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robust => adj. Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and situations in a given environment. One step below bulletproof. Carries the additional connotation of elegance in add...
rococo => adj. Baroque in the extreme. Used to imply that a program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms...
rogue => [UNIX] n. A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character graphics, written under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other UNIX systems. The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support `rog...
room-temperature IQ => [IBM] quant. 80 or below. Used in describing the expected intelligence range of the luser. "Well, but how's this interface going to play with the room-temperature IQ crowd?" See {drool-proof paper}. This is a much more insultin...
root => [UNIX] n. 1. The superuser account that ignores permission bits, user number 0 on a UNIX system. This account has the user name `root'. The term avatar is also used. 2. The top node of the system directory structure (home directory of the roo...
root mode => n. Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'. Like these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in systems other than OSes.
rot13 => /rot ther'teen/ [USENET from `rotate alphabet 13 places'] n., v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyr...
rotary debugger => [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colors, such as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. See {pizza, ANSI standa...
RSN => // adj. See {Real Soon Now}.
RTFAQ => /R-T-F-A-Q/ [USENET primarily written, by analogy with RTFM] imp. Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ list} before posting questions.
RTFM => /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking Manual'. 1. Used by gurus to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. Compare {Don't do that, then!} 2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just asking ou...
RTI => /R-T-I/ interj. The mnemonic for the `return from interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and 6800. The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers (almost nobody programs these things in assembler anymore). Equivalent...
RTM => /R-T-M/ [USENET acronym for `Read The Manual'] 1. Politer variant of RTFM. 2. Robert T. Morris, perpetrator of the great Internet worm of 1988; villain to many, na"ive hacker gone wrong to a few. Morris claimed that the worm that brought the I...
rude => [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written. 2. Functionally poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use because of gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. See cuspy.
runes => pl.n. 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry} or {black art} to parse core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Compare {casting the runes}, {Great Runes}. 2. Special display characters (for exam...
runic => adj. Syn. obscure. VMS fans sometimes refer to UNIX as `Runix'; UNIX fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Syst`eme' (French; lit. "Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System").
rusty iron => n. Syn. {tired iron}. It has been claimed that this is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.
rusty memory => n. Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used in {washing machine}s). Compare donuts.*S/N ratio // n. (also `s/n ratio', `sn ratio'). Syn. {signal-to-noise ratio}...
sacred => adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an extension of the standard meaning). Often means that anyone may look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it is sacred to. The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the ...
saga => [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random broken people.
sagan => /say'gn/ [from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos"; think "billions and billions"] n. A large quantity of anything. "There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS." "The U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --- hard to say which is...
SAIL => /sayl/, not /S-A-I-L/ n. 1. Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. An important site in the early development of LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, and the UNIX community, one of the major wellsprings of technical innovation and hacker-cultu...
salescritter => /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a computer salesman? A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying. This reflects the ...
salsman => /salz'm*n/ v. To flood a mailing list or newsgroup with huge amounts of useless, trivial or redundant information. From the name of a hacker who has frequently done this on some widely distributed mailing lists.
salt mines => n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the end of the tunnel in N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine. Compare playpen, sandbox.
salt substrate => [MIT] n. Collective noun used to refer to potato chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride. From the technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon ...
salt substrate2 => of integrated circuits are deposited. 
same-day service => n. Ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to {MS-DOS} system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers t...
same-day service2 => well-behaved. See also PC-ism. 
sandbender => [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical design of chips. Compare ironmonger, {polygon pusher}.
sandbox => n. (or `sandbox, the') Common term for the R&D department at many software and computer companies (where hackers in commercial environments are likely to be found). Half-derisive, but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative ...
sanity check => n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or anything else, e.g., a USENET posting) for completely stupid mistakes. Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it was written; e.g., if a piece of scientific softwa...
sanity check2 => was giving unexpected results, one might first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the formula, as a {sanity check}, before looking at the more complex I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the algori...
sanity check3 => 2. A run-time test, either validating input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed up internally (producing an inconsistent value or state). 
Saturday night special => [from police slang for a cheap handgun] n. A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a deadline, and in response to pressure from a salescritter. Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too often sn...
say => vt. 1. To type to a terminal. "To list a directory verbosely, you have to say `ls -l'." Tends to imply a newline-terminated command (a `sentence'). 2. A computer may also be said to `say' things to you, even if it doesn't have a speech synthes...
science-fiction fandom => n. Another voluntary subculture having a very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or are involved in fandom-connected activities such as th...
science-fiction fandom2 => Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom; see defenestration, great-wall, cyberpunk, h, {ha ha only serious}, IMHO, mundane, neep-neep, {Real Soon Now}. Additionally, the jargon terms cowboy, cyberspace, de-rezz, {go flat...
science-fiction fandom3 => virus, wetware, wirehead, and worm originated in SF stories. 
scram switch => [from the nuclear power industry] n. An emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general, this is *not* something you frob lightly; these often initiate expens...
scram switch2 => and are installed in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across himself while {Easter egging}. 
scratch => 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary-use purposes; one that can be scribbled on without loss. Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory', `scratch re...
scratch monkey => n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky...
scratch monkey2 => precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto ca. 1986. Mabel was not (so the leg...
scratch monkey3 => university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when DEC PMed the PDP-11 contr...
scratch monkey4 => {provocative maintainance}). It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible and aske...
scratch monkey5 => all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society. The moral is clear When in doubt, always mount a...
screw => [MIT] n. A lose, usually in software. Especially used for user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. This use has become quite widespread outside MIT.
screwage => /skroo'*j/ n. Like lossage but connotes that the failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple inadequacy or a mere bug.
scribble => n. To modify a data structure in a random and unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node table." "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines scribbled...
scrog => /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of Id". Equivalent to scribble or mangle.
scrool => /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get back in synch with the conversation. It was origin...
scrozzle => /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data. "The damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"
SCSI => [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and intelligent devices. Typically annotated in literature with `sexy' (/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/skuh'zee/) ...
search-and-destroy mode => n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen match pattern can cause infinite damage.
second-system effect => n. (sometimes, more euphoniously, `second-system syndrome') When one is designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an elep...
second-system effect2 => The term was first used by Fred Brooks in his classic `The Mythical Man-Month Essays on Software Engineering' (Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN 0-201-00650-2). It described the jump from a set of nice, simple operating systems on t...
second-system effect3 => 360 series. A similar effect can also happen in an evolving system; see {Brooks's Law}, {creeping elegance}, {creeping featurism}. See also {Multics}, OS/2, X, {software bloat}. This version of the jargon lexicon has been des...
second-system effect4 => much truth for comfort) as an example of second-system effect run amok on jargon-1.... 
secondary damage => n. When a fatal error occurs (esp. a segfault) the immediate cause may be that a pointer has been trashed due to a previous {fandango on core}. However, this fandango may have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no amount of ana...
secondary damage2 => the damage occurred. "The data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage." By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'. There is at least one case on record in which ...
secondary damage3 => actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of seventh-level damage! The hacker who accomplished this near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his fellows. 
security through obscurity => n. A name applied by hackers to most OS vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes --- namely, ignoring them and not documenting them and trusting that nobody will find out about them and that people who do find...
security through obscurity2 => This never works for long and occasionally sets the world up for debacles like the RTM worm of 1988, but once the brief moments of panic created by such events subside most vendors are all too willing to turn over and g...
security through obscurity3 => fixing the bugs would siphon off the resources needed to implement the next user-interface frill on marketing's wish list --- and besides, if they started fixing security bugs customers might begin to *expect* it and im...
security through obscurity4 => merchantability gave them some sort of *right* to a system with fewer holes in it than a shotgunned Swiss cheese, and then where would we be? Historical note It is claimed (with dissent from {ITS} fans who say they used...
security through obscurity5 => in a positive sense) that this term was first used in the USENET newsgroup in comp.sys.apollo during a campaign to get HP/Apollo to fix security problems in its UNIX-clone Aegis/DomainOS. They didn't change a thing. 
SED => [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] /S-E-D/ n. Smoke-emitting diode. A friode that lost the war. See LER.
segfault => n.,vi. Syn. segment, seggie.
seggie => /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault} reported from Britain.
segment => /seg'ment/ vi. To experience a {segmentation fault}. Confusingly, this is often pronounced more like the noun `segment' than like mainstream v. segment; this is because it is actually a noun shorthand that has been verbed.
segmentation fault => n. [UNIX] 1. An error in which a running program attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s with a segmentation violation error. 2. To lose a train of thought or a line of reasoning. Also uttered as an exclam...
segv => /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').
self-reference => n. See self-reference.
selvage => /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See chad (sense 1).
semi => /se'mee/ or /se'mi/ 1. n. Abbreviation for `semicolon', when speaking. "Commands to grind are prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that the prefix is `;;*', not 1/4 of a star. 2. A prefix used with words such as `immediately' as a qualifier. "Wh...
semi-infinite => n. See infinite.
senior bit => [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.
server => n. A kind of daemon that performs a service for the requester and which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the server runs. A particularly common term on the Internet, which is rife with `name servers', `domain servers', `...
SEX => /seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX parties are popul...
sex changer => n. Syn. {gender mender}.
shareware => /sheir'weir/ n. Freeware (sense 1) for which the author requests some payment, usually in the accompanying documentation files or in an announcement made by the software itself. Such payment may or may not buy additional support or funct...
shelfware => /shelfweir/ n. Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or government agency), but not actually required for any particular use. Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.
shell => [orig. {Multics} techspeak, widely propagated via UNIX] n. 1. [techspeak] The command interpreter used to pass commands to an operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating system that interfaces with the outside world. ...
shell out => [UNIX] n. To spawn an interactive subshell from within a program (e.g., a mailer or editor). "Bang foo runs foo in a subshell, while bang alone shells out."
shift left logical => [from any of various machines' instruction sets] 1. vi. To move oneself to the left (right). To move out of the way. 2. imper. "Get out of that (my) seat! You can shift to that empty one to the left (right)." Often used without ...
shift left logical2 => instead of `shift left'. Sometimes heard as LSH /lish/, from the PDP-10 instruction set. See {Programmer's Cheer}. 
shitogram => /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email. Compare nastygram, flame.
short card => n. A half-length IBM PC expansion card or adapter that will fit in one of the two short slots located towards the right rear of a standard chassis (tucked behind the floppy disk drives). See also {tall card}.
shotgun debugging => n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging}; the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope that a bug will be perturbed out of existence. This almost never works, and usually introduces more bugs.
showstopper => n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation from its original theatrical use, which refers to s...
shriek => n. See excl. Occasional CMU usage, also in common use among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.
Shub-Internet => /shuhb in't*r-net/ [MUD from H. P. Lovecraft's evil fictional deity `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a Thousand Young] n. The harsh personification of the Internet, Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of L...
sidecar => n. 1. Syn. {slap on the side}. Esp. used of add-ons for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr. 2. The IBM PC compatibility box that could be bolted onto the side of an Amiga. Designed and produced by Commodore, it broke all of the company's own...
sig block => /sig blok/ [UNIX often written `.sig' there] n. Short for `signature', used specifically to refer to the electronic signature block that most UNIX mail- and news-posting software will automagically append to outgoing mail and news. The c...
sig block2 => quite an art form, including an ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote}, {fool file}); but many consider large sigs a waste of bandwidth, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversel...
sig block3 => and level of prestige on the net. 
sig quote => /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."
signal-to-noise ratio => [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning. `Signal' refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and `noise' to anything else on that medium. Hence a low...
signal-to-noise ratio2 => paying attention to the medium in question. Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given. The term is most often applied to USENET newsgroups during {flame war}s. Compare bandwidth. See also {coefficient of X}, {lost...
silicon => n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer systems (compare iron). Contrasted with software. See also sandbender.
silicon foundry => n. A company that fabs chips to the designs of others. As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon foundries and good computer-aided design software made it much easier for hardware-designing startup companies to come into bei...
silicon foundry2 => silicon foundry is that the distance from the actual chip-fabrication processes reduces designers' control of detail. This is somewhat analogous to the use of HLLs versus coding in assembler. 
silly walk => [from Monty Python's Flying Circus] vi. 1. A ridiculous procedure required to accomplish a task. Like grovel, but more random and humorous. "I had to silly-walk through half the /usr directories to find the maps file." 2. Syn. {fandango...
silo => n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card. So called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for fungible stuff that you put in the top and took out t...
Silver Book => n. Jensen and Wirth's infamous `Pascal User Manual and Report', so called because of the silver cover of the widely distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of 1978 (ISBN 0-387-90144-2). See {{book titles}}, Pascal.
since time T equals minus infinity => adj. A long time ago; for as long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob was first designed. Usually the word `time' is omitted. See also {time T}.
sitename => /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 creativity an...
skrog => v. Syn. scrog.
skulker => n. Syn. prowler.
slap on the side => n. (also called a sidecar, or abbreviated `SOTS'.) A type of external expansion hardware marketed by computer manufacturers (e.g., Commodore for the Amiga 500/1000 series and IBM for the hideous failure called `PCjr'). Various SOT...
slap on the side2 => as memory, hard drive controllers, and conventional expansion slots. 
slash => n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111) character. See ASCII for other synonyms.
sleep => vi. 1. [techspeak] On a timesharing system, a process that relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until some given event occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go to sleep'. 2. In jargon, used very similarly to v. block; also ...
slim => n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).
slop => n. 1. A one-sided {fudge factor}, that is, an allowance for error but in only one of two directions. For example, if you need a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it, you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large am...
slopsucker => /slop'suhk-r/ n. A lowest-priority task that must wait around until everything else has `had its fill' of machine resources. Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is the task allowed to `suck up the slop'. Also called a {hungry ...
slurp => vt. To read a large data file entirely into core before working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next piece. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and...
smart => adj. Said of a program that does the {Right Thing} in a wide variety of complicated circumstances. There is a difference between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs (...
smart terminal => n. A terminal that has enough computing capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing from the computer it talks to. The development of workstations and personal computers has made this term and the p...
smart terminal2 => semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote server's storage...