Amethyst

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connector conspiracy2 is  that don't fit together   with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or   expensive interface devices.  The KL-10 Massbus connector was   actually *patented* by DEC, which reputedly refused to license   ...
connector conspiracy3 is  parties out of   competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market.  This is   a source of never-ending frustration for the diehards who maintain   older PDP-10 or VAX systems.  Their CPUs work fine, but they are   st...
connector conspiracy4 is  drives with low   capacity and high power requirements.   In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen   somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that   "Standards are great!  There are ...
cons is  /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. vt. To add a new element   to a specified list, esp. at the top.  "OK, cons picking a   replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda."  2. `cons up'   vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces "to cons up an ex...
cons2 is  fundamental operation for   building structures.  It takes any two objects and returns a   `dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each   branch.  Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used   to build bin...
cons3 is  think   of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the   jargon meanings spring from. 
considered harmful is  adj. Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the   March 1968 `Communications of the ACM', "Goto Statement   Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured   programming wars.  Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting   a...
considered harmful2 is  policy) no longer   print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding   practice.  In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious   papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X   considered Y".  ...
considered harmful3 is    over with the realization that both sides were wrong, but use of   such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the   `considered silly' found at various places in this lexicon is   related). 
console is  n. 1. The operator's station of a {mainframe}.  In   times past, this was a privileged location that conveyed godlike   powers to anyone with fingers on its keys.  Under UNIX and other   modern timesharing OSes, such privileges are guarde...
console2 is  just the {tty} the system was booted   from.  Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is traditional   for sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users from the console   (on UNIX, /dev/console).  2. On microcomputer UNIX boxes, ...
console3 is  character-only terminals talking   to a serial port).  Typically only the console can do real graphics   or run {X}.  See also {CTY}. 
console jockey is  n. See {terminal junkie}.
content-free is  [by analogy with techspeak `context-free'] adj.   Used of a message that adds nothing to the recipient's knowledge.   Though this adjective is sometimes applied to {flamage}, it more   usually connotes derision for communication styl...
content-free2 is  centered on concerns irrelevant to the   subject ostensibly at hand.  Perhaps most used with reference to   speeches by company presidents and other professional manipulators.   "Content-free?  Uh...that's anything printed on glossy...
content-free3 is  "He gave a talk on   the implications of electronic networks for postmodernism and the   fin-de-siecle aesthetic.  It was content-free." 
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.

factpacks/jargon-split.fact  view on Meta::CPAN

ice is  [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William   Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels acronym for `Intrusion   Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels,   software that responds to intrusion by attempting to literal...
ice2 is  program designed for   cracking security on a system.  Neither term is in serious use yet   as of mid-1991, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and   each may develop a denotation in the future. 
ifdef out is  /if'def owt/ v. Syn. for {condition out}, specific   to {C}.
ill-behaved is  adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or   computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated   roundoff error or poor convergence properties.  2. Software that   bypasses the defined {OS} interfaces to do t...
ill-behaved2 is  itself, often in a way that depends on the   hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or   incompatible with other pieces of software.  In the IBM PC/MS-DOS   world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to th...
ill-behaved3 is  and performance penalties in the OS   interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved.  See also   {bare metal}. Oppose {well-behaved}, compare {PC-ism}.  See   {mess-dos}. 
IMHO is  // [from SF fandom via USENET; acronym for `In My Humble   Opinion']  "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as   mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect   errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."  Also se...
IMHO2 is  Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO   (In My Arrogant Opinion). 
in the extreme is  adj. A preferred superlative suffix for many hackish   terms.  See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' under {obscure},   and compare {highly}.
incantation is  n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that   one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result.  Not used   of passwords or other explicit security features.  Especially used   of tricks that are so poorly documented t...
incantation2 is  compiler normally locates initialized data   in the data segment, but if you {mutter} the right incantation they   will be forced into text space." 
include is  vt. [USENET] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of   another's message (typically with attribution to the source) in a   reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.   See the the discussion of inclusion styles under...
include2 is  `#include <disclaimer.h>'   has appeared in {sig block}s to refer to a notional `standard   disclaimer file'. 
include war is  n. Excessive multi-leveled including within a   discussion {thread}, a practice that tends to annoy readers.  In   a forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as USENET, this can lead   to {flame}s and the urge to start a {kill file}.
indent style is  [C programmers] n. The rules one uses to indent code   in a readable fashion; a subject of {holy wars}.  There are four   major C indent styles, described below; all have the aim of   making it easier for the reader to visually track...
indent style2 is  significant variable is the placement of   `{' and `}' with respect to the statement(s) they   enclose and the guard or controlling statement (`if',   `else', `for', `while', or `do') on the block,   if any.   `K&R style' --- Named ...
indent style3 is  examples in {K&R} are formatted this way.  Also called `kernel   style' because the UNIX kernel is written in it, and the `One True   Brace Style' (abbrev. 1TBS) by its partisans.  The basic indent   shown here is eight spaces (or o...
indent style4 is  seen, but are much less common.     if (cond) {             <body>     }   `Allman style' --- Named for Eric Allman, a Berkeley hacker who   wrote a lot of the BSD utilities in it (it is sometimes called   `BSD style').  Resembles n...
indent style5 is  indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four is just   as common (esp. in C++ code).     if (cond)     {             <body>     }   `Whitesmiths style' --- popularized by the examples that came   with Whitesmiths C, an earl...
indent style6 is  level shown here is eight spaces, but four is occasionally seen.     if (cond)             {             <body>             }   `GNU style' --- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software   Foundation code, and just about nowher...
indent style7 is  level, with `{' and `}' halfway between the   outer and inner indent levels.     if (cond)       {         <body>       }   Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most   common, with about equal mind shares. ...
indent style8 is  now much less common (the opening brace tends to   get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an `if'   or `while', which is a {Bad Thing}).  Defenders of 1TBS   argue that any putative gain in readability is less importa...
indent style9 is  vertical space, which enables   one to see more code on one's screen at once.  Doubtless these   issues will continue to be the subject of {holy wars}. 
index is  n. See {coefficient}.
infant mortality is  n. It is common lore among hackers that the   chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a   machine's time since power-up (that is, until the relatively   distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O d...
infant mortality2 is  components has accumulated for the   machine to start going senile).  Up to half of all chip and wire   failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such   failures are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems ...
infant mortality3 is  syndrome').  See   {bathtub curve}, {burn-in period}. 
infinite is  adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.   Used very loosely as in "This program produces infinite   garbage."  "He is an infinite loser."  The word most likely to   follow `infinite', though, is {hair} (it has been pointed...
infinite2 is  of infinite hair).  These   uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning.  The term   `semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount of some   resource, is also heard.  "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite   amount of ...
infinite loop is  n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine   {spin}s or {buzz}es forever; the usual symptom is   {catatonia}).  There is a standard joke that has been made about   each generation's exemplar of the ultra-fast machine "The Cr...
infinite loop2 is  loop in under 2 seconds!" 
infinity is  n. 1. The largest value that can be represented in a   particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type,   whatever).  2. `minus infinity' The smallest such value, not   necessarily or even usually the simple negation of...
infinity2 is  arithmetic, infinity is   2^{N-1} - 1 but minus infinity is - (2^{N-1}),   not -(2^{N-1} - 1).  Note also that this is different from   "time T equals minus infinity", which is closer to a   mathematician's usage of infinity. 
insanely great is  adj. [Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD UNIX   people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly {elegant} that it is   imaginable only to someone possessing the most puissant of   {hacker}-natures.
INTERCAL is  /in't*r-kal/ [said by the authors to stand for   `Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] n. A   computer language designed by Don Woods and James Lyon in 1972.   INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer   langua...
INTERCAL2 is  written language,   being totally unspeakable.  An excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference   Manual will make the style of the language clear        It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose        work is incomprehen...
INTERCAL3 is        one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536        in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is          DO 1 <- #0$#256        any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd.  Since this        is indeed the sim...
INTERCAL4 is  look        foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to        turn up, as bosses are wont to do.  The effect would be no less        devastating for the programmer having been correct.   INTERCAL has many other p...
INTERCAL5 is  more unspeakable.  The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used   by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton.  The language   has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently   enjoying an unprecedented le...
INTERCAL6 is  alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...   appreciation of the language on USENET. 
interesting is  adj. In hacker parlance, this word has strong   connotations of `annoying', or `difficult', or both.  Hackers   relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out   of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interest...
Internet address is  n. 1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of   the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a   {sitename}, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including   periods itself.  Contrast with {bang path}; see also {netw...
Internet address2 is  Internet machines and most UUCP   sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of   behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.   See also {bang path}, {domainist}.  2. More loosely, any ...
Internet address3 is  this includes {bang   path} addresses and some internal corporate and government   networks.   Reading Internet addresses is something of an art.  Here are the   four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed...
Internet address4 is  com          commercial organizations     edu          educational institutions     gov          U.S. government civilian sites     mil          U.S. military sites   Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in...
Internet address5 is  the U.S. outside the functional domains     su          sites in the Soviet Union (see {kremvax}).     uk          sites in the United Kingdom   Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty   states, each generally w...
Internet address6 is  abbreviation.  Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for   academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones.  Other   top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways. 
interrupt is  1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event that   interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts   flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine.  See also   {trap}.  2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker.   Oft...
interrupt2 is  seen Joe   recently?"  See {priority interrupt}.  3. Under MS-DOS, the   term `interrupt' is nearly synonymous with `system call', because   the OS and BIOS routines are both called using the INT instruction   (see {{interrupt list, th...
interrupt3 is  bypass the OS (going directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get   reasonable performance. 
interrupt list, the is  [MS-DOS] n. The list of all known software   interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM PCs and   compatibles, maintained and made available for free redistribution   by Ralf Brown (ralf@cs.cmu.edu).  As of ear...
interrupts locked out is  When someone is ignoring you.  In a   restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's   attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have interrupts   locked out".  The synonym `interrupts disabled' is...
interrupts locked out2 is  have one's interrupt mask bit set"   or "interrupts masked out" is also heard.  See also {spl}. 
iron is  n. Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of   {mainframe} class with big metal cabinets housing relatively   low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern   supercomputers).  Often in the phrase {big iron}.  Oppose   ...
Iron Age is  n. In the history of computing, 1961--1971 --- the   formative era of commercial {mainframe} technology, when {big   iron} {dinosaur}s ruled the earth.  These began with the delivery   of the first PDP-1, coincided with the dominance of ...
Iron Age2 is  introduction of the first commercial   microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971.  See also {Stone Age};   compare {elder days}. 
iron box is  [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap   a {cracker} logging in over remote connections long enough to be   traced.  May include a modified {shell} restricting the hacker's   movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files...
iron box2 is  on.  See also {back door}, {firewall   machine}, {Venus flytrap}, and Clifford Stoll's account in   `The Cuckoo's Egg' of how he made and used one (see   the Bibliography).  Compare {padded cell}. 
ironmonger is  [IBM] n. Derogatory.  A hardware specialist.  Compare   {sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.
ITS is  /I-T-S/ n. 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an   influential but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for   PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab.  Much   AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to hav...
ITS2 is  instantly as an old-timer of the most   venerable sort.  ITS pioneered many important innovations,   including transparent file sharing between machines and   terminal-independent I/O.  After about 1982, most actual work was   shifted to new...
ITS3 is  essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community.  The   shutdown of the lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end   of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see   {high moby}).  The Royal Institute of ...
ITS4 is  `live' ITS site at its computer museum (right next   to the only TOPS-10 system still on the Internet), so ITS is still   alleged to hold the record for OS in longest continuous use   (however, {{WAITS}} is a credible rival for this palm).  ...
ITS5 is  operating-system perfection   worshiped by a bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and   ex-users (see {troglodyte}, sense 2).  ITS worshipers manage   somehow to continue believing that an OS maintained by   assembly-language hand...
ITS6 is  6-character filenames in one directory per account remains superior   to today's state of commercial art (their venom against UNIX is   particularly intense).  See also {holy wars},   {Weenix}. 
IWBNI is  // [acronym] `It Would Be Nice If'.  Compare {WIBNI}.
IYFEG is  // [USENET] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite Ethnic   Group'.  Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes on the net to   avoid offending anyone.  See {JEDR}.*J. Random /J rand'm/ n. [generalized from {J. Random Hacker}]   Arbitrar...
IYFEG2 is  often   prefixed to a noun to make a name out of it.  It means roughly   `some particular' or `any specific one'.  "Would you let   J. Random Loser marry your daughter?"  The most common uses are   `J. Random Hacker', `J. Random Loser', an...
IYFEG3 is  be allowed to {gun} down other   people?"), but it can be used simply as an elaborate version of   {random} in any sense. 
J. Random Hacker is  [MIT] /J rand'm hak'r/ n. A mythical figure   like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd.  See   {random}, {Suzie COBOL}.  This may originally have been   inspired or influenced by `J. Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee...
jaggies is  /jag'eez/ n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an   edge (esp. a linear edge of very shallow or steep slope) is   rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).
JCL is  /J-C-L/ n. 1. IBM's supremely {rude} Job Control   Language.  JCL is the script language used to control the execution   of programs in IBM's batch systems.  JCL has a very {fascist}   syntax, and some versions will, for example, {barf} if tw...
JCL2 is  programmers confronted   with JCL simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the   file names.  Someone who actually understands and generates unique   JCL is regarded with the mixed respect one gives to someone who   memorizes the ...
JCL3 is    itself sometimes sing "Who's the breeder of the crud that mangles   you and me?  I-B-M, J-C-L, M-o-u-s-e" to the tune of the   "Mickey Mouse Club" theme to express their opinion of the   beast.  2. A comparative for any very {rude} softwar...
JCL4 is  as bad as JCL."  As with   {COBOL}, JCL is often used as an archetype of ugliness even by   those who haven't experienced it.  See also {IBM}, {fear and   loathing}. 
JEDR is  // n. Synonymous with {IYFEG}.  At one time, people in   the USENET newsgroup rec.humor.funny tended to use `JEDR'   instead of {IYFEG} or `<ethnic>'; this stemmed from a public   attempt to suppress the group once made by a loser with initi...
JEDR2 is  joke posted there.  (The   practice was {retcon}ned by the expanding these initials as   `Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race'.)  After much sound and fury JEDR   faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise.  JEDR's only   permanent effect...
JEDR3 is  `sensitivity' arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more   recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate and   near-universal rejection. 
JFCL is  /jif'kl/, /jaf'kl/, /j*-fi'kl/ vt., obs. (alt.   `jfcl') To cancel or annul something.  "Why don't you jfcl that   out?"  The fastest do-nothing instruction on older models of the   PDP-10 happened to be JFCL, which stands for "Jump if Flag ...
JFCL2 is  something useful, but is a very   fast no-operation if no flag is specified.  Geoff Goodfellow, one   of the jargon-1 co-authors, has long had JFCL on the license plate   of his BMW.  Usage rare except among old-time PDP-10 hackers. 
jiffy is  n. 1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on the   computer (see {tick}).  Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in   the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently   1/100 sec has become common.  "The swapper runs ...
jiffy2 is  memory management routine is executed once for   every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.   2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond   {wall time} interval.  3. Indeterminate time from a few secon...
jiffy3 is  certainly not now and   possibly never.  This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use   of the word.  Oppose {nano}. See also {Real Soon Now}. 
job security is  n. When some piece of code is written in a   particularly {obscure} fashion, and no good reason (such as time   or space optimization) can be discovered, it is often said that the   programmer was attempting to increase his job secur...
job security2 is  for maintenance).  This sour joke   seldom has to be said in full; if two hackers are looking over some   code together and one points at a section and says "job security",   the other one may just nod. 
jock is  n. 1. A programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat   brute-force programs.  See {brute force}.  2. When modified by   another noun, describes a specialist in some particular computing   area.  The compounds `compiler jock' and `sy...
jock2 is  examples of this. 
joe code is  /joh' kohd`/ n. 1. Code that is overly {tense} and   unmaintainable.  "{Perl} may be a handy program, but if you look   at the source, it's complete joe code."  2. Badly written,   possibly buggy code.   Correspondents wishing to remain ...
joe code2 is  the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and observed   that usage has drifted slightly; the original sobriquet `Joe code'   was intended in sense 1. 
JR[LN] is  /J-R-L/, /J-R-N/ n. The names JRL and JRN   were sometimes used as example names when discussing a kind of user   ID used under {{TOPS-10}}; they were understood to be the initials   of (fictitious) programmers named `J. Random Loser' and ...
JR[LN]2 is  example, if one said "To log   in, type log one comma jay are en" (that is, "log 1,JRN"), the   listener would have understood that he should use his own computer   ID in place of `JRN'. 
JRST is  /jerst/ [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v.,obs. To   suddenly change subjects, with no intention of returning to the   previous topic.  Usage rather rare except among PDP-10 diehards, and   considered silly.  See also {AOS}.
juggling eggs is  vi. Keeping a lot of {state} in your head while   modifying a program.  "Don't bother me now, I'm juggling eggs",   means that an interrupt is likely to result in the program's being   scrambled.  In the classic first-contact SF nov...
juggling eggs2 is  and Jerry Pournelle, an alien describes a   very difficult task by saying "We juggle priceless eggs in   variable gravity."  That is a very hackish use of language.  See   also {hack mode}. 
jump off into never-never land is  [from J. M. Barrie's `Peter   Pan'] v. Same as {branch to Fishkill}, but more common in   technical cultures associated with non-IBM computers that use the   term `jump' rather than `branch'.  Compare {hyperspace}.*...
jump off into never-never land2 is  used both as a   spoken word and a written suffix (like {meg} and {gig} for   megabyte and gigabyte).  See {{quantifiers}}. 
K&R is  [Kernighan and Ritchie] n. Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's   book `The C Programming Language', esp. the classic and influential   first edition (Prentice-Hall 1978; ISBN 0-113-110163-3).  Syn.   {White Book}, {Old Testament}.  See also ...
kahuna is  /k*-hoo'nuh/ [IBM from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.   Synonym for {wizard}, {guru}.
kamikaze packet is  n. The `official' jargon for what is more commonly   called a {Christmas tree packet}. RFC-1025, `TCP and IP Bake Off'   says     10 points for correctly being able to process a "Kamikaze"     packet (AKA nastygram, christmas tree...
kamikaze packet2 is  is, correctly handle a segment with the     maximum combination of features at once (e.g., a SYN URG PUSH     FIN segment with options and data).   See also {Chernobyl packet}. 
kangaroo code is  n. Syn. {spaghetti code}.
ken is  /ken/ n. 1. [UNIX] Ken Thompson, principal inventor of   UNIX.  In the early days he used to hand-cut distribution tapes,   often with a note that read "Love, ken".  Old-timers still use   his first name (sometimes uncapitalized, because it's...
ken2 is  third-person reference; it is widely   understood (on USENET, in particular) that without a last name   `Ken' refers only to Ken Thompson.  Similarly, Dennis without last   name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr).  See   als...
ken3 is  This was   originated by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the   two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken. 
kgbvax is  /K-G-B'vaks/ n. See {kremvax}.
kill file is  [USENET] n. (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used   by some {USENET} reading programs (originally Larry Wall's   `rn(1)') to discard summarily (without presenting for reading)   articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or u...
kill file2 is  other header lines.  Thus to add   a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for that   person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future.  By extension,   it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in ...
killer micro is  [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. A   microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or   supercomputer performance turf.  Often heard in "No one will   survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of th...
killer micro2 is  architectures.   The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is   doubtless reinforced by the movie title "Attack Of The Killer   Tomatoes" (one of the {canonical} examples of   so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers).  ...
killer micro3 is  micros have gone on the offensive not just   individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively   parallel computers). 
killer poke is  n. A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine   via insertion of invalid values (see {poke}) in a memory-mapped   control register; used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks   on {bitty box}es without hardware memory manag...
killer poke2 is  that can overload and trash analog   electronics in the monitor.  See also {HCF}. 
kilo- is  [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
KIPS is  /kips/ [acronym, by analogy with {MIPS} using {K}] n.   Thousands (*not* 1024s) of Instructions Per Second.  Usage   rare.
KISS Principle is  /kis' prin'si-pl/ n. "Keep It Simple, Stupid".   A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off   {creeping featurism} and control development complexity.   Possibly related to the {marketroid} maxim on sales   presentati...
kit is  [USENET] n. A source software distribution that has been   packaged in such a way that it can (theoretically) be unpacked and   installed according to a series of steps using only standard UNIX   tools, and entirely documented by some reasona...
kit2 is  {README file}.  The more general   term {distribution} may imply that special tools or more   stringent conditions on the host environment are required. 
klone is  /klohn/ n. See {clone}, sense 4.
kludge is  /kluhj/ n. Common (but incorrect) variant of {kluge}, q.v.
kluge is  /klooj/ [from the German `klug', clever] 1. n.  A Rube   Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or   software.  (A long-ago `Datamation' article by Jackson Granholme   said "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching pa...
kluge2 is  clever programming trick   intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not   clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often involves   {ad-hockery} and verges on being a {crock}.  In fact, the   TMRC Dictionary defined...

factpacks/jargon-split.fact  view on Meta::CPAN

theology is  n. 1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to   {religious issues}.  2. Technical fine points of an abstruse   nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical   interest but is relatively {marginal} with respect to actual use...
theology2 is  software issues with a   heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs.   smart-programs dispute in AI. 
theory is  n. The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that   is currently being used to inform a behavior.  This is a   generalization and abuse of the technical meaning.  "Whats the   theory on fixing this TECO loss?"  "Whats the theory on...
theory2 is  "Whats the current theory   on letting lusers on during the day?"  "The theory behind this   change is to fix the following well-known screw...." 
thinko is  /thingkoh/ [by analogy with `typo] n. A momentary,   correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving   recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of   consciousness.  Syn. {braino}.  Compare {mouso}.
This time, for sure! is  excl. Ritual affirmation frequently uttered   during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small   obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection).  For the   proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruit...
This time, for sure!2 is  heard "Hey, Rocky!  Watch me pull a   rabbit out of my hat!"  The {canonical} response is, of course,   "But that trick *never* works!"  See {{Humor, Hacker}}. 
thrash is  vi. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing   anything useful.  Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded   waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather   than performing useful computation) and are the...
thrash2 is  changing his mind (esp. about what to   work on next) is said to be thrashing.  A person frantically trying   to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on   any single task) may also be described as thrashing.  Compa...
thread is  n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of   `topic thread, a more or less continuous chain of postings on a   single topic.
three-finger salute is  n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
thud is  n. 1. Yet another meta-syntactic variable (see {foo}).   It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of   these was `foo, `bar, `thud, `blat.  2. Rare term   for the hash character, `# (ASCII 0100011).  See {ASCII} for...
thunk is  /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides an   address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks   in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal   definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls.  If a procedure is c...
thunk2 is  formal parameter, the compiler   generates a {thunk} to compute the expression and leave the   address of the result in some standard location.  2. Later   generalized into an expression, frozen together with its   environment, for later e...
thunk3 is  in techspeak is called a `closure).  The process of   unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing.  3. A   {stubroutine}, in an overlay programming environment, that loads   and jumps to the correct overlay.  Compare {trampoline}.   4. Peop...
thunk4 is  manner.  "It   occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by   a thunk --- I frequently need to be forced to completion." ---   paraphrased from a {plan file}.   Historical note There are a couple of onomatopoeic myth...
thunk5 is  The most common is that   it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that   the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator.  Yet another   holds that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at   argument-e...
thunk6 is  inventors, it   was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of   discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be   figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought,   simplifying the evaluation machi...
thunk7 is  thought of; thus it was christened a `thunk,   which is "the past tense of `think at two in the morning". 
tick is  n. 1. A {jiffy} (sense 1).  2. In simulations, the   discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the   simulation mechanism.  In AI applications, this amount of time is   often left unspecified, since the only constraint of inter...
tick2 is  AI simulation is often   pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick simulation,   especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long,   independent chains of causes is {handwave}d. 3. In the FORTH   language, a single quote char...
tick-list features is  [Acorn Computers] n. Features in software or   hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in   desktop TSRs and that sort of thing).  The American equivalent   would be `checklist features, but this jargon sen...
tickle a bug is  vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest   through some known series of inputs or operations.  "You can   tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA cards highlight handling by   trying to set bright yellow reverse video."
tiger team is  [U.S. military jargon] n. A team whose purpose is to   penetrate security, and thus test security measures.  These people   are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave   cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defen...
tiger team2 is  "Your codebooks have been stolen"   (they usually havent been) inside safes, etc.  After a successful   penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next   morning for a `security review and finds the sign, note, etc.,   ...
tiger team3 is  of tiger teams   sometimes lead to early retirement for base commanders and security   officers (see the {patch} entry for an example).   A subset of tiger teams are professional {cracker}s, testing the   security of military computer...
tiger team4 is  via networks or supposedly `secure comm channels.  Some of   their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the   greatest hacks of all times.  The term has been adopted in   commercial computer-security circles in this m...
time sink is  [poss. by analogy with `heat sink or `current sink] n.   A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.
time T is  /tim T/ n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understood   time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1.   "Well meet on campus at time T or at Louies at   time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner   "We can meet on ...
time T2 is  Louies   itself a bit later."  (Louies is a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto   that is a favorite with hackers.)  Had the number 30 been used instead   of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from   campus to Louies is ...
time T3 is  hasnt been decided on yet), you can meet half an hour later at   Louies than you could on campus and end up eating at the same time.   See also {since time T equals minus infinity}. 
times-or-divided-by is  [by analogy with `plus-or-minus] quant. Term   occasionally used when describing the uncertainty associated with a   scheduling estimate, for either humorous or brutally honest effect.   For a software project, the factor is u...
tinycrud is  /tinee-kruhd/ n. A pejorative used by habitues of older   game-oriented {MUD} versions for TinyMUDs and other   user-extensible {MUD} variants; esp. common among users of the   rather violent and competitive AberMUD and MIST systems.  Th...
tinycrud2 is  how (allegedly)   inconsistent and lacking in genuine atmosphere the scenarios   generated in user extensible MUDs can be.  Other common knocks on   them are that they feature little overall plot, bad game topology,   little competitive...
tinycrud3 is  alleged   horrors of the TinyMUD code itself.  This dispute is one of the MUD   worlds hardiest perennial {holy wars}. 
tip of the ice-cube is  [IBM] n. The visible part of something small and   insignificant.  Used as an ironic comment in situations where `tip   of the iceberg might be appropriate if the subject were actually   nontrivial.
tired iron is  [IBM] n. Hardware that is perfectly functional but   far enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new   products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that   the old stuff is starting to look a b...
tits on a keyboard is  n. Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep   touch-typists registered (usually on the `5 of a numeric keypad,   and on the `F and `J of a QWERTY keyboard).
TLA is  /T-L-A/ [Three-Letter Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing   acronym for a species with which computing terminology is infested.   2. Any confusing acronym.  Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU,   MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA.  People who like th...
TLA2 is  three letters, just as not all four-letter   words have four letters.  One also hears of `ETLA (Extended   Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to   describe four-letter acronyms.  The term `SFLA (Stupid Four-Letter   ...
TLA3 is  {YABA}.   The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is   often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use.  In 1989, a   random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin   "What do you think will be the biggest prob...
TLA4 is  straight-faced response "There are only   17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3   = 17,576.) 
TMRC is  /tmerk/ n. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of   the wellsprings of hacker culture.  The 1959 `Dictionary of   the TMRC Language compiled by Peter Samson included several terms   which became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp...
TMRC2 is  legendary layout was already a marvel of   complexity.  The control system alone featured about 1200 relays.   There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around   the room that could be pressed if something undesirable was about...
TMRC3 is  an obstruction.   Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch   board.  Normally it ran at some multiple of real time, but if   someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was   replaced with the word ...
TMRC4 is  the Bibliography), gives a   stimulating account of those early years.  TMRCs Power and Signals   group included most of the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who   later bacame the core of the MIT AI Lab staff.  Thirty years later   that ...
TMRC5 is  lexicon   accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent revision of   the TMRC Dictionary. 
to a first approximation is  1. [techspeak] When one is doing certain   numerical computations, an approximate solution may be computed by   any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a final value.   By using the starting point of a first app...
to a first approximation2 is  algorithm that converges more quickly to the   correct result.  2. In jargon, a preface to any comment that   indicates that the comment is only approximately true.  The remark   "To a first approximation, I feel good" m...
to a first approximation3 is  reveal that not all is perfect (e.g., a   nagging cough still remains after an illness). 
to a zeroth approximation is  [from `to a first approximation] A   *really* sloppy approximation; a wild guess.  Compare   {social science number}.
toast is  1. n. Any completely inoperable system or component, esp.   one that has just crashed and burned "Uh, oh ... I think the   serial board is toast."  2. vt. To cause a system to crash   accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manua...
toast2 is  {firewall machine} again." 
toaster is  n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an   embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that   imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see   {elevator controller}).  "{DWIM} for an assembler?  Thatd...
toaster2 is  toaster!"  2. A very, very dumb   computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster."  See   {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {beige toaster}.   3. A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac.  Some hold that this is   implied b...
toaster3 is  my box   without toasters, but since then Ive added two boards and a second   disk drive." 
toeprint is  n. A {footprint} of especially small size.
toggle is  vt. To change a {bit} from whatever state it is in to the   other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1.  This comes from   `toggle switches, such as standard light switches, though the   word `toggle actually refers to the mechanism...
toggle2 is  which it is flipped rather than to the   fact that the switch has two positions.  There are four things you   can do to a bit set it (force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it,   leave it alone, or toggle it.  (Mathematically, one would say t...
toggle3 is  functions of one boolean   argument, but saying that is much less fun than talking about   toggling bits.) 
tool is  1. n. A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify,   or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a   cross-referencing program.  Oppose {app}, {operating system}.   2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple,...
tool2 is  interface designed specifically to be used   in programmed combination with other tools (see {filter}).   3. [MIT general to students there] vi. To work; to study (connotes   tedium).  The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set ones brain ...
tool3 is  A student who   studies too much and hacks too little.  (MITs student humor   magazine rejoices in the name `Tool and Die.) 
toolsmith is  n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist;   one who specializes in making the {tool}s with which other   programmers create applications.  See also {uninteresting}.
topic drift is  n. Term used on GEnie, USENET and other electronic   fora to describe the tendency of a {thread} to drift away from   the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the Subject   header of the originating message), or the results ...
topic drift2 is  reminders that the discussion has   strayed off any useful track.  "I think we started with a question   about Nivens last book, but weve ended up discussing the sexual   habits of the common marmoset.  Now *thats* topic drift!" 
topic group is  n. Syn. {forum}.
TOPS-10 is  /tops-ten/ n. DECs proprietary OS for the fabled {PDP-10}   machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct.   A fountain of hacker folklore; see appendix A.  See also {{ITS}},   {{TOPS-20}}, {{TWENEX}}, {VMS}, {operating...
TOPS-102 is  BOTS-10 (from `bottoms-ten) as a comment on the   inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything. 
TOPS-20 is  /tops-twentee/ n. See {{TWENEX}}.
toto is  /tohtoh/ n. This is reported to be the default scratch   file name among French-speaking programmers --- in other words, a   francophone {foo}.
tourist is  [ITS] n. A guest on the system, especially one who   generally logs in over a network from a remote location for {comm   mode}, email, games, and other trivial purposes.  One step below   {luser}.  Hackers often spell this {turist}, perha...
tourist2 is  {luser} (this also expresses the   ITS cultures penchant for six-letterisms).  Compare {twink},   {read-only user}. 
tourist information is  n. Information in an on-line display that is   not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewers gestalt of   whats going on with the software or hardware behind it.  Whether a   given piece of info falls in this category d...
tourist information2 is  for at any given time.  The `bytes free   information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir display is   tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information   in a UNIX `ps(1) display. 
touristic is  adj. Having the quality of a {tourist}.  Often used   as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum.  Often spelled   `turistic or `turistik, so that phrase might be more properly   rendered `lusing turistic scum.
toy is  n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers.   1. `nice toy One that supports the speakers hacking style   adequately.  2. `just a toy A machine that yields   insufficient {computron}s for the speakers preferred uses.  This   is not con...
toy2 is  least be fun.   It is also strongly conditioned by ones expectations; Cray XMP   users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy, and certainly all RISC   boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards.  See also {Get   a real computer!}. 
toy language is  n. A language useful for instructional purposes or   as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory,   but inadequate for general-purpose programming.  {Bad Thing}s   can result when a toy language is promoted as a ...
toy language2 is  (see {bondage-and-discipline   language}); the classic example is {{Pascal}}.  Several moderately   well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing   machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative se...
toy problem is  [AI] n. A deliberately oversimplified case of a   challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test   algorithms for a real problem.  Sometimes used pejoratively.  See   also {gedanken}, {toy program}.
toy program is  n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a   trivial program (compare {noddy}).  2. One for which the effort   of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle.   See also {noddy}.
trampoline is  n. An incredibly {hairy} technique, found in some   {HLL} and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the   Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable   (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do...
trampoline2 is  pieces of {live data} are called   `trampolines.  Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand   in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the   trampoline that doesnt bend your brain is not the true   tram...
trap is  1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by   some exceptional situation in the user program.  In most cases, the   OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.   2. vi. To cause a trap.  "These instructions tr...
trap2 is  to indicate the cause of the   trap.  "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."   This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt   or `exception is more common among {HLL} programmers) and   appears to be fading int...
trap3 is  assembler continues to shrink.  However, it is still important to   computer architects and systems hackers (see {system},   sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable   exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I...
trap door is  alt. `trapdoor n. 1. Syn. {back door}.   2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function is one which is easy to   compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of.  Such   functions have important applications in cryptography, specifically   ...
trash is  vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure).   The most common of the family of near-synonyms including {mung},   {mangle}, and {scribble}.
tree-killer is  [Sun] n. 1. A printer.  2. A person who wastes paper.   This should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper   includes the production of {spiffy} but {content-free} documents.   Thus, most {suit}s are tree-killers.
trit is  /trit/ [by analogy with `bit] n. One base-3 digit; the   amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three   equally likely outcomes (see also {bit}).  These arise, for   example, in the context of a {flag} that should actuall...
trit2 is  as yes, no, or unknown.  Trits are   sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits.  A trit may be   semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half, although it is   linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is,   log2(3)   bits). 
trivial is  adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing.  2. Not worth the   speakers time.  3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known   that anyone not utterly {cretinous} would have thought of them   already.  4. Any problem one has already solv...
trivial2 is  evaluates to `Ive seen it before).   Hackers notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those   of non-hackers.  See {nontrivial}, {uninteresting}. 
troglodyte is  [Commodore] n. 1. A hacker who never leaves his   cubicle.  The term `Gnoll (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also   reported.  2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing   environment.  The combination `ITS troglodyte was flung a...
troglodyte2 is  wringle-wrangle attending the   2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it   was intended to describe adopted it with pride. 
troglodyte mode is  [Rice University] n. Programming with the lights   turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black on   white) because youve been up for so many days straight that your   eyes hurt (see {raster burn}).  Loud music blar...
troglodyte mode2 is  optional but recommended.  See {larval   stage}, {hack mode}. 
Trojan horse is  [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards]   n. A program designed to break security or damage a system that is   disguised as something else benign, such as a directory lister,   archiver, a game, or (in one notorious 1990 ...
Trojan horse2 is  destroy viruses!  See {back door}, {virus},   {worm}. 
true-hacker is  [analogy with `trufan from SF fandom] n. One who   exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence   and helpfulness to other hackers.  A high compliment.  "He spent   6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on ...
true-hacker2 is  act of a true-hacker."  Compare   {demigod}, oppose {munchkin}. 
tty is  /T-T-Y/ [UNIX], /titee/ [ITS, but some UNIX people say it   this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have   sexual undertones] n. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety,   characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very li...
tty2 is   Usage antiquated (like the   TTYs themselves).  See also {bit-paired keyboard}.   2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer   to the particular terminal controlling a given job. 
tube is  1. n. A CRT terminal.  Never used in the mainstream sense of   TV; real hackers dont watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky &   Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy   old swashbuckler movie (see appendix B).  2....
tube2 is  someone elses terminal.  "Tube me that   note?" 
tube time is  n. Time spent at a terminal or console.  More inclusive   than hacking time; commonly used in discussions of what parts of   ones environment one uses most heavily.  "I find Im spending too   much of my tube time reading mail since I st...
tunafish is  n. In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of   an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the manual pages of   `tunefs(8) in the original {BSD} 4.2 distribution.  The   joke was removed in later releases once commercial site...
tunafish2 is  to the `tuning of   file-system parameters for optimum performance, and at the bottom   of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a `BUGS section   consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but you cant   tunafish".  Variant...
tunafish3 is  though it has been excised from some versions by humorless   management {droid}s.  The [nt]roff source for SunOS 4.1.1   contains a comment apparently designed to prevent this "Take this   out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from n...
tune is  [from automotive or musical usage] vt. To optimize a program   or system for a particular environment, esp. by adjusting numerical   parameters designed as {hook}s for tuning, e.g., by changing   `#define lines in C.  One may `tune for time ...
tune2 is  memory use), or   `tune for configuration (most efficient use of hardware).  See   {bum}, {hot spot}, {hand-hacking}. 
turbo nerd is  n. See {computer geek}.
turist is  /toorist/ n. Var. sp. of {tourist}, q.v.  Also in   adjectival form, `turistic.  Poss. influenced by {luser} and   `Turing.
tweak is  vt. 1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value.   Also used synonymously with {twiddle}.  If a program is almost   correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you might   just keep tweaking it until it works.  See {frobn...
tweak2 is  debugging}.  2. To {tune}   or {bum} a program; preferred usage in the U.K. 
TWENEX is  /tweneks/ n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC ---   the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 --- preferred by most   PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not   {{ITS}} or {{WAITS}} partisans).  TOPS-20 began in 1969 a...
TWENEX2 is  system using special paging   hardware.  By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the   ARPANET ran TENEX.  DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and   began work to make it their own.  The first in-house code name for   the ...
TWENEX3 is  Operating System);   when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to   SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project   called VIROS.  When the name SNARK became known, the name was   briefly reversed to be...
TWENEX4 is  it was discovered that `krans meant `funeral shroud in   Swedish.  Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the   operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed.  The   hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly d...
TWENEX5 is  TENEX), even though by this   point very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously   to the differences between AT&T V6 UNIX and BSD).  DEC people   cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but the term caught on   nevertheless (th...