THIS IS THE INTERNET SLANG FILE, VERSION 2.1.1
NOTES ON JARGON CONSTRUCTION
There are some standard methods of jargonification which became
established quite early (i.e before 1970), spreading from such sources
as the MIT Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers and John
McCarthy's original crew of LISPers. These include:
Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use it
as a comment on what the implied subject does. Often used to
terminate a conversation. Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE,
HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP:
"The disk heads just crashed." "Lose, lose."
"Mostly he just talked about his @#!!$% crock. Flame, flame."
"Boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp, chomp!"
Soundalike slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang. Often made up on
the spur of the moment. Standard examples:
Boston Globe => Boston Glob
Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American
New York Times => New York Slime
Prime Time => Slime Time
government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys)
=> government duplicity - do not propagate
Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in
a standard jargon word:
Dr. Dobb's Journal => Dr. Frob's Journal
Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall
Data General => Dirty Genitals
The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the
syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P"
to denote a predicate (a Boolean-valued function). The question
should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't. (See T and NIL.)
At dinnertime: "Foodp?" "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"
"State-of-the-world-P?" (Straight) "I'm about to go home."
(Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state."
[One of the best of these is a Gosperism (i.e., due to Bill
Gosper). When we were at a Chinese restaurant, he wanted to know
whether someone would like to share with him a two-person-sized
bowl of soup. His inquiry was: "Split-p soup?" --GLS]
Peculiar nouns: MIT AI hackers love to take various words and add the
wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a
standard rule to nonuniform cases. Examples:
porous => porosity
generous => generosity
Ergo: mysterious => mysteriosity
ferrous => ferrocity
Other examples: winnitude, disgustitude, hackification.
Also, note that all nouns can be verbed. eg: "All nouns can be
verbed", "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over",
"I'm grepping the files". English as a whole is already heading in
this direction (towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese);
hackers are simply a bit ahead of the curve.
Spoken inarticulations: Words such as "mumble", "sigh", and "groan"
are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be
used. It has been suggested that this usage derives from the
impossibility of representing such noises in a com link. Another
expression sometimes heard is "complain!", meaning "I have a
complaint!"
Hacker speech style: Features extremely precise diction, careful
word choice, a relatively large working vocabulary, and relatively
little use of contractions or "street slang". Dry humor, irony,
puns, and a mildly flippant attitude are highly valued -- but an
underlying seriousness and intelligence is essential. One should
use just enough jargon to communicate precisely and identify
oneself as "in the culture"; overuse and a breathless, excessively
gung-ho attitude are considered tacky and the mark of a loser.
Hacker speech style (a variety of the precisionist English normally
spoken by scientists, design engineers, and academics in technical
fields) is fairly constant everywhere. Of the four other listed
constructions, verb doubling and peculiar noun formations have become
quite general; but rhyming slang is still largely confined to MIT and
other large universities, and the P convention is found only where
LISPers flourish.
One final note. Many words in hacker jargon have to be understood as
members of sets of comparatives. This is especially true of the adjectives
and nouns used to describe the beauty and functional quality of code. Here
is an approximately correct spectrum:
MONSTROSITY BRAIN-DAMAGE BUG SCREW LOSE MISFEATURE
CROCK KLUGE HACK WIN FEATURE ELEGANCE PERFECTION
The last is never actually attained.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
The pronunciation keys in the jargon listing use the following
simple system:
1) Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an apostrophe
or back-apostrophe follows each accented syllable (the
back apostrophe marks a secondary accent in some words of
four or more syllables).
2) Consonants are pronounced as in American English. The letter
"g" is always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant"); "ch"
is soft ("church" rather than "chemist"). The letter "j" is
the sound that occurs twice in "judge". The letter "s" is
always as in "pass", never a z sound (but it is sometimes
doubled at the end of syllables to emphasize this). The
digraph `dh' is the th of `these clothes', not of `thick'.
3) Vowels are represented as follows:
a back, that
ah father, palm
ar far, mark
aw flaw, caught
ay bake, rain
e less, men
ee easy, ski
eir their, software
i trip, hit
ie life, sky
o cot, top
oh flow, sew
oo loot, through
or more, door
ow out, how
oy boy, coin
uh but, some
u put, foot
y yet
yoo few
[y]oo oo with optional `fronting' as in `news' (noos or nyoos).
An at-sign is used for the "schwa" sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (the
one that is often written with an upside-down "e"). The schwa vowel is
omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is, "kitten" and
"color" would be rendered "kit'n" and "kul'r".
THE JARGON ITSELF
= =
@BEGIN [primarily CMU] with @End, used humorously in writing to
indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. From
the SCRIBE command of the same name. For example:
@Begin(Flame)
Predicate logic is the only good programming language.
Anyone who would use anything else is an idiot. Also,
computers should be tredecimal instead of binary.
@End(Flame)
On USENET, this construct would more frequently be rendered as
<FLAME ON> and <FLAME OFF>.
= A =
ABEND (ab'end) n. Abnormal termination (of software); crash; lossage.
Derives from an error message on the IBM 360, but has passed into
more general use.
ACK (ak) interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 000110] Acknowledge.
Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream "Yo!"). An
appropriate response to PING. 2. [prob. from _Bloom_County_] An
exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. in "Oop ack!".
Semi-humorous.
ADGER (adj'r) [UCLA] v. To make a bonehead move that could have been
forseen with a slight amount of mental effort, i.e., "He started
removing files and promptly adgered the whole project".
AD-HOCKERY (ad-hok'@r-ee) [Purdue] n. Gratuitous assumptions made
inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to the
appearance of semi-intelligent behavior, but are in fact entirely
arbitrary.
ADVENT (ad'vent) n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first
implemented on the PDP-10 by MIT hackers Dave Lebling, Mark Blank
and Don R. Woods as a demo for a natural-language parser they were
hacking on at the time. Now better known as Adventure, but the
TOPS-10 operating system only permitted 6-letter filenames. "A huge
green fierce snake bars the way!"
ALIASING SCREW (ayl'ee-@-sing) [C programmers] n. A class of subtle
programming errors which can arise in code that does dynamic
allocation via malloc(3). If more than one pointer addresses
(`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the
storage is freed through one alias and then referenced through
another, leading to subtle (and possibly intermittent) lossage
depending on the state and the allocation history of the malloc
ARENA. Avoidable by use of allocation strategies that never alias
allocated core. See also PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK,
FANDANGO ON CORE, MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW.
ALT BIT (ahlt bit) [from alternate?] adj. See META BIT.
ANGLE BRACKETS (ang'@l brak'@ts) [primarily MIT] n. Either of the
characters "<" and ">". See BROKET.
APP (ap) n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a systems
program. What systems vendors are forever chasing developers to do
for their environments so they can sell more boxes. Hackers tend
not to think of the things they themselves run as apps; thus, in
hacker parlance the term excludes compilers, program editors,
games, and messaging systems, though a user would consider all
those apps. Oppose TOOL, OPERATING SYSTEM.
ARENA (a-ree'nuh) [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by
brk(2) and sbrk(2) and used by malloc(3) as dynamic storage. So
named from a semi-mythical "malloc: corrupt arena" message
supposedly emitted when some early versions became terminally
confused. See OVERRUN SCREW, ALIASING SCREW, MEMORY LEAK, SMASH THE
STACK.
ARG (arg) n. Abbreviation for "argument" (to a function), used so
often as to have become a new word. Compare PARAM, VAR.
ASBESTOS LONGJOHNS (as-bes't@s long'jons), UNDIES (uhn'dees), or
OVERCOAT (o'vr-koht) n. Metaphoric garments often donned by USENET
posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit
FLAMAGE.
ASCII (as'kee) Common slang names for ASCII characters are collected
here. See individual entries for BANG, CLOSE, EXCL, OPEN, QUES,
SEMI, SHRIEK, SPLAT, TWIDDLE, WHAT, WOW, and YIU-SHANG WHOLE FISH.
This list is snarfed from USENET circa 1983. Single characters are
listed in ASCII order, followed by multiples. For each character,
"official" names appear first, then others in order of popularity
(more or less).
! exclamation point, exclamation, bang, factorial, excl, ball-bat,
smash, shriek, cuss, wow, hey
" double quote, quote, dirk, literal mark, rabbit ears
# pound sign, number sign, sharp, crunch, mesh, hex, hash,
flash, grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratchmark, octothorp (from
Bell System)
$ dollar sign, currency symbol, buck, cash, string (from BASIC),
escape (from TOPS-10), ding, big-money
% percent sign, percent, mod, double-oh-seven
& ampersand, amper, and, address (from C), andpersand
' apostrophe, single quote, quote, prime, tick, irk, pop, spark
() open/close parenthesis, left/right parenthesis, paren/thesis,
parenthisey, unparenthisey, open/close round bracket, ears,
so/already, wax/wane
* asterisk, star, splat, wildcard, gear, dingle, mult ("multiply")
+ plus sign, plus, add, cross, intersection
, comma, tail
- hyphen, dash, minus sign, worm
. period, dot, decimal point, radix point, point, full stop, spot
/ virgule, slash, stroke, slant, diagonal, solidus, over, slat
: colon, two-spot
; semicolon, semi, hybrid
<> angle brackets, brokets, left/right angle, less/greater than,
read from/write to, from/into, from/toward, in/out, comesfrom/
gozinta (all from UNIX), funnel, brokets, crunch/zap, suck/blow
= equal sign, equals, quadrathorp, gets, half-mesh
? question mark, whatmark, what, wildchar, ques, huh, quark
@ at sign, at, each, vortex, whorl, whirlpool, cyclone, snail,
ape, cat
V vee, book
[] square brackets, left/right bracket, bracket/unbracket, bra/ket,
square/unsquare, U turns
\ reversed virgule, backslash, bash, backslant, backwhack, backslat,
escape (from UNIX)
^ circumflex, caret, uparrow, hat, chevron, sharkfin, to ("to
the power of"), fang
_ underscore, underline, underbar, under, score, backarrow, flatworm
` grave accent, grave, backquote, left quote, open quote, backprime,
unapostrophe, backspark, birk, blugle, back tick, push
{} open/close brace, left/right brace, brace/unbrace, curly bracket,
curly/uncurly, leftit/rytit, embrace/bracelet
| vertical bar, bar, or, v-bar, spike, pipe, gozinta, thru,
pipesinta (last four from UNIX)
~ tilde, squiggle, approx, wiggle, twiddle, swung dash, enyay
ASSEMBLER (as'em-bler) 1. A program translator that allows human
beings to generate machine code using mnemonics and symbolic names
for memory locations rather than raw binary; distinguished from an
HLL (q.v.) by the fact that a single assembler step generally maps
to a single machine instruction (see also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE). 2.A
NANOBOT which is a physical REPLICATOR. (This is the "official"
term, coined by Eric Drexler; see NANOTECHNOLOGY).
AUTOMAGICALLY (aw-toh-maj'i-klee, aw-toh-maj'i-kl-ee) adv.
Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason (typically
because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too
trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you. See MAGIC.
Example: Some programs which produce XGP output files spool them
automagically.
= B =
BACKBONE CABAL (bak'bohn k@-bawl') n. Semi-mythical group of
large-site administrators who pushed through the GREAT RENAMING and
reined in the chaos of USENET during most of the 1980s. The cabal
mailing list disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal
catfight, but the net hardly noticed.
BACK DOOR (bak dor) n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately
left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for this
is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come
out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field
service or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Historically, back
doors have often lurked in systems longer than any one expected or
planned, and a few have become widely known. The famous RTM worm of
late 1988, for example, used a back door in the BSD UNIX
sendmail(1) utility. See also IRON BOX, CRACKER, WORM, LOGIC BOMB.
BACKGROUND (bak'grownd) v.,adj. A task running in background is
detached from the terminal where it was started and running at a
lower priority (oppose FOREGROUND). Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with UNIX, but it was appears first to have been used in
this sense on OS/360. By extension, to do a task "in background" is
to do it whenever FOREGROUND matters are not claiming your
undivided attention, and "to background" something means to
relegate it to a lower priority. Compare SLOPSUCKER.
BAD THING (bad thing) n. Something which can't possibly result in
improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in
"Replacing all of the 9600 baud modems with bicycle couriers would
be a Bad Thing." Oppose GOOD THING.
BAGBITER (bag'biet-@r) 1. n. Equipment or program that fails, usually
intermittently. 2. BAGBITING: adj. Failing hardware or software.
"This bagbiting system won't let me get out of SPACEWAR." Usage:
verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of
"biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS,
BARFUCIOUS.
BAMF (bamf) [from comix] interj. Notional sound made by a person or
object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used
in VIRTUAL REALITY (q.v.) electronic fora when a character wishes
to make a dramatic entrance or exit.
BANG (bang) 1. n. Common alternate name for EXCL (q.v.), especially at
CMU and when used in pronouncing a BANG PATH (q.v.) in spoken
hackish. See SHRIEK. 2. interj. An exclamation signifying roughly
"I have achieved enlightenment!" or "The dynamite has cleared out
my brain!". Often used to acknowledge that one has perpetrated a
THINKO immediately after one has been called on it.
BANG PATH (bang path) n. An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address
specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the
addressee, so called because each hop is signified by a BANG sign.
Thus the path "...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me" directs correspondents
to route their mail to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known
location accessible to everybody) and from there through the
machine "foovax" to the account of user "me" on "barbox". See
INTERNET ADDRESS and NETWORK.
BAR (bar) 1. The second metasyntactic variable, after FOO and before
BAZ. "Suppose we have two functions FOO and BAR. FOO calls
BAR..." 2. Often appended to FOO to produce FOOBAR.
BARF (barf) [from the "layman" slang, meaning "vomit"] 1. interj. Term
of disgust. See BLETCH. 2. v. Choke, as on input. May mean to
give an error message. "The function `=' compares two fixnums or
two flonums, and barfs on anything else." 3. BARFULOUS,
BARFUCIOUS: adj. Said of something which would make anyone barf, if
only for aesthetic reasons. See CHOKE, GAG.
BAUD BARF (bawd barf) n. The garbage one gets on the monitor when
using a modem connection with some protocol setting (esp. line
speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice extension on the
same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts the connection.
BAZ (baz) 1. The third metasyntactic variable, after FOO and BAR and
before QUX. "Suppose we have three functions FOO, BAR, and BAZ.
FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ..." 2. Occasionally appended to FOO
to produce FOOBAZ.
BELLS AND WHISTLES (belz and hwis'@lz) [by analogy with locomotives]
n. Features added to a program or system to make it more FLAVORFUL
from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily adding to its
utility for its primary function. Distinguished from CHROME which
is intended to attract users.
BENCHMARK (bench'mark) n. An inaccurate measure of computer
performance. As in "In the computer industry, there are three
kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks."
BERKLIX (ber'kliks) n.,adj. Contraction of Berkeley UNIX. See BSD. Not
used at Berkeley itself. [This one, in my experience, is more
common among suit-wearers attempting to sound "hip" than hackers --
ESR]
BERZERKELY (b@r-zer'klee) [from the name of a now-deceased record
label] n. Humorous, often-used distortion of "Berkeley" used esp.
to refer to the practices or products of the BSD UNIX hackers.
BIG-ENDIAN (big'-en-di-@n) adj. Describes a computer architecture in
which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses have
higher significance (the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most
processors including the IBM 370 family and the PDP-10 and the
Intel and Motorola microprocessor families and the various RISC
designs current in 1990 are big-endian. See LITTLE-ENDIAN.
BIG IRON (big ie'@rn) n. Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used
generally of number crunching supercomputers such as Crays, but can
include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes.
Believed to have originated in the title of a paper given at a
Usenix, "Unix on Big Iron". Term of approval, compare DINOSAUR.
BIG RED SWITCH (big red swich) [IBM] n. The power switch on a
computer, esp. on an IBM-PC where it really is large and red. As in
"This !@%$% BITTY BOX is hung again, time to hit the big red
switch".
BIGNUMS (big'nuhms) [from Macsyma] n. 1. In backgammon, large numbers
on the dice. 2. Multiple-precision (sometimes infinitely
extendable) integers and, through analogy, any very large numbers.
3. EL CAMINO BIGNUM: El Camino Real, a street through the San
Francisco peninsula that originally extended (and still appears in
places) all the way to Mexico City. It was termed "El Camino
Double Precision" when someone noted it was a very long street, and
then "El Camino Bignum" when it was pointed out that it was
hundreds of miles long.
BINARY (bie'na-ree) n. The object code for a program.
BIT BANG (bit bang) n. Transmission of data on a serial line
accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the
appropriate times (popular on certain early models of PRIME
computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive; and on archaic
Z-80 micros with a Zilog PIO but no SIO). The technique is a simple
loop with eight OUT, SHIFT, OUT etc for each byte. Input is more
interesting. And full duplex (doing input and output at the same
time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the wannabees.
BIT BUCKET (bit buhk'@t) n. The great data sink in the sky. Data that
is discarded is said to "go to the bit bucket". On UNIX, often used
for /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as THE GREAT BIT BUCKET IN THE
SKY.
BIT DECAY (bit d@-kay') n. See SOFTWARE ROT. People with a physics
background tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle
decay.
BIT ROT (bit rot) n. See SOFTWARE ROT.
BITBLT (bit'blit, bit'belt) n. [from BLT, q.v.] 1. One of a closely
related family of algorithms for moving and copying rectangles of
bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped device, or
between two areas of either main or display memory (the requirement
to do the right thing in the case of overlapping source and
destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky). 2. An early
experimental bit-mapped terminal at Bell Labs, later commercialized
as the AT&T 5620.
BITTY BOX (bit'ee boks) n. 1. A computer sufficiently small, primitive
or incapable as to cause a hacker acute claustrophobia at the
thought of developing for it. Especially used of small,
obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal machines like the Atari
800X, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, or TRS-80. 2. More generally, the
opposite of `real computer' (see GET A REAL COMPUTER). Pejorative.
See also MESS-DOS, TOASTER, and TOY.
BIXIE (biks'ee) n. Synonym for EMOTICON used on BIX (the Byte
Information Exchange); BIXers believe the emoticon was invented
there.
BLAST (blast) v.,n. Synonym for BLT (q.v.), used esp. for large data
sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of SNARF. Usage:
uncommon.
BLAZER (blay'zr) n. Nickname for the Telebit Trailblazer, an expensive
but extremely reliable and effective high-speed modem, popular at
UNIX sites that pass large volumes of EMAIL and USENET news.
BLETCH (blech) [from German "brechen", to vomit (?)] 1. interj. Term
of disgust. 2. BLETCHEROUS: adj. Disgusting in design or function.
"This keyboard is bletcherous!" Usage: slightly comic.
BLINKENLIGHTS (blink'@n-lietz) n. Front-panel diagnostic lights on a
mainframe CPU. Derives from the last word of the famous
blackletter-Gothic "ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!" notice in
mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer
rooms in the English-speaking world. The following text ran: "Das
computermachine ist nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist
easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit
spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das
rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen
und watch das blinkenlichten." This silliness dates back at least
as far as the London University ATLAS site in the 1960s, but
(judging by the idioms) was probably composed by an American at
some still-earlier date.
BLOCK (blok) [From computer science usage] 1. vi. To delay while
waiting for something. "We're blocking until everyone gets here."
2. in BLOCK ON vt. To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is
blocked on Phil's arrival."
BLOCK TRANSFER COMPUTATIONS (blok trans'fer kom-pyoo-tay'shns) n.
From the Dr. Who television series: in the show, it referred to
computations so fiendishly subtle and complex that they could not
be performed by machines. Used to refer to any task that should be
expressible as an algorithm in theory, but isn't.
BLOW AWAY (bloh @-way') v. To remove files and directories from
permanant storage with extreme prejudice, generally by accident.
Oppose NUKE.
BLOW OUT (bloh owt) v. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as
serious as CRASH AND BURN. See BLOW PAST.
BLOW PAST (bloh past) v. To BLOW OUT despite a safeguard. "The server
blew past the 5K reserve buffer."
BLT (blit, belt [very rarely]) v. To transfer a large contiguous package
of information from one place to another. This usage has outlasted
the PDP-10 BLock Transfer instruction for which it derives. See
DD, CAT, BLAST, SNARF, Appendix B.
BLUE GLUE (bloo gloo) [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network
Architecture) an incredibly losing and bletcherous protocol suite
widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better.
See FEAR AND LOATHING.
BLUE GOO (bloo goo) n. Term for "police" NANOBOTS intended to prevent
GRAY GOO (q.v.), denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put
ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and to promote
truth, justice, and the American way, etc., etc. See
NANOTECHNOLOGY.
BNF (bee-en-ef) n. Hacker acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', a
metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programming
languages, command sets and the like. Widely used for language
descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, so that it must
usually be learned by osmosis from other hackers. Consider this BNF
for a postal address:
<postal-address> ::= <name-part> <street-address> <zip-part>
<name-part> ::= <first-name> [<middle-part>] <last-name>
<middle-part> ::= <middle-name>
| <middle-initial> "."
<street-address> ::= [<apt>] <street-number> <street-name>
<zip-part> ::= <town-name> "," <state-code> <zip-code>
This translates into English as: A postal-address consists of
a name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a
zip-code part. A name-part consists of a first-name followed
by an optional middle-part followed by a last-name. A middle-part
consists of either a middle name or a middle initial followed
by a dot. A street address consists of an optional apartment
specifier followed by a street number, followed by a street name.
A zip-part consts of a town-name, followed by a state code,
followed by a zip code. Note that many things such as the format
of a first-name, apartment specifier or zip-code are left
unspecified. These are presumed to be obvious from context or
detailed in another part of the specification the BNF is part of.
BOA (bo'uh) [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the
floor in DINOSAUR PENS. It is rumored within IBM that 370 channel
cables are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the
boas get dangerous...
BOAT ANCHOR (boht an'kr) n. Like DOORSTOP (q.v.) but more severe,
implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or
useless.
BOGOMETER (boh-goh'm@-tr) n. An instrument to measure BOGOSITY,
generally a conversational device, as in "my bogometer is reading
in the red on that idea" or "I think you just bent the needle on my
bogometer".
BOGON (bo'gon) [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but
doubtless reinforced by the similarity to "Vogon"] n. 1. The
elementary particle of bogosity (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS). For
instance, "the ethernet is emitting bogons again," meaning that it
is broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query
packet sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having
the reply bit set instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or
incorrectly formed packet sent on a network. 4. By extension, used
to refer metasyntactically to any bogus thing, such as "I'd like to
go to lunch with you but I've got to go to the weekly staff bogon."
BOGON FILTER (bo'gon fil'tr) n. Any device, software or hardware,
which limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons.
Example: "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and
the VAXen and now we're getting fewer dropped packets."
BOGOSITY (boh-gos-@-tee) n. 1. The degree to which something is BOGUS
(q.v.). At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; typical
use: in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener
might raise his hand and say, "My bogometer just triggered." The
agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat (uL). 2. The
potential field generated by a bogon flux; see QUANTUM
BOGODYNAMICS.
BOGUS (boh'guhs) [WPI, Yale, Stanford] adj. 1. Non-functional. "Your
patches are bogus." 2. Useless. "OPCON is a bogus program." 3.
False. "Your arguments are bogus." 4. Incorrect. "That algorithm
is bogus." 5. Silly. "Stop writing those bogus sagas." (This
word seems to have some, but not all, of the connotations of
RANDOM.) [Etymological note from Lehman/Reid at CMU: "Bogus" was
originally used (in this sense) at Princeton, in the late 60s. It
was used not particularly in the CS department, but all over
campus. It came to Yale, where one of us (Lehman) was an
undergraduate, and (we assume) elsewhere through the efforts of
Princeton alumni who brought the word with them from their alma
mater. In the Yale case, the alumnus is Michael Shamos, who was a
graduate student at Yale and is now a faculty member here. A
glossary of bogus words was compiled at Yale when the word was
first popularized (e.g., autobogophobia: the fear of becoming
bogotified).]
BOHR BUG (bor buhg) [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable BUG; one
which manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined
set of conditions. Antonym of HEISENBUG.
BOINK (boynk) [USENET] 1. To have sex with; compare BOUNCE, sense #3.
2. After the original Peter Korn "Boinkcon" USENET parties, used
for almost any net social gathering, e.g. Miniboink, a small boink
held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota
in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
BONDAGE-AND-DISCIPLINE LANGUAGE (bon'd@j @n dis'@-plin lang'w@j) A
language such as Pascal, APL, or Prolog that, though ostensibly
general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of
"right programming" even though said theory is demonstrably
inadequate for systems or even vanilla general-purpose programming.
See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.
BOOT (boot) [from "by one's bootstraps"] v.,n. To load and initialize
the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer slang
(having become jargon in the strict sense), but the following
variants still are. COLD BOOT: a boot from a power- off condition.
WARM BOOT: a reboot with the CPU and all devices already powered
up, as after a hardware reset or software crash.
BOTTLENECKED (bot'l-nekt) adj. 1. Used by hackers specifically to
describe hardware under which performance is usually limited by
contention for one particular resource (such as disk, memory or
processor CLOCKS); see BALANCED. 2. Less often, applied to the
software analogue of sense #1, a slow code section or algorithm
through which all computation must pass (see also HOT SPOT).
BOUNCE (bowns) v. 1. [UNIX] An electronic mail message which is
undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is
said to `bounce'. See also BOUNCE MESSAGE. 2. [Stanford] To play
volleyball. "Bounce, bounce! Stop wasting time on the computer and
get out to the court!" 3. To engage in sexual intercourse.
BOUNCE MESSAGE (bowns mes'@j) [UNIX] n. Notification message returned
to sender by a site unable to relay EMAIL to the intended INTERNET
ADDRESS recipient or the next link in a BANG PATH (see BOUNCE).
Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled username or a
down relay site. Bounce messages can themselves fail, with
occasionally ugly results; see SORCERER'S APPRENTICE MODE.
BOXEN (bok'sn) pl n. [back-formation from VAXEN] Fanciful plural of
`box' often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen', used to
describe commodity UNIX hardware. The implication is that any two
UNIX boxen are interchangeable.
BRAIN-DAMAGED (brayn'dam-@jd) [generalization of "Honeywell Brain
Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain
utter cretinisms in MULTICS] adj. Obviously wrong; CRETINOUS;
DEMENTED. There is an implication that the person responsible must
have suffered brain damage, because he should have known better.
Calling something brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it
is unusable.
BRANCH TO FISHKILL (branch to fish'kill) [IBM, from the location of
one of their facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that
produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See HYPERSPACE.
BREAK (brayk) v. 1. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your
latest patch to the system broke the TELNET server." 2. (of a
program) To stop temporarily, so that it may be examined for
debugging purposes. The place where it stops is a BREAKPOINT.
BREAKAGE (brayk'@j) [IBM] n. The extra people that must be added to an
organization because its master plan has changed; used esp. of
software and hardware development teams.
BRITTLE (bri'tl) adj. Said of software that's easily broken. Often
describes the results of a research effort that were never intended
to be robust, but equally can apply commercially developed
software.
BROADCAST STORM (brod'kast storm) n. An incorrect packet broadcast
on a network that causes most hosts to respond all at once,
typically with wrong answers that start the process over again.
Also called NETWORK MELTDOWN. See also CHERNOBYL PACKET.
BROKEN (broh'kn) adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs). 2.
Behaving strangely; especially (of people), exhibiting extreme
depression.
BROKET (broh'k@t, broh'ket) [by analogy with "bracket": a "broken
bracket"] (primarily Stanford) n. Either of the characters "<" and
">". (At MIT, and apparently in THE REAL WORLD (q.v.) as well,
these are usually called ANGLE BRACKETS.)
BRUTE FORCE AND IGNORANCE (broot fohrs @nd ig'nohr-ans) n. A popular
design technique at many software houses. Dogmatic adherence to
design methodologies tends to encourage it. Characteristic of early
LARVAL STAGE programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it.
Often abbreviated BFI, as in: "Gak, they used a bubble sort! That's
strictly from BFI." Compare BOGOSITY.
BSD (bee-ess-dee) n. [acronym for Berkeley System Distribution] a
family of UNIX versions for the DEC VAX developed by Bill Joy and
others at UC Berkeley starting around 1980, incorporating TCP/IP
networking enhancements and many other features. The BSD versions
(4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and commercial versions derived from them
(SunOS and Mt. Xinu) held the technical lead in the UNIX world
until AT&T's successful standardization efforts after about 1986,
and are still widely popular. See UNIX, USG UNIX.
BUCKY BITS (buh'kee bits) [primarily Stanford] n. The bits produced by
the CTRL and META shift keys on a Stanford (or Knight) keyboard. It
is rumored that these were in fact named for Buckminster Fuller
during a period when he was consulting at Stanford. Unfortunately,
legend also has it that "Bucky" was Niklaus Wirth's nickname when
*he* was consulting at Stanford and that he first suggested the
idea of the meta key, so its bit was named after him. DOUBLE BUCKY:
adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all
LEDs is double bucky F." See also META BIT, COKEBOTTLE.
BUFFER OVERFLOW (buhf'r oh'vr-floh) n. What typically happens when an
OS or application is fed data faster than it can buffer and process
it. Used metaphorically of human mental processes. Ex. "Sorry, I
got four phone calls in three minutes last night and lost your
message to a buffer overflow."
BUG (buhg) [from telephone terminology, "bugs in a telephone cable",
blamed for noisy lines] n. An unwanted and unintended property of a
program, esp. one which causes it to malfunction. See FEATURE.
BULLETPROOF (bul'@t-proof) adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation
considered extremely robust; lossage-resistant; capable of
correctly recovering from any imaginable exception condition. This
is a rare and valued quality.
BUM (buhm) 1. v. To make highly efficient, either in time or space,
often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more
instructions." 2. n. A small change to an algorithm to make it
more efficient. Usage: somewhat rare. See TUNE.
BUMP (buhmp) v. Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as C's ++
operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers (see POINTER
ARITHMETIC) and index dummies in for, while, and do-until loops.
BURBLE (ber'bl) v. Like FLAME, but connotes that the source is truly
clueless and ineffectual (mere flamers can be competent). A term of
deep contempt.
BUSY-WAIT (bi'zee-wayt) v. To wait on an event by SPINning through a
tight or timed-delay loop that checks for the event on each pass,
as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuing
execution on another part of the task. A wasteful technique, best
avoided on time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may
hog the processor.
BUZZ (buhz) v. To run in a very tight loop, perhaps without guarantee
of getting out. See SPIN.
BWQ [bee duhb'l-yoo kyoo) [IBM] n. Buzz Word Quotient. Usually roughly
proportional to BOGOSITY. See TLA.
BYTESEXUAL (biet-seks'u-@l) adj. Said of hardware, denotes
willingness to compute or pass data in either BIG ENDIAN or LITTLE
ENDIAN format (depending, presumably, on a mode bit somewhere).
= C =
C (see) n. 1. The third letter of the Latin alphabet. 2. The name of a
programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early
1970s and first used to implement UNIX (q.v.). So called because
many features derived from an earlier interpreter named 'B' in
commemoration of *its* parent, BCPL; before Bjarne Stroustrup
settled the question by designing C++, there was a humorous debate
over whether C's successor should be named `D' or 'P'. C became
immensely popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the
dominant language in systems and microcomputer applications
programming. See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.
CAMBRIDGE NOTATION (kaym'brij no-ta'shn) [LISP] n. The now-standard
way of writing LISP expressions as nested lists, with parens and
spaces; as opposed to the earlier and technically purer practice of
writing full S-expressions with cons dots. Supposedly invented as a
KLUGE because a full parser for S-expressions would have been
harder to write.
CAN (can) v. To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used esp. when
the person doing the deed is an operator, as in CANNED FROM THE
CONSOLE. Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "Can that
print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!". Synymous with GUN.
CANONICAL (k@-nahn'i-kl) adj. The usual or standard state or manner
of something. A true story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI
Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud
objections, we made a point of using jargon as much as possible in
his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one
conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion
without thinking. Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking
jargon too!" Stallman: "What did he say?" Steele: "He just used
`canonical' in the canonical way."
CASTERS UP MODE (cas'trz uhp mohd) [IBM] n. Yet another synonym for
`broken' or `down'.
CAT (cat) [from UNIX cat(1)] v. To spew an entire (notionally large)
file to the screen or some other output sink without pause; by
extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared target or
with no intention of browsing it carefully. Usage: considered
silly. Rare outside UNIX sites. See also DD, BLT.
CATATONIA (kat-@-toh'nee-uh) n. A condition of suspended animation
in which the system is in a wedged (CATATONIC) state.
CDR (ku'dr) [from LISP] v. With "down", to trace down a list of
elements. "Shall we cdr down the agenda?" Usage: silly.
CELL-REPAIR MACHINES (sel r:-peir' m:-sheens') n. An often-discussed
probable consequence of NANOTECHNOLOGY; NANOBOTS specifically
programmed to repair tissue at the cellular level. Possible uses
include reversing freezing damage from CRYONICS procedures and
correction of mutagen-damaged DNA (including eradication of
retrovirii and oncogenes).
CHAD (chad) n. 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after
they have been separated from the printed portion. Also called
SELVAGE and PERF. 2. obs. the confetti-like paper bits punched out
of cards or paper tape; this was also called `chaff'.
CHAIN (chayn) [orig. from BASIC's CHAIN statement] v. When used of
programming languages, refers to a statement that allows a parent
executable to hand off execution to a child without going through
the OS command interpreter. The state of the parent program is lost
and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be
common on memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for
backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in
particular most UNIX programmers will think of this as an EXEC.
Oppose the more modern SUBSHELL.
CHAR (keir; [rarely] char) n. Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used by
C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data.
CHASE POINTERS (chays uh poyn'tr) v. To go through multiple levels of
indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.
Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very
common data type.
CHERNOBYL PACKET (cher-no'b@l pa'k@t) n. An IP Ethergram with both
source and destination Ether and IP address set as the respective
broadcast address. So called because it induces NETWORK MELTDOWN.
CHINESE RAVS (chie'neez ravs) [MIT] n. Pot-stickers. Kuo-teh. Gyoza.
Oriental dumplings, especially when pan-fried rather than steamed.
A favorite hacker appetizer. See ORIENTAL FOOD, STIR-FRIED RANDOM.
CHOKE (chohk) vi. To reject input, often ungracefully. Examples: "I
tried building X, but cpp choked on all those #define's." See BARF,
GAG.
CHOMP (chomp) v. To lose; to chew on something of which more was
bitten off than one can. Probably related to gnashing of teeth.
See BAGBITER. A hand gesture commonly accompanies this, consisting
of the four fingers held together as if in a mitten or hand puppet,
and the fingers and thumb open and close rapidly to illustrate a
biting action. The gesture alone means CHOMP CHOMP (see Verb
Doubling).
CHRISTMAS TREE PACKET (krist'm@s tree pa'k@t) n. A packet with every
single option set for whatever protocol is in use.
CHROME (krohm) [from automotive slang via wargaming] n. Showy features
added to attract users, but which contribute little or nothing to
the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome!"
Distinguished from BELLS AND WHISTLES by the fact that the former
are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for
featurefulness.
CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS (cherch @v dh@ suhb-gee'-ny@s) A mutant
offshoot of DISCORDIANISM launched in 1981 as a spoof of
fundamentalist Christianity by the "Rev." Ivan Stang, a brilliant
satirist with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich
source of bizarre imagery and references such as: "Bob" the divine
drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists and the
Stark Fist of Removal. Much Sub-Genius theory is concerned with the
acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of "slack".
CLASSIC C (klas'ik see) n. The C programming language as defined in
the first edition of the book ``The C Programming Language'' by
``Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie'' with some small
additions. It is also known as ``K & R C.'' The name came into
use during the standardisation process for C by the ANSI X3J11
committee.
CLOCKS (kloks) n. Processor logic cycles, so called because each
generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing.
The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are
usually discussed in `clocks' rather than absolute fractions of a
second.
CLONE (klohn) n. 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone
of their product." 2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their
product is a clone of our product." 3. A PC-BUS/ISA or
EISA-compatible 80x86 based microcomputer (in-context shorthand for
"PC clone"). 3. In the construction UNIX CLONE: An OS designed to
deliver a UNIX-lookalike environment sans UNIX license fees, or
with additional "mission-critical" features such as support for
real-time programming.
CLOSE (klohz) n. Abbreviation for "close (or right) parenthesis", used
when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. See OPEN.
CLUSTERGEEKING (kluh'ster-gee`king) [CMU] n. An activity defined by
spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than
most people spend breathing.
COBOL FINGERS (koh'bol fing'grs) n. Reported from Sweden, a
(hypothetical) disease one might get from programming in COBOL. The
language requires extremely voluminous code. Programming too much
in COBOL causes the fingers to wear down (by endless typing), until
short stubs remain. This malformity is called COBOL FINGERS. "I
refuse to type in all that source code again, it will give me cobol
fingers!"
CODE GRINDER (kohd grien'dr) n. 1. A SUIT-wearing minion of the sort
hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to
implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable
horrors. This is about as far from hackerdom as you can get and
still touch a computer. Connotes pity. See REAL WORLD. 2. Used of
or to a hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creative
ability; connotes a design style characterized by primitive
technique, rule-boundedness, and utter lack of imagination.
CODE POLICE (kohd p@-lees') [by analogy with "thought police"] n. A
mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst into
one's office and arrest one for violating style rules. May be used
either "seriously" (to underline a claim that a particular style
violation is dangerous) or (more often) ironically (to suggest that
the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by anal-retentive
weenies).
CODEWALKER (kohd'wok-r) n. A program component that traverses other
programs for a living. Compilers have codewalkers in their front
ends; so do cross-reference generators and some database
front-ends. As in "This language extension would require a
codewalker to implement."
COKEBOTTLE (kohk'bot-l) n. Any very unusual character. MIT people
used to complain about the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at
SAIL, and SAIL people complained right back about the
"altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT. Since the demise of
the SPACE-CADET KEYBOARD this is no longer a serious usage, but may
be invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or
non-intuitive keystroke command.
COME FROM (kuhm fruhm) n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to
the `go to'; COME FROM <label> would cause the referenced label to
act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it
control would quietly fall through to the statement following the
COME FROM. COME FROM was first proposed in a Datamation article in
1973 that parodied the then-raging `structured programming' wars
(see CONSIDERED HARMFUL). It was actually implemented for the first
time seventeen years later, in C-INTERCAL (see INTERCAL,
RETROCOMPUTING); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from
shock.
COMPRESS (k@m-pres') [UNIX] v. When used witchout a qualifier,
generally refers to CRUNCHing of a file using a particular C
implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et. al.
and widely circulated via USENET. Use of CRUNCH (q.v.) itself in
this sense is rare among UNIX hackers.
COMPUTER GEEK (kuhm-pyoo-tr geek) n. One who eats [computer] bugs
for a living. One who fulfills all of the dreariest negative
stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced
monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. Cannot be
used by outsiders without implied insult to all hackers; compare
black-on-black usage of "nigger". A computer geek may be either a
fundamentally clueless individual or a true-hacker in LARVAL STAGE.
Also called TURBO NERD, TURBO GEEK. See also CLUSTERGEEKING.
COMPUTRON (kom-pyoo-tron) n. A notional unit of computing power
combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned
roughly in instructions-per- sec times megabytes-of-main-store
types megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can't run GNU
Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This term is usually
used in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible
commodity good like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See BITTY
BOX, GET A REAL COMPUTER, TOY, CRANK.
CONNECTOR CONSPIRACY (k@-nek'ter k@n-spi'r@h-see) [probably came into
prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, none of whose
connectors match anything else] n. The tendency of manufacturers
(or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up
with new products which don't fit together with the old stuff,
thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface
devices.
CONS (kons) [from LISP] 1. v. To add a new element to a list. 2.
CONS UP: v. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an
example".
CONSIDERED HARMFUL (k@n-si'derd harm'fl) adj. Edsger Dijkstra's
infamous March 1968 CACM note, _Goto_Statement_Considered_Harmful_,
fired the first salvo in the "structured programming" wars. In the
years since then a number of both serious papers and parodies have
borne titles of the form "X considered Y" in reference to it. The
"structured programming" wars eventually blew over with the
realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has
remained as a persistent minor in-joke.
COOKIE MONSTER (ku'kee mon'str) n. Any of a family of early (1970s)
hacks reported on ITS and elswhere that would lock up either the
victim's terminal (on a time-sharing machine) or the operator's
console (on a batch mainframe), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A
COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "HAVE A
COOKIE" upward. See also WABBIT.
COPYLEFT (kop'ee-left) n. 1. The copyright notice carried by GNU
EMACS and other Free Software Foundation software granting re-use
and reproduction rights to all comers. 2. By extension, any
copyright notice intended to achieve similar aims.
CORE (kor) n. Main storage or DRAM. Dates from the days of
ferrite-core memory; now archaic, but still used in the UNIX
community and by old-time hackers or those who would sound like
same.
CORE DUMP (kor duhmp) n. [from UNIX] 1. Catastrophic program failure
due to internal error. 2. By extension, used for humans passing out
or registering extreme shock. Usage: rare.
CORE WARS (kohr wohrz) n. A game between "assembler" programs in a
simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's
program by overwriting it. This was popularized by A.K. Dewdney's
column in _Scientific_American_. It is rumored that the game is a
civilized version of an amusement common on pre-MMU multitasking
machines.
CORGE (korj) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike
Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. See GRAULT.
CP/M (see-pee-em) [Control Program for Microcomputers] An early
microcomputer OS written by hacker Gary Kildall for Z-80 based
machines, very popular in the late 1970s until virtually wiped out
by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 1981 (legend has it
that Kildall's company blew their chance to write the PC's OS
because Kildall decided to spend the day IBM's reps wanted to meet
with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his private plane).
Many of its features and conventions strongly resemble those of
early DEC operating systems such as OS9, RSTS and RSX-11. See
MS-DOS, OPERATING SYSTEM.
CRACKER (krak'r) n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined c.
1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of HACKER,
see definition #6.
CRANK (krank) [from automotive slang] v. Verb used to describe the
performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This
box cranks about 6 MegaFLOPS, with a burst mode of twice that on
vectorized operations"
CRASH (krash) 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often
said of the system (q.v., definition #1), sometimes of magnetic
disk drives. "Three lusers lost their files in last night's disk
crash." A disk crash which entails the read/write heads dropping
onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also
be referred to as a "head crash". 2. v. To fail suddenly. "Has
the system just crashed?" 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. Sometimes
said of people hitting the sack after a long HACKING RUN, see GRONK
OUT.
CRASH AND BURN (krash @n bern) v.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode
of the conclusion of the car chase scene from Steve McQueen's
"Bullitt". Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer and
lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash and
burn generators.
CRAWLING HORROR (kraw'lng hor'@r) n. Ancient crufty hardware or
software that forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site
refuse to let die. Like DUSTY DECK or GONKULATOR, but connotes that
the thing described is not just an irritation but an active menace
to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they pay
us to maintain one big Fortran II application from nineteen-sixty-X
that's a real crawling horror...". Compare WOMBAT.
CRAY (kray) n. 1. One of the line of supercomputers designed by Cray
Research. 2. Any supercomputer at all.
CRAYON (krayon) n. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More
specifically implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk,
probably male, and and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective
of gender). Unicos systems types who have a Unix background tend
not to be described as crayons.
CREEPING FEATURITIS (kree'ping fee-ch@r-ie't@s) n. Describes a
systematic tendency to load more CHROME onto systems at the expence
of whatever ELEGANCE they may have posessed when originally
designed. See FEEPING CREATURITIS. "You know, the main problem
with BSD UNIX has always been creeping featuritis".
CRETIN (kre'tn) 1. n. Congenital LOSER (q.v.). 2. CRETINOUS: adj.
See BLETCHEROUS and BAGBITING. Usage: somewhat ad hominem.
CRIPPLEWARE (krip'@l-weir) n. SHAREWARE which has some important
functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users
to pay for a working version. See also GUILTWARE.
CRLF (ker'lif, sometimes krul'lif) n. A carriage return (CR) followed
by a line feed (LF). See TERPRI.
CROCK (krok) [from mainstream "crock of shit"] n. 1. An awkward
feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.
Example: Using small integers to represent error codes without the
program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIX
make(1)) is a crock. 2. Also, a technique that works acceptably
but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for
example depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit
patterns so that you can use instructions as data words too; a
tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure.
CROSS-POST (kros'pohst) [USENET] To post an article to several
newsgroups or topics.
CRUDWARE (kruhd-weir) n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of megabytes
of low-quality FREEWARE circulated by user's groups and BBS systems
in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another* set of disk catalog
utilities for MS-DOS? What crudware!"
CRUFTY (kruhf'tee) [from "cruddy"] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly
overly complex. "This is standard old crufty DEC software". Hence
CRUFT, n. shoddy construction. 2. Unpleasant, especially to the
touch, often with encrusted junk. Like spilled coffee smeared with
peanut butter and catsup. Hence CRUFT, n. disgusting mess. 3.
Generally unpleasant. CRUFTY or CRUFTIE n. A small crufty object
(see FROB); often one which doesn't fit well into the scheme of
things. "A LISP property list is a good place to store crufties
(or, random cruft)." [Note: Does CRUFT have anything to do with
the Cruft Lab at Harvard? I don't know, though I was a Harvard
student. - GLS]
CRUFT TOGETHER, CRUFT UP (kruhft too-ge'thr, kruhft uhp) v. To throw
together something ugly but temporarily workable. Like v. KLUGE,
but more pejorative. See CRUFTY.
CRUNCH (kruhnch) v. 1. To process, usually in a time-consuming or
complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation which
is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality being imbedded in a loop from 1 to 1000000000. "FORTRAN
programs do mostly number crunching." 2. To reduce the size of a
file by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurations
completely unrelated to the original data, such as by a Huffman
code. (The file ends up looking like a paper document would if
somebody crunched the paper into a wad.) Since such compression
usually takes more computations than simpler methods such as
counting repeated characters (such as spaces) the term is doubly
appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction
"file crunch(ing)" to distinguish it from "number crunch(ing)".)
See COMPRESS. 3. n. The character "#". Usage: used at Xerox and
CMU, among other places. See ASCII.
CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA (kruhnchah kruhnchah kruhnchah) interj. An
encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in
serious GROVELLING. Also describes a notional sound made by
grovelling hardware. See WUGGA WUGGA.
CRYONICS (kry-o'niks) n. The practice of freezing oneself in hopes of
being revived in the future by CELL REPAIR MACHINES. A possible
route to technological immortality already taken by 1990 by more
than a handful of persons with terminal illnesses.
CTSS (see-tee-ess-ess) n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early
(1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing
operating systems. Cited here because it was ancestral to MULTICS,
UNIX, and ITS (q.v.).
CUBING (kyoo'bing) [parallel with "tubing"] v. 1. Hacking on an IPSC
(Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing
AGAIN!!" 2. An indescribable form of self-torture, see sense #1.
CUSPY (kuhs'pee) [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System
Program, i.e., a utility program used by many people] [WPI] adj. 1.
(of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program
which performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy. See
RUDE.
CYBERPUNK (sie'ber-puhnk) [orig. by SF critic Garder Dozois] n.,adj. A
subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making
novel _Neuromancer_. Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and
the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the
role of computers and hackers in futures in ways hackers have since
found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating.
Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See CYBERSPACE, ICE,
GO FLATLINE.
CYBERSPACE (sie'ber-spays) n. Notional "information-space" loaded with
visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called
"cyberspace decks"; a characteristic prop of CYBERPUNK SF. At time
of writing (1990) serious efforts to construct VIRTUAL REALITY
interfaces modelled explicitly on CYBERSPACE are already under way,
using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular
TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to outright deny the
possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of THE NETWORK.
= D =
DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightly
different connotations (q.v.)] n. A program which is not invoked
explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not
be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will
commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly
invoke a daemon). For example, writing a file on the lpt spooler's
directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file.
The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) files
printed need not compete for access to the lpt. They simply enter
their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with
them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and
may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals. Usage:
DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem to
have distinct connotations. DAEMON was introduced to computing by
CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer to
what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.). The meaning and
pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects
current usage.
DAY MODE (day mohd) See PHASE (of people).
DD (dee-dee) [from archaic UNIX dd(1)] v. Equivalent to CAT or BLT.
Very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly obsolescent even there,
as dd(1) has been DEPRECATED for a long time. Replaced by BLT or
simple English `copy'.
DEADLOCK (ded'lok) n. A situation wherein two or more processes are
unable to proceed because each is waiting for another to do
something. A common example is a program communicating to a PTY or
STY, which may find itself waiting for output from the PTY/STY
before sending anything more to it, while the PTY/STY is similarly
waiting for more input from the controlling program before
outputting anything. (This particular flavor of deadlock is called
"starvation". Another common flavor is "constipation", where each
process is trying to send stuff to the other, but all buffers are
full because nobody is reading anything.) See DEADLY EMBRACE, RACE
CONDITION.
DEADLY EMBRACE (ded'lee em-brays') n. Same as DEADLOCK (q.v.), though
usually used only when exactly two processes are involved. DEADLY
EMBRACE is the more popular term in Europe; DEADLOCK in the United
States.
DEFENESTRATION (dee-fen-uh-stray'shn) [from the traditional
Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via ESR and
SF fandom] n. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible
punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!"
See also H INFIX.
DEEP SPACE (deep spays) adj. 1. Describes the "location" of any
program which has gone OFF THE TROLLEY. Esp. used of programs which
just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some
output is expected. 2. Also, the metaphorical "location" of a human
so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form of
BOGOSITY that he/she no longer responds coherently to normal
communication. Compare PAGE OUT.
DEMENTED (dee-men't@d) adj. Yet another term of disgust used to
describe a program. The connotation in this case is that the
program works as designed, but the design is bad. For example, a
program that generates large numbers of meaningless error messages
implying it is on the point of imminent collapse.
DEMIGOD (de'mi-god) n. Hacker with years of experience, a national
reputation, and a major role in the development of at least one
design, tool or game used by or known to more than 50% of the
hacker community. To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person must
recognizably identify with the hacker community and have helped
shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
(co-inventors of UNIX and C) and Richard M. Stallman (inventor of
EMACS). In their hearts of hearts most hackers dream of someday
becoming demigods themselves, and more than one major software
project has been driven to completion by the author's veiled hopes
of apotheosis. See also NET.GOD, TRUE-HACKER.
DEMON (dee'mun) n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program which is not invoked
explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. See DAEMON. The distinction is that demons are usually
processes within a program, while daemons are usually programs
running on an operating system. Demons are particularly common in
AI programs. For example, a knowledge manipulation program might
implement inference rules as demons. Whenever a new piece of
knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demons
depends on the particular piece of data) and would create
additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective
inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in
turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through
chains of logic. Meanwhile the main program could continue with
whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used
equivalently to DAEMON, especially under UNIX where the the latter
spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic.
DEPRECATED (de'pre-kay-t@d) [from UNIX documentation] n. Said of a
program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the
process of being phased out, usually in favor of a specified
replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for
many years.
DE-REZZ (dee rez) [from the movie TRON] v. To disappear or dissolve;
the image that goes with it is of an object breaking up into raster
lines and static and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a
person who seems to have suddenly "fuzzed out" mentally rather
than physically. Usage: extremely silly, also rare. This verb was
actually invented as *fictional* hacker slang, and adopted in a
spirit of irony by real hackers years after the fact.
DEVO (dee'vo) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n. A person in a
development group. See also DOCO and MANGO.
DICKLESS WORKSTATION (dik'less werk'sta-shn) n. Extremely pejorative
hackerism for "diskless workstation", a class of botches including
the Sun 3/50 and other machines designed exclusively to network
with an expensive central disk server. These combine all the
disadvantages of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of
distributed personal computers.
DIDDLE (di'dl) v. To work with in a not particularly serious manner.
"I diddled with a copy of ADVENT so it didn't double-space all the
time." "Let's diddle this piece of code and see if the problem
goes away." See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.
DIKE (diek) [from "diagonal cutters"] v. To remove a module or disable
it. "When in doubt, dike it out."
DING (ding) n.,v. Synonym for FEEP (q.v.). Usage: rare among hackers,
but commoner in THE REAL WORLD.
DINOSAUR (die'n@-sor) n. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and
special power. Used especially of old minis and mainframes when
contrasted with newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famous
quote from the '88 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in
the massive IBM display with a grazing dinosaur, "with a truck
outside pumping its bodily fluids through it". IBM was not amused.
Compare BIG IRON.
DINOSAUR PEN (die'n@-sor pen) n. A traditional mainframe computer
room complete with raised flooring, special power, its own
ultra-heavy-duty air conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire
extinguishers. See BOA.
DISCORDIANISM (dis-kor'di-uhn-ism) n. The veneration of ERIS, aka
Discordia. Popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's _Illuminatus!_
trilogy as a sort of self-subverting dada-Zen for Westerners -- it
should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious
than most jokes. Usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy
theory/joke involving millenia-long warfare between the partisans
of Eris and a malevolent secret society called the Illuminati. See
Appendix C and HA HA ONLY SERIOUS.
DISPLAY HACK (dis-play' hak) n. A program with the same approximate
purpose as a kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous display
hacks include MUNCHING SQUARES, SMOKING CLOVER, the BSD UNIX
rain(6) program, worms(6) on miscellaneous UNIXes, and the X kaleid
program.
DOCO (do'ko) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n. A documentation
writer. See also DEVO and MANGO.
DO PROTOCOL (doo proh'toh-kahl) [from network protocol programming] v.
To perform an interaction with somebody or something that follows a
clearly defined procedure. For example, "Let's do protocol with
the check" at a restaurant means to ask the waitress for the check,
calculate the tip and everybody's share, generate change as
necessary, and pay the bill.
DOGWASH (dog'wahsh) [From a quip in the "urgency" field of a very
optional software change request, about 1982. It was something
like, "Urgency: Wash your dog first."] v.,n. A project of minimal
priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. Also, to
engage in such a project. Many games and much FREEWARE gets written
this way.
DON'T DO THAT, THEN (dohnt doo dhat, dhen) interj. Stock response to a
user complaint. "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to
a halt for thirty seconds." "Don't do that, then." Compare RTFM.
DONGLE (don-gl) n. 1. A security device for commercial microcomputer
programs consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in an
RS-232 connector shell. Programs that use a dongle query the port
at startup and programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it
does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code.
Thus, users could make as many copies of the program as they want
but must pay for each dongle. The idea was clever but a practical
failure, as users disliked tyng up a serial port this way. 2. By
extension, any physical electronic key or transferable ID required
for a program to function. See DONGLE DISK.
DONGLE-DISK (don'g@l disk) n. See DONGLE; a DONGLE-DISK is a floppy
disk with some coding which allows an application to identify it
uniquely. It can therefore be used as a DONGLE. Also called a "key
disk".
DOORSTOP (dor-stop) n. Used to describe equipment that is
non-functional and halfway expected to remain so, especially
obsolescent equipment kept around for political reasons or
ostensibly as a backup. "When we get another Wyse-50 in here that
ADM3 will turn into a doorstop." Compare BOAT ANCHOR.
DOT FILE (dot fiel) [UNIX] n. A file that is invisible to normal
directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named beginning with a dot
are invisible).
DOWN (down) 1. adj. Not working. "The up escalator is down." 2. TAKE
DOWN, BRING DOWN: v. To deactivate, usually for repair work. See
UP.
DOWNLOAD (down'lohd) v. To transfer data or (esp.) code from a larger
`host' system (esp. a mainframe) over a digital comm link to a
smaller `client' system, esp. a microcomputer or specialized
peripheral device. Oppose UPLOAD.
DRAGON (dra'gn) n. [MIT] A program similar to a "daemon" (q.v.),
except that it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the
system to perform various secondary tasks. A typical example would
be an accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in,
accumulates load- average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many
terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they are,
what they're running, etc. along with some random picture (such as
a unicorn, Snoopy, or the Enterprise) which is generated by the
"NAME DRAGON". See PHANTOM. Usage: rare outside MIT -- under UNIX
and most other OSs this would be called a `background DEMON' or
`DAEMON' (q.v).
DRAGON BOOK, THE (dra'gn buk, dh@) n. Aho, Sethi and Ullman's classic
compilers text _Compilers:_Principles,_Techniques,_and_Tools_, so
called because of the cover design depicting a knight slaying a
dragon labelled "compiler complexity".
DRAIN (drayn) [IBM] v. Syn. for FLUSH (sense 4).
DRECNET (drek'net) [fr. Yiddish `dreck'] n. Deliberate distortion of
DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So-called
because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification, and then
(either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic)
violated that spec in the design of DRECNET (among other things,
they implemented the wrong HEARTBEAT speed).
DROOL-PROOF PAPER (drool-proof pay'per) n. Documentation which has
been obsessively dumbed down, to the point where only a CRETIN
could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the
"drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written on
drool-proof paper".
DROP ON THE FLOOR (drop on dh@ flor) vt. To discard silently.
Example: "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started
dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail
and netnews relay sites that lose messages.
DRUGGED (druhgd) adj., also ON DRUGS. Conspicuously stupid, heading
towards BRAIN DAMAGE. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a
joint.
DRUNK MOUSE SYNDROME (druhnk mows sin'drohm) n. A malady exhibited by
the mouse pointing device of some workstations. The typical
symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move to random
directions and not in sync with the moving of the actual mouse.
Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it
back again.
DUSTY DECKS (duhs'tee deks) [a holdover from card-punch days] n. Old
software (especially applications) with which one is obliged to
remain compatible. Used esp. when referring to old scientific and
number-crunching software, much of which was written in FORTRAN
and very poorly documented but would be too expensive to replace.
See FOSSIL.
DWIM (dwim) [Do What I Mean] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes even
correctly, what result was intended when provided with bogus input.
Often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex program.
A related term, more often seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right
Thing). 2. n. The INTERLISP function that attempts to accomplish
this feat by correcting many of the more common errors. See HAIRY.
= E =
EASTER EGGING (ees'tr e'g@ng) [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated
parts more or less at random in hopes that a malfunction will go
away. Hackers consider this the normal operating mode of FIELD CIRCUS
techs and do not love them for it.
EARTHQUAKE (erth'kwayk) [IBM] n. The ultimate REAL WORLD shock test for
computer hardware. Hacker sources at IBM deny the rumor that the
Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test Q&A at
its California plants.
EIGHTY-COLUMN MIND (ay'tee kol'@m miend) [IBM] n. The sort said to be
employed by persons for whom the transition from card to tape was
traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said
that these people will be buried `9-EDGE-FORWARD-FACE-DOWN'. [These
people are thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base,
and its thinking -- ESR].
ELEGANT (e'l@-gnt) [from mathematical usage] adj. Said of an
algorithm, program, or system that combines simplicity, power, and
a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever',
`winning' or even CUSPY.
ELEPHANTINE (el'@-fn-teen) adj. Used of programs or systems which are
both conspicuous HOGs (due perhaps to poor design founded on BRUTE
FORCE AND IGNORANCE) and exceedingly HAIRY in source form. An
elephantine program may be functional and even friendly, but (like
the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to
have around all the same, esp. a bitch to maintain. In extreme
cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform
expressive zoomorphic mime at the mention of the offending program.
Usage: semi-humorous. Compare "has the elephant nature" and the
somewhat more pejorative MONSTROSITY. See also SECOND-SYSTEM
SYNDROME.
EMACS (ee'maks) [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of hacker
editors, a program editor with an entire LISP interpreter inside
it. Originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO at the MIT-AI
lab, but the most widely used versions now run under UNIX. It
includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and
receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time
inside it.
EMAIL (ee-mayl) v.,n. Electronic mail. Contrast SNAIL-MAIL.
EMOTICON (ee-moh'ti-cahn) n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an
emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but
only a few are in common use. These include:
:-) Smiley face (indicates laughter)
:-( Frowney face (indicates sadness, anger or upset)
;-) Half-smiley (ha ha only serious), aka winkey face.
:-/ Wry face
Of these, the first two are by far the most frequently encountered.
Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie and BIX; see
also BIXIE.
EMPIRE (em'pier) n. Any of a family of military simulations derived
from a game written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are 5
or 6 multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication,
and one single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS
which is even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously
addictive.
EOF (ee-oh-ef) [UNIX/C] n. End Of File. 1. Refers esp. to whatever
pseudo-character value is returned by C's sequential input
functions (and their equivalents in other environments) when
the logical end of file has been reached (this was 0 under V6
UNIX, is -1 under V7 and all subsequent versions and all non-UNIX
C library implementations). 2. Used by extension in non-computer
contexts when a human is doing something that can be modelled as
a sequential read and can't go further. "Yeah, I looked for a list
of 360 mnemonics to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast,
all the library had was a JCL manual."
EPOCH, THE (ee'p@k, dh@) [UNIX] n. Syn. for ERA.
EPSILON (ep'si-lahn) [from standard mathematical notation for a small
quantity] 1. n. A small quantity of anything. "The cost is
epsilon." 2. adj. Very small, negligible; less than marginal.
"We can get this feature for epsilon cost." 3. WITHIN EPSILON OF:
Close enough to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes.
ERA, THE (ee'ra, dh@) [from UNIX] n. The time and date corresponding
to zero in an operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under
most UNIX versions, midnight of January 1st 1970. System time is
measured in TICKS past the era. Syn. with EPOCH. See TICKS, WALL
TIME.
ERIS (e'r@s) pn. The Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion
and Things You Know Not Of; aka Discordia. Not a very friendly
deity in the Classical original, she was re-invented as a more
benign personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the
adherents of DISCORDIANISM and has since been a semi-serious
subject of veneration in several `fringe' cultures including
hackerdom. See DISCORDIANISM, CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS.
ESSENTIALS (e-sen'tiuhls) n. Things necessary to maintain a productive
and secure hacking environment. "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a
20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte disk
supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP
to a friendly Internet site, and thou."
EXCL (eks'kl) n. Abbreviation for "exclamation point". See BANG,
SHRIEK, WOW.
EXE (ex'ee) An executable binary file. Some operating systems use the
extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage is also found among
UNIX programmers even though UNIX executables don't have any
required extension.
EXEC n. 1. [UNIX] Synonym for CHAIN, derives from the exec(2) call. 2.
obs. The command interpreter for an OS (see SHELL); term esp. used
on mainframes, and prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and
EXEC 8 operating systems.
= F =
FALL OVER (fol o'vr) [IBM] v. Yet another synonym for CRASH or
LOSE. `Fall over hard' equates to CRASH AND BURN.
FANDANGO ON CORE (fan-dang'go on kor) [UNIX/C hackers, from the
Mexican dance] n. In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds
causing a CORE DUMP, or corrupts the malloc(3) ARENA in such a way
as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have
`done a fandango on core'. On low-end personal machines without an
MMU this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage. Other
third-world dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha or watusi may be
substituted. See ALIASING SCREW, PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK,
MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW.
FASCISTIC (fa-shis'tik) adj. Said of a computer system with excessive
or annoying security barriers, usage limits or access policies. The
implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from
getting interesting work done.
FAULTY (fawl'tee) adj. Same denotation as "bagbiting", "bletcherous",
"losing", q.v., but the connotation is much milder.
FEAR AND LOATHING (feer @nd loh'thing) [from Hunter Thompson] n. State
inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain REAL WORLD systems
and standards which are totally BRAIN DAMAGED but ubiquitous --
Intel 8086s, or COBOL, or any IBM machine except the Rios. "Ack.
They want PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and
loathing time!" See also IBM.
FEATURE (fee'chr) n. 1. A surprising property of a program.
Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes
means the author of the program did not consider the particular
case, and the program makes an unexpected, although not strictly
speaking an incorrect response. See BUG. "That's not a bug,
that's a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by
documenting it. 2. A well-known and beloved property; a facility.
Sometimes features are planned, but are called crocks by others.
FEATURECTOMY (fee`ch@r-ek'to-mee) n. The act of removing a feature
from a program. Featurectomies generally come in two varieties,
the RIGHTEOUS and the RELUCTANT. Righteous featurectomies are
performed because the remover believes the program would be more
elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and
"better" way to achieve the same end. (This is not quite the same
thing as removing a MISFEATURE.) Reluctant featurectomies are
performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or
execution speed.
FEEP (feep) 1. n. The soft bell of a display terminal (except for a
VT-52!); a beep. 2. v. To cause the display to make a feep sound.
TTY's do not have feeps. Alternate forms: BEEP, BLEEP, or just
about anything suitably onomatopoeic. The term BREEDLE was
sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal bleepers are not
particularly "soft" (they sound more like the musical equivalent of
sticking out one's tongue). The "feeper" on a VT-52 has been
compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears. See also
DING.
FEEPING CREATURITIS (fee'ping kree`ch@r-ie'tis) n. Deliberate
spoonerization of CREEPING FEATURITIS, meant to imply that the
system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of
hacks.
FENCEPOST ERROR (fens'post eir'@r) n. The discrete equivalent of a
boundary condition. Often exhibited in programs by iterative
loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet
long with posts ten feet apart, how many posts do you need?"
(Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10.)
FIELD CIRCUS (feeld ser'k@s) n. The field service organization of any
hardware manufacturer, but especially DEC. There is an entire
genre of jokes about DEC field circus engineers:
Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer with a flat
tire?
A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.
Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer who is out
of gas?
A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.
FILK (filk) [from SF fandom, where a typo for "folk" was adopted as
a new word] n.,v. A "filk" is a popular or folk song with lyrics
revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when
read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a
flourishing subgenre of these called "computer filks", written by
hackers and often containing technical humor of quite sophisticated
nature.
FILM AT 11 (film at @-lev'n) [MIT, in imitation of TV network news
squibs.], interj. Used in conversation to announce ordinary
events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are
earth-shattering. This is hard to describe. Examples: "ITS
crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."
FILTER (fil'tr) [orig. UNIX, now also in MS-DOS] n. A program which
processes an input text stream into an output text stream in some
well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly
on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a
PIPELINE, (q.v.).
FINE (fien) [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be CUSPY. [The
word FINE is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit
comparison to the higher level implied by CUSPY.]
FINGER (fing'gr) [BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a
particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote
system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time,
terminal line and terminal location. May also display a "plan file"
left by the user. 2. v. To apply finger to a username. 3. v. By
extension, to check a human's current state by any means. "Foodp?"
"T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle".
FIREBOTTLE (fier'bo`tl) n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active
electrical device, similar to an FET constructed out of glass,
metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low
reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power
dissipation. Sometimes mistakenly called a "tube" in the U.S. or a
"valve" in England.
FIREWALL MACHINE (fier'wal m:-sheen') n. A dedicated gateway machine
with special security precautions on it, used to service outside
network/mail/news connections and/or accept remote logins for (read
only) shared-file-system access via FTP. The idea is to protect
cluster of more loosely administered machines `hidden' behind it
from crackers. The typically `firewall' is an inexpensive
micro-based UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of
modems and public network ports on it but just one carefully
watched connection back to the rest of the cluster. The special
precautions may include threat monitoring, callback, and even a
complete IRON BOX keyable to particular incoming IDs or activity
patterns. Syn. FLYTRAP, VENUS FLYTRAP.
FIRMWARE (ferm'weir) n. Software installed into a computer-based piece
of equipment on ROM. So-called because it's harder to change than
software but easier than hardware.
FLAG DAY (flag day) [from a bit of Multics history involving a change
in the ASCII character set originally scheduled for June 14, 1966]
n. A software change which is neither forward nor backward
compatible, and which is costly to make and costly to revert. "Can
we install that without causing a flag day for all users?"
FLAKEY (flay'kee) adj. Subject to frequent lossages. See LOSSAGE.
FLAMAGE (flaym'@j) n. High-noise, low-signal postings to USENET or
other electronic fora. Often in the phrase "the usual flamage".
FLAME (flaym) v. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some
relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous
attitude. FLAME ON: v. To continue to flame. See RAVE, BURBLE.
FLAME WAR (flaym wor) n. Acrimonious dispute, especially when
conducted on a public electronic forum such as USENET.
FLAMER (flay'mr) v. One who habitually flames others. Said of
obnoxious USENET personalities.
FLAP (flap) v. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap, flap...).
Old hackers at MIT tell of the days when the disk was device 0 and
microtapes were 1, 2,... and attempting to flap device 0 would
instead start a motor banging inside a cabinet near the disk!
FLAVOR (flay'vr) n. 1. Variety, type, kind. "DDT commands come in
two flavors." 2. The attribute of causing something to be
FLAVORFUL. "This convention yields additional flavor by allowing
one to..." See VANILLA.
FLAVORFUL (flay'vr-fl) adj. Aesthetically pleasing. See RANDOM and
LOSING for antonyms. See also the entries for TASTE and ELEGANCE.
FLIPPY (flip'ee) n. A single-side floppy disk altered for double-sided
use by addition of a second write-notch, so called because it must
be flipped over for the second side to be accessible. No longer
common.
FLUSH (fluhsh) v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous. "All
that nonsense has been flushed." Standard ITS terminology for
aborting an output operation. 2. To leave at the end of a day's
work (as opposed to leaving for a meal). "I'm going to flush now."
"Time to flush." 3. To exclude someone from an activity. 4.
[UNIX/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an fflush(3) call.
UNIX hackers find the ITS usage confusing and vice versa.
FLYTRAP (flie'trap) n. See FIREWALL.
FOO (foo) 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj.
Term of disgust. 2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All
Recognition), from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for
temporary programs, or samples of three-letter names. Other
similar words are BAR, BAZ (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely
RAG. These have been used in Pogo as well. 3. Used very generally
as a sample name for absolutely anything. The old `Smokey Stover'
comic strips often included the word FOO, in particular on license
plates of cars. 4. First on the standard list of metasyntactic
variables used in syntax examples. See also: BAR, BAZ, QUX, QUUX,
QUUUX, CORGE, GRAULT, GARPLY, WALDO, FRED, PLUGH, XYZZY. MOBY FOO:
See MOBY. [It is possible that hacker usage of FOO actually
springs from the title "FOO, Lampoons and Parody" of a comic book
first issued in September 1958; the byline read "C. Crumb" but my
source believes this was a sort-of pseudonym for noted weird-comix
artist Robert Crumb. The title FOO was featured in large letters
on the front cover -- ESR]
FOOL (fool) n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who
habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect
premises and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise by evidence; it is
not generally used in its other senses, i.e. to describe a person
with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed,
in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too
effectively in executing their errors. See also CRETIN, LOSER.
FOOTPRINT (fut'print) n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece
of hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed
program (often in plural, `footprints').
FOREGROUND (for'grownd) [UNIX] adj.v. On a time-sharing system, a
task executing in foreground is one running at normal priority and
able to accept input from and return output to the user; oppose
BACKGROUND. There may be only one forground task per terminal (or
terminal window). By extension, "to foreground" a task is to bring
it to the top of one's PDL or STACK for immediate processing, and
in this sense hackers often use it for non-computer tasks.
FORTUNE COOKIE (for'chn ku'kee) [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of
trivia, joke or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or
(more rarely) at logout time. Items from this jargon file have
often been used as fortune cookies.
FOSSIL (fohs'sl) n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes
understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times
past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example: the
retention of octal as default base for string escapes in C in spite
of the better match of hexadecimal to modern byte-addressible
architectures. See DUSTY DECKS. 2. More restrictively, a feature
with past but no present utility. Example: the force-all-caps
(IUCLC/OLCUC) bits in the UNIX tty driver, designed for use with
monocase terminals.
FRED (fred) n. The personal name most frequently used as a
metasyntactic variable (see FOO). The reasons for this are obscure.
FREEWARE (free'weir) n. Free software, often written by enthusiasts
and usually distributed by electronic mail, local bulletin boards,
USENET, or other electronic media. See SHAREWARE.
FRIED (fried) adj. 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out.
2. Of people, exhausted. Said particularly of those who continue
to work in such a state. Often used as an explanation or excuse.
"Yeah, I know that fix destroyed the file system, but I was fried
when I put it in."
FROB (frob) 1. n. [MIT] The official Tech Model Railroad Club
definition is "FROB = protruding arm or trunnion", and by
metaphoric extension any somewhat small thing. See FROBNITZ. 2.
v. Abbreviated form of FROBNICATE.
FROBNICATE (frob'ni-kayt) v. To manipulate or adjust, to tweak.
Derived from FROBNITZ (q.v.). Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus
one has the saying "to frob a frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.
Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a
continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes
gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting;
TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an
oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably
tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he
is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning
a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
FROBNITZ (frob'nits), pl. FROBNITZEM (frob'nitsm) n. An unspecified
physical object, a widget. Also refers to electronic black boxes.
This rare form is usually abbreviated to FROTZ, or more commonly to
FROB. Also used are FROBNULE and FROBULE. Starting perhaps in
1979, FROBOZZ (fruh-bahz') has also become very popular. These can
also be applied to nonphysical objects, such as data structures.
FROG alt. PHROG (frog) 1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have a
lot of them). 2. Used as a name for just about anything. See FOO.
3. n. Of things, a crock. Of people, somewhere inbetween a turkey
and a toad. 4. FROGGY: adj. Similar to BAGBITING (q.v.), but
milder. "This froggy program is taking forever to run!"
FROTZ (frotz) 1. n. See FROBNITZ. 2. MUMBLE FROTZ: An interjection
of very mild disgust.
FRY (frie) v. 1. To fail. Said especially of smoke-producing hardware
failures. 2. More generally, to become non-working. Usage: never
said of software, only of hardware and humans. See FRIED, MAGIC
SMOKE.
FTP (ef-tee-pee, NOT "fittip") 1. n. The File Transfer Protocol for
transmitting files between systems on the ARPAnet. 2. v. To
transfer a file using the File Transfer Program. "Lemme get this
copy of Wuthering Heights FTP'd from uunet."
FUD WARS (fud worz) n. [from `Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt'] Political
posturing engaged in by hardware and software vendors ostensibly
committed to standardization but actually willing to fragment the
market to protect their own share. The OSF vs. UNIX International
conflict, for example.
FUDGE (fuhj) 1. v. To perform in an incomplete but marginally
acceptable way, particularly with respect to the writing of a
program. "I didn't feel like going through that pain and
suffering, so I fudged it." 2. n. The resulting code.
FUDGE FACTOR (fuhj faktr) n. A value or parameter that is varied in an
ad hoc way to produce the desired result. The terms "tolerance"
and "slop" are also used, though these usually indicate a one-sided
leeway, such as a buffer which is made larger than necessary
because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be, and it is
better to waste a little space than to lose completely for not
having enough. A fudge factor, on the other hand, can often be
tweaked in more than one direction. An example might be the
coefficients of an equation, where the coefficients are varied in
an attempt to make the equation fit certain criteria.
FUEL UP (fyool uhp) v. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back
to hacking. "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a
GREAT-WALL!". See also ORIENTAL FOOD.
FUGGLY (fuhg'lee) adj. Emphatic form of FUNKY; funky + ugly. Unusually
for hacker slang, this may actually derive from black street-jive.
To say it properly, the first syllable should be growled rather
than spoken. Usage: humorous. "Man, the ASCII-to-EBCDIC code in
that printer driver is *fuggly*." See also WONKY.
FUNKY (fuhn'kee) adj. Said of something which functions, but in a
slightly strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be
difficult to change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone.
Often used to describe interfaces. The more bugs something has that
nobody has bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the
funkier it is. TECO and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's
exception handling is extraordinarily funky. Most standards
acquire funkiness as they age. "The new mailer is installed, but
is still somewhat funky; if it bounces your mail for no reason, try
resubmitting it." "This UART is pretty funky. The data ready line
is active-high in interrupt mode, and active-low in DMA mode." See
FUGGLY.
FUZZ (fuhz) n. In floating-point arithmetic, the maximum difference
allowed between two quantities for them to compare equal. Has to be
set properly relative to the FPU's precision limits.
FUZZBALL (fuhz'bawl) [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a
particular suite of homebrewed software by Dave Mills and assorted
co-conspirators, used in the early 80's for Internet protocol
testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFnet backbone
sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few of these are still active
on the Internet as of early 1990, doing odd jobs such as network
time service.
= G =
GABRIEL (gay'bree-@l) [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL volleyball fanatic] n.
An unnecessary (in the opinion of the opponent) stalling tactic,
e.g., tying one's shoelaces or hair repeatedly, asking the time,
etc. Also used to refer to the perpetrator of such tactics. Also,
"pulling a Gabriel", "Gabriel mode".
GAG (gag) vi. Equivalent to CHOKE, but connotes more disgust. "Hey,
this is Fortran code. No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also
BARF.
GARBAGE COLLECT (gar'b@j k@-lekt') v., GARBAGE COLLECTION n. See GC.
GARPLY (gar'plee) n. [Stanford] Another meta-word popular among SAIL
hackers.
GAS (gas) [as in "gas chamber"] interj. 1. A term of disgust and
hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous
quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some
loser just reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2. A term
suggesting that someone or something ought to be flushed out of
mercy. "The system's wedging every few minutes. Gas!" 3. v.
FLUSH (q.v.). "You should gas that old crufty software." 4.
GASEOUS adj. Deserving of being gassed. Usage: primarily used by
Geoff Goodfellow at SRI, but spreading; became particularly popular
after the Moscone/Milk murders in San Francisco, when it was
learned that Dan White (who supported Proposition 7) would get the
gas chamber under 7 if convicted.
GATEWAY (gayt'way) n. 1. A computer or item of special-purpose
hardware that links two or more normally incompatible data networks
and does protocol translation between them. 2. On compatible or
common-carrier networks, a piece of software that translates
between normally incompatible data formats and addressing
conventions.
GC (jee-see) [from LISP terminology] 1. v. To clean up and throw away
useless things. "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today." 2. v.
To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use. 3. n. An instantiation
of the GC process.
GEDANKEN (g@-dahn'kn) [from Einstein's term "gedanken-experimenten",
such as the standard proof that E=mc^2] adj. An AI project which is
written up in grand detail without ever being implemented to any
great extent. Usually perpetrated by people who aren't very good
hackers or find programming distasteful or are just in a hurry. A
gedanken thesis is usually marked by an obvious lack of intuition
about what is programmable and what is not and about what does and
does not constitute a clear specification of a program-related
concept such as an algorithm.
GENDER MENDER (jen'dr-men'dr) n. (also GENDER BENDER) A cable
connector shell with either two male or two female connectors on
it, used for mating like-sexed cables. Used esp. for RS-232C parts
in either the original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format.
GENERATE (gen'@-rayt) v. To produce something according to an
algorithm or program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended)
side effect of the execution of an algorithm or program. The
opposite of PARSE. This term retains its mechanistic connotations
(though often humorously) when used of human behavior.
GET A REAL COMPUTER (get uh reel kuhm'pyoo-tr) imp. Typical hacker
response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done
on a system that is a) single- tasking, b) has no Winchester, or c)
has less than a megabyte of DRAM. This is as of 1990; note that the
threshold for `real computer' rises with time, and it may well be
(for example) that machines with character-only displays will be
considered `unreal' in five years. See BITTY BOX and TOY.
GIGO (gie'goh) [acronym] garbage in, garbage out. Usually said in
response to lusers who complain that a program didn't complain
about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in human
decision making due to faulty, incomplete or imprecise data.
GLARK (glark) v. To figure something out from context, taken from an
old Scientific American "Mathematical Games" column, where the
phrase "glark the meaning from context" was used as an example...of
glarking something from context. "The System III manuals are pretty
poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context".
GLASS (glas) [IBM] n. Synonym for SILICON.
GLASS TTY (glas tee-tee-wie, glas ti-tee) n. A terminal which has a
display screen but which, because of hardware or software
limitations, behaves like a teletype or other printing terminal.
An example is the ADM-3 (without cursor control). A glass tty
can't do neat DISPLAY HACKs, and you can't save the output either.
See TUBE, TTY.
GLITCH (glich) [from the Yiddish "glitshen", to slide] 1. n. A sudden
interruption in electric service, sanity, or program function.
Sometimes recoverable. 2. v. To commit a glitch. See GRITCH. 3.
v. [Stanford] To scroll a display screen. 4. (obs.) Same as MAGIC
COOKIE, sense #2.
GLORK (glork) 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with
outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of two hours of
editing and finds that the system has just crashed. 2. Used as a
name for just about anything. See FOO. 3. v. Similar to GLITCH
(q.v.), but usually used reflexively. "My program just glorked
itself."
GNARLY (nar'lee) adj. Both OBSCURE and HAIRY in the sense of complex.
"Yeech -- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really
gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang.
GNU (gnoo, NOT "noo") 1. [acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX!"] A
UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation
headed by Richard Stallman (aka RMS). GNU EMACS and the GNU C
compiler, two tools designed for this project, have become very
popular in hackerdom. See EMACS, COPYLEFT. 2. Noted UNIX hacker
John Gilmore (gnu@hoptoad.com), ironically enough one of the
best-known and most vocal opponents of the "information should
not be property" philosophy behind GNU. See RMS.
GO FLATLINE (flat'lien) [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of
EEG traces upon brain-death] v., also adjectival FLATLINED. 1. To
die, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance this
is used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too
serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about. 2. To go completely
quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You
can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off before
the system has gone flatline." 3. A particular failure mode of
video tubes in which vertical scan is lost, so all one sees is a
bright horizontal line bisecting the screen.
GOBBLE (go'bl) v. To consume or to obtain. GOBBLE UP tends to imply
"consume", while GOBBLE DOWN tends to imply "obtain". "The output
spy gobbles characters out of a TTY output buffer." "I guess I'll
gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow." See SNARF.
GONK (gonk) v.,n. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth beyond any
reasonable recognitions. In German the term is "GONKEN", in
spanish the verb becomes "GONKAR." "You're gonking me. That story
you just told me is a bunch of gonk". In German, "Du Gonkst mir".
(You're pulling my leg) See also GONKULATOR.
GONZO (gon'zo) [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming; very
large, esp. used of collections of source code, source files or
individual functions. Has some of the connotations of MOBY and
HAIRY, q.v.
GONKULATOR (gon'kyoo-lay-tr) [from the old "Hogan's Heroes" TV
series] n. A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no
useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite
piece of computer hardware. See GONK.
GOOD THING (gud thing) adj. Always capitalized. 1. Self-evidently
wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: "The Trailblazer's
19.2Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good
Thing for sites relaying netnews." 2. Something which can't
possibly have any ill side effects and may save considerable grief
later: "Removing the self-modifying code from that shared library
would be a Good Thing." 3. When said of software tools or
libraries, as in "YACC is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that
the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Oppose
BAD THING.
GORP (gorp) [CMU, perhaps from a brand of dried hiker's food?]
Another metasyntactic variable, like FOO and BAR.
GORILLA ARM (gor-il'uh arm) n. The side-effect that destroyed
touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising
start in the early eighties. It seems the designers of all those
SPIFFY touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren't
designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small
motions. After more than a very few selects the arm begins to feel
sore, cramped, and oversized, hence "gorilla arm". This is now
considered a classic Horrible Example and cautionary tale to
human-factors designers; "remember the gorilla arm" is shorthand
for "how's this gonna fly in *real* use?"
GREAT RENAMING (grayt ree-naym'ing) n. The FLAG DAY on which all of
the groups on the USENET had their names changed from the net.*
format to the current 7 hierarchies scheme.
GREAT-WALL (grayt-wahl) [from SF fandom] v.,n. a mass expedition to an
oriental restaurant. See ORIENTAL FOOD, CHINESE RAVS, STIR-FRIED
RANDOM.
GREEN LIGHTNING (green liet'ning) [IBM] n. Apparently random flashing
streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a programmable symbol
set is being loaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately
unfixed, as some bright spark suggested that this would let the
user know that `something is happening'. It certainly does. 2.
[generalization of #1 proposed by ESR] Any bug perverted into an
alleged feature by adroit rationalization or marketing. E.g.
"Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 8800 architecture
`compatibility logic', but I call it green lightning".
GRAULT (grawlt) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by
Mike Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. See
CORGE.
GRAY GOO (gray goo) n. A hypothetical substance composed of billions
of sub-micron-sized Von Neumann machines (self-replicating robots)
programmed to make copies of themselves out of whatever is
available. The image that goes with the term is one of the entire
biosphere of Earth being eventually converted to robot goo. This is
most naive and easiest to demolish of the NANOTECHNOLOGY (q.v.)
disaster scenarios.
GREP (grep) [from the UNIX grep tool] v. To rapidly scan a file or
file set looking for a particular string or pattern. By extension,
to look for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin board for the
system backup schedule, would you?"
GRIND (griend) v. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially
LISP code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. Hence,
PRETTY PRINT, the generic term for such operations. 2. [UNIX] To
generate the formatted version of a document from the nroff, troff,
TEX or Scribe source. 3. To run seemingly interminably, performing
some tedious and inherently useless task. Similar to CRUNCH,
GROVEL.
GRIND CRANK (griend crank) n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A
crank on the side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing
noise and causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not
refer to a grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriate
gesture and noise. See GRIND, CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA and WUGGA WUGGA.
GRITCH (grich) 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a GLITCH (q.v.)).
2. v. To complain. Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3.
Glitch.
GROK (grok) [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert
Heinlein, where it is a Martian verb meaning literally "to drink"
and metaphorically "to be one with"] v. To understand, usually in a
global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge.
GRONK (gronk) [popularized by the cartoon strip "B.C." by Johnny
Hart, but the word apparently predates that] v. 1. To clear the
state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than "to
frob" (q.v.). 2. To break. "The teletype scanner was gronked, so
we took the system down." 3. GRONKED: adj. Of people, the
condition of feeling very tired or sick. 4. GRONK OUT: v. To cease
functioning. Of people, to go home and go to sleep. "I guess I'll
gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."
GROVEL (gruh'vl) v. To work interminably and without apparent
progress. Often used with "over". "The compiler grovelled over my
code." Compare GRIND and CRUNCH. Emphatic form: GROVEL OBSCENELY.
GRUNGY (gruhn'jee) adj. Incredibly dirty or grubby. Anything which
has been washed within the last year is not really grungy. Also
used metaphorically; hence some programs (especially crocks) can be
described as grungy. Now (1990) also common in mainstream slang.
GUBBISH (guh'bish) [a portmanteau of "garbage" and "rubbish"?] n.
Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?"
GUILTWARE (gilt'weir) n. FREEWARE decorated with a message telling one
how long and hard the author worked on this program and intimating
that one is a no-good shit if one does not immediately send the
poor suffering martyr gobs of money.
GUMBY (guhm'bee) [from the claymation character] n. An act of minor
but conspicuous stupidity, often in GUMBY MANEUVER or PULL A GUMBY.
GUN (guhn) [from the GUN command on ITS] v. To forcibly terminate a
program or job (computer, not career). "Some idiot left a
background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunned
it." Compare CAN.
GURFLE (ger'fl) interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He said
we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week. Gurfle!"
GURU (gur'oo) n. A UNIX expert. Implies not only WIZARD skill but a
history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, used
(with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems, as in "VMS
guru".
= H =
H INFIX (aych in-fix) [from SF fandom] A method of "marking" common
words in the linguist's sense, i.e. calling attention to the fact
that they are being used in a nonstandard, ironic or humorous way.
Orig. in the fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod" from
decades ago. H-infix marking of "Ghod" and other words spread into
the Sixties counterculture via underground comix, and into early
hackerdom either from the counterculture or SF fandom (all three
overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has
become an expected feature of benchark names, i.e. Whetstone,
Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc; this is prob. patterning on the
original Whetstone name but influenced by the
fannish/counterculture H infix.
HA HA ONLY SERIOUS (ha ha ohn'lee see'ree-us) [from SF fandom] A
phrase that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse
(sometimes seen abbreviated as HHOS). Applied especially to
parodies, absurdities and ironic jokes that are both intended and
perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or
truths which are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The jargon
file contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and
content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived
as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too
lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider or one in
LARVAL STAGE. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult
any Zen master. See also HUMOR, HACKER.
HACK (hack) n. 1. Originally a quick job that produces what is needed,
but not well. 2. The result of that job. 3. NEAT HACK: A clever
technique. Also, a brilliant practical joke, where neatness is
correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value.
Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display switch circa 1961. 4.
REAL HACK: A crock (occasionally affectionate). v. 5. With
"together", to throw something together so it will work. 6. To
bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!" 7. To
work on something (typically a program). In specific sense: "What
are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO." In general sense: "What do
you do around here?" "I hack TECO." (The former is
time-immediate, the latter time-extended.) More generally, "I hack
x" is roughly equivalent to "x is my bag". "I hack solid-state
physics." 8. To pull a prank on. See definition 3 and HACKER (def
#6). 9. v.i. To waste time (as opposed to TOOL). "Watcha up to?"
"Oh, just hacking." 10. HACK UP (ON): To hack, but generally
implies that the result is meanings 1-2. 11. HACK VALUE: Term used
as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly
useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack.
For example, MacLISP has features for reading and printing roman
numerals, which was installed purely for hack value. 12. [UNIX] A
dungeon game similar to ROGUE (q.v.) but more elaborate,
distributed in C source over USENET and very popular at UNIX sites
and on PC-class machines. Recent versions are called `nethack'.
HAPPY HACKING: A farewell. HOW'S HACKING?: A friendly greeting
among hackers. HACK HACK: A somewhat pointless but friendly
comment, often used as a temporary farewell.
HACKER (hak'r) [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]
n. 1. A person who enjoys learning the details of programming
systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most
users who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who
programs enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than
just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of
appreciating HACK VALUE (q.v.). 4. A person who is good at
programming quickly. Not everything a hacker produces is a hack.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does
work using it or on it; example: "A UNIX hacker". (Definitions 1
to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6.
(deprecated) A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to
discover information by poking around. Hence "password hacker",
"network hacker". See CRACKER.
HACK MODE (hak mohd) n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2.
More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem
which may be achieved when one is hacking. Ability to enter such
concentration at will correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is
one of the most important skills learned during LARVAL STAGE.
Sometimes amplified as DEEP HACK MODE. Being yanked out of hack
mode (see PRIORITY INTERRUPT) may be experienced as an almost
physical shock, and the sensation of being in it is more than a
little habituating. The intensity of this experience is probably by
itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, and
explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they
can do code.
HACKING RUN (hak'ing ruhn) [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run']
n. A hack session extended long outside `normal' working times,
especially one longer than 12 hours. May cause you to CHANGE PHASE
THE HARD WAY (see PHASE).
HACKISH (hak'ish) adj. (also HACKISHNESS n.) 1. Being or involving a
hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture.
See also TRUE-HACKER.
HAIR (heir) n. The complications which make something hairy.
"Decoding TECO commands requires a certain amount of hair." Often
seen in the phrase INFINITE HAIR, which connotes extreme
complexity. Also in HAIRIFEROUS (tending to promote hair growth):
"GNU elisp encourages lusers to write complex editing modes."
"Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all right."
HAIRY (heir'ee) adj. 1. Overly complicated. "DWIM is incredibly
hairy." 2. Incomprehensible. "DWIM is incredibly hairy." 3. Of
people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or
incomprehensible. Hard to explain except in context: "He knows
this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about."
HAKMEM (hak'mem) n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972). A legendary
collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed
by many people at MIT and elsewhere.
HAND-HACKING (hand hak'ing) n. The practice of translating HOT SPOTS
from an HLL into custom hand-optimized assembler, as opposed to
trying to coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the
term and the practice are becoming uncommon. See TUNE, BUM.
HANDWAVE (hand'wayv) 1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distract
a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with
blatantly faulty logic. 2. n. The act of handwaving. "Boy, what a
handwave!" The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures:
both hands up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical
plane pivoting at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the
magnitude of the handwave); alternatively, holding the forearms
still while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter.
In context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark.
HANLON'S RAZOR (han'lnz ray'zr) n. A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's
Razor that reads "Never attribute to malic