-mak...
snail is vt. To {snail-mail} something. "Snail me a copy of those graphics, will you?"
snail-mail is 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 ...
snap is 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 ma...
snap2 is 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...
snap3 is 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 th...
snap4 is 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 ...
snap5 is to use a direct procedure-call instruction with no further overhead.
snarf is /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 als...
snarf2 is late 1960s, meaning `to eat piggishly'. It may still have this connotation in context. "He's in the snarfing phase of hacking --- {FTP}ing megs of stuff a day." 3. To acquire, with little concern for legal forms or politesse (but...
snarf3 is away samples, so I snarfed a bunch of them." 4. Syn. for {slurp}. "This program starts by snarfing the entire database into core, then...."
snarf & barf is /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 ...
snarf & barf2 is regret it later' cheap-restaurant expedition.
snarf down is 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 recentl...
snark is [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 o...
snark2 is boojum). Often used to refer to an event or a log file entry that might indicate an attempted security violation. See {snivitz}. 3. UUCP name of snark.thyrsus.com, home site of the Jargon File 2.*.* versions (i.e., this lexicon)...
sneakernet is /snee'ker-net/ n. Term used (generally with ironic intent) for transfer of electronic information by physically carrying tape, disks, or some other media from one machine to another. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stati...
sneakernet2 is filled with CD-ROMs." Also called `Tennis-Net', `Armpit-Net', `Floppy-Net'.
sniff is v.,n. Synonym for {poll}.
snivitz is /sniv'itz/ n. A hiccup in hardware or software; a small, transient problem of unknown origin (less serious than a {snark}). Compare {glitch}.
SO is /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}, {MOT...
SO2 is character in ASCII (Control-N, 0001110).
social science number is [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...
social science number2 is considerably worse. {Management} loves them. See also {numbers}, {math-out}, {pretty pictures}.
soft boot is n. See {boot}.
softcopy is /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy. See {bits}, {machinable}.
software bloat is 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 is 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 becom...
software rot2 is 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 ...
software rot3 is 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 a...
software rot4 is 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 ...
software rot5 is (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-...
software rot6 is 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 ...
software rot7 is 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, ...
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