Ver.04.29.93*END*
The preface has gotten so long an intertwined that we moved it to the end
for the Project Gutenberg Etext of the Jargon file. You can find it by a
search for the following line:
#======= THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996 =======#
The Jargon Lexicon
******************
= A =
=====
:abbrev: /*-breev'/, /*-brev'/ /n./ Common abbreviation for
`abbreviation'.
:ABEND: /a'bend/, /*-bend'/ /n./ [ABnormal END] Abnormal
termination (of software); {crash}; {lossage}. Derives from
an error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but
seriously mainly by {code grinder}s. Usually capitalized, but
may appear as `abend'. Hackers will try to persuade you that
ABEND is called `abend' because it is what system operators do to
the machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day, and
hence is from the German `Abend' = `Evening'.
:accumulator: /n. obs./ 1. Archaic term for a register. On-line
use of it as a synonym for `register' is a fairly reliable
indication that the user has been around for quite a while and/or
that the architecture under discussion is quite old. The term in
full is almost never used of microprocessor registers, for example,
though symbolic names for arithmetic registers beginning in `A'
derive from historical use of the term `accumulator' (and not,
actually, from `arithmetic'). Confusingly, though, an `A'
register name prefix may also stand for `address', as for
example on the Motorola 680x0 family. 2. A register being used for
arithmetic or logic (as opposed to addressing or a loop index),
especially one being used to accumulate a sum or count of many
items. This use is in context of a particular routine or stretch
of code. "The FOOBAZ routine uses A3 as an accumulator."
3. One's in-basket (esp. among old-timers who might use sense 1).
"You want this reviewed? Sure, just put it in the accumulator."
(See {stack}.)
:ACK: /ak/ /interj./ 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110]
Acknowledge. Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream
*Yo!*). An appropriate response to {ping} or {ENQ}.
2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of
surprised disgust, esp. in "Ack pffft!" Semi-humorous.
Generally this sense is not spelled in caps (ACK) and is
distinguished by a following exclamation point. 3. Used to
politely interrupt someone to tell them you understand their point
(see {NAK}). Thus, for example, you might cut off an overly
long explanation with "Ack. Ack. Ack. I get it now".
There is also a usage "ACK?" (from sense 1) meaning "Are you
there?", often used in email when earlier mail has produced no
reply, or during a lull in {talk mode} to see if the person has
gone away (the standard humorous response is of course {NAK}
(sense 2), i.e., "I'm not here").
:Acme: /n./ The canonical supplier of bizarre, elaborate, and
non-functional gadgetry -- where Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson
shop. Describing some X as an "Acme X" either means "This is
{insanely great}", or, more likely, "This looks {insanely
great} on paper, but in practice it's really easy to shoot yourself
in the foot with it." Compare {pistol}.
This term, specially cherished by American hackers and explained
here for the benefit of our overseas brethren, comes from the
Warner Brothers' series of "Roadrunner" cartoons. In these
cartoons, the famished Wile E. Coyote was forever attempting to
catch up with, trap, and eat the Roadrunner. His attempts usually
involved one or more high-technology Rube Goldberg devices --
rocket jetpacks, catapults, magnetic traps, high-powered
slingshots, etc. These were usually delivered in large cardboard
boxes, labeled prominently with the Acme name. These devices
invariably malfunctioned in violent and improbable ways.
:acolyte: /n. obs./ [TMRC] An {OSU} privileged enough to
submit data and programs to a member of the {priesthood}.
:ad-hockery: /ad-hok'*r-ee/ /n./ [Purdue] 1. Gratuitous
assumptions made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems,
which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are
in fact entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching of
input tokens that might be typing errors against a symbol table can
make it look as though a program knows how to spell.
2. Special-case code to cope with some awkward input that would
otherwise cause a program to {choke}, presuming normal inputs
are dealt with in some cleaner and more regular way. Also called
`ad-hackery', `ad-hocity' (/ad-hos'*-tee/), `ad-crockery'.
See also {ELIZA effect}.
:Ada:: /n./ A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made
mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the
Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that,
technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind
of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult
to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle
(one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s"). Hackers
find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication
features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of
Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while
cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical
computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch
at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
small language screaming to get out from inside its vast,
{elephantine} bulk.
:adger: /aj'r/ /vt./ [UCLA mutant of {nadger}, poss. from
the middle name of an infamous {tenured graduate student}] To
make a bonehead move with consequences that could have been
foreseen with even slight mental effort. E.g., "He started
removing files and promptly adgered the whole project". Compare
{dumbass attack}.
:admin: /ad-min'/ /n./ Short for `administrator'; very
commonly used in speech or on-line to refer to the systems person
in charge on a computer. Common constructions on this include
`sysadmin' and `site admin' (emphasizing the administrator's
role as a site contact for email and news) or `newsadmin'
(focusing specifically on news). Compare {postmaster},
{sysop}, {system mangler}.
:ADVENT: /ad'vent/ /n./ The prototypical computer adventure
game, first designed by Will Crowther on the {PDP-10} in the
mid-1970s as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and
expanded into a puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods at Stanford in
1976. Now better known as Adventure, but the {{TOPS-10}}
operating system permitted only six-letter filenames. See also
{vadding}, {Zork}, and {Infocom}.
This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style since expected in
text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have
become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars
the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a
maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little
maze of twisty passages, all different." The `magic words'
{xyzzy} and {plugh} also derive from this game.
Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the
Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a
`Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that
also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary
entrance.
:AFAIK: // /n./ [Usenet] Abbrev. for "As Far As I Know".
:AFJ: // /n./ Written-only abbreviation for "April Fool's
Joke". Elaborate April Fool's hoaxes are a long-established
tradition on Usenet and Internet; see {kremvax} for an example.
In fact, April Fool's Day is the *only* seasonal holiday
consistently marked by customary observances on Internet and other
hacker networks.
:AI: /A-I/ /n./ Abbreviation for `Artificial Intelligence',
so common that the full form is almost never written or spoken
among hackers.
:AI-complete: /A-I k*m-pleet'/ /adj./ [MIT, Stanford: by
analogy with `NP-complete' (see {NP-})] Used to describe
problems or subproblems in AI, to indicate that the solution
presupposes a solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the
synthesis of a human-level intelligence). A problem that is
AI-complete is, in other words, just too hard.
Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem'
(building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The
Natural Language Problem' (building a system that can understand
and speak a natural language as well as a human). These may appear
to be modular, but all attempts so far (1996) to solve them have
foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence'
they seem to require. See also {gedanken}.
:AI koans: /A-I koh'anz/ /pl.n./ A series of pastiches of Zen
teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around
various major figures of the Lab's culture (several are included
under {AI Koans} in Appendix A). See also {ha ha
only serious}, {mu}, and {{hacker humor}}.
:AIDS: /aydz/ /n./ Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome (`A*'
is a {glob} pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple
or Amiga), this condition is quite often the result of practicing
unsafe {SEX}. See {virus}, {worm}, {Trojan horse},
{virgin}.
:AIDX: /ayd'k*z/ /n./ Derogatory term for IBM's perverted
version of Unix, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM
RS/6000 series (some hackers think it is funnier just to pronounce
"AIX" as "aches"). A victim of the dreaded "hybridism"
disease, this attempt to combine the two main currents of the Unix
stream ({BSD} and {USG Unix}) became a {monstrosity} to
haunt system administrators' dreams. For example, if new accounts
are created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps
quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases.
For a quite similar disease, compare {HP-SUX}. Also, compare
{Macintrash}, {Nominal Semidestructor}, {Open DeathTrap},
{ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.
:airplane rule: /n./ "Complexity increases the possibility of
failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems
as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and
electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness. It is
correspondingly argued that the right way to build reliable systems
is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that
you've built a really *good* basket. See also {KISS
Principle}.
:aliasing bug: /n./ A class of subtle programming errors that
can arise in code that does dynamic allocation, esp. via
`malloc(3)' or equivalent. If several pointers address
(`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the
storage is freed or reallocated (and thus moved) through one alias
and then referenced through another, which may lead to subtle (and
possibly intermittent) lossage depending on the state and the
allocation history of the malloc {arena}. Avoidable by use of
allocation strategies that never alias allocated core, or by use of
higher-level languages, such as {LISP}, which employ a garbage
collector (see {GC}). Also called a {stale pointer bug}.
See also {precedence lossage}, {smash the stack},
{fandango on core}, {memory leak}, {memory smash},
{overrun screw}, {spam}.
Historical note: Though this term is nowadays associated with
C programming, it was already in use in a very similar sense in the
Algol-60 and FORTRAN communities in the 1960s.
:all-elbows: /adj./ [MS-DOS] Of a TSR
(terminate-and-stay-resident) IBM PC program, such as the N
pop-up calendar and calculator utilities that circulate on {BBS}
systems: unsociable. Used to describe a program that rudely steals
the resources that it needs without considering that other TSRs may
also be resident. One particularly common form of rudeness is
lock-up due to programs fighting over the keyboard interrupt. See
{rude}, also {mess-dos}.
:alpha particles: /n./ See {bit rot}.
:alt: /awlt/ 1. /n./ The alt shift key on an IBM PC or
{clone} keyboard; see {bucky bits}, sense 2 (though typical
PC usage does not simply set the 0200 bit). 2. /n./ The `clover'
or `Command' key on a Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals
that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to the Mac (see also
{feature key}). Some Mac hackers, confusingly, reserve `alt'
for the Option key (and it is so labeled on some Mac II keyboards).
3. /n.,obs/. [PDP-10; often capitalized to ALT] Alternate name for
the ASCII ESC character (ASCII 0011011), after the keycap labeling
on some older terminals; also `altmode' (/awlt'mohd/). This
character was almost never pronounced `escape' on an ITS system,
in {TECO}, or under TOPS-10 -- always alt, as in "Type alt alt
to end a TECO command" or "alt-U onto the system" (for "log
onto the [ITS] system"). This usage probably arose because alt is
more convenient to say than `escape', especially when followed by
another alt or a character (or another alt *and* a character,
for that matter). 4. The alt hierarchy on Usenet, the tree of
newsgroups created by users without a formal vote and approval
procedure. There is a myth, not entirely implausible, that
alt is acronymic for "anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists";
but in fact it is simply short for "alternative".
:alt bit: /awlt bit/ [from alternate] /adj./ See {meta
bit}.
:altmode: /n./ Syn. {alt} sense 3.
:Aluminum Book: /n./ [MIT] "Common LISP: The Language", by
Guy L. Steele Jr. (Digital Press, first edition 1984, second
edition 1990). Note that due to a technical screwup some printings
of the second edition are actually of a color the author describes
succinctly as "yucky green". See also {{book titles}}.
:amoeba: /n./ Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal
computer.
:amp off: /vt./ [Purdue] To run in {background}. From the
Unix shell `&' operator.
:amper: /n./ Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand
(`&', ASCII 0100110) character. See {{ASCII}} for other synonyms.
:angle brackets: /n./ Either of the characters `<' (ASCII
0111100) and `>' (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or
greater-than signs). Typographers in the {Real World} use angle
brackets which are either taller and slimmer (the ISO `Bra' and
`Ket' characters), or significantly smaller (single or double
guillemets) than the less-than and greater-than signs.
See {broket}, {{ASCII}}.
:angry fruit salad: /n./ A bad visual-interface design that
uses too many colors. (This term derives, of course, from the
bizarre day-glo colors found in canned fruit salad.) Too often one
sees similar effects from interface designers using color window
systems such as {X}; there is a tendency to create displays that
are flashy and attention-getting but uncomfortable for long-term
use.
:annoybot: /*-noy-bot/ /n./ [IRC] See {robot}.
:ANSI: /an'see/ 1. /n./ [techspeak] The American National
Standards Institute. ANSI, along with the International
Organization
for Standards (ISO), standardized the C programming language (see
{K&R}, {Classic C}), and promulgates many other important
software standards. 2. /n./ [techspeak] A terminal may be said to
be
`ANSI' if it meets the ANSI X.364 standard for terminal control.
Unfortunately, this standard was both over-complicated and too
permissive. It has been retired and replaced by the ECMA-48
standard, which shares both flaws. 3. /n./ [BBS jargon] The set of
screen-painting codes that most MS-DOS and Amiga computers accept.
This comes from the ANSI.SYS device driver that must be loaded on
an MS-DOS computer to view such codes. Unfortunately, neither DOS
ANSI nor the BBS ANSIs derived from it exactly match the ANSI X.364
terminal standard. For example, the ESC-[1m code turns on the bold
highlight on large machines, but in IBM PC/MS-DOS ANSI, it turns on
`intense' (bright) colors. Also, in BBS-land, the term `ANSI' is
often used to imply that a particular computer uses or can emulate
the IBM high-half character set from MS-DOS. Particular use
depends on context. Occasionally, the vanilla ASCII character set
is used with the color codes, but on BBSs, ANSI and `IBM
characters' tend to go together.
:AOS: 1. /aws/ (East Coast), /ay'os/ (West Coast) /vt. obs./
To increase the amount of something. "AOS the campfire."
[based on a PDP-10 increment instruction] Usage:
considered silly, and now obsolete. Now largely supplanted by
{bump}. See {SOS}. 2. /n./ A {{Multics}}-derived OS
supported at one time by Data General. This was pronounced
/A-O-S/ or /A-os/. A spoof of the standard AOS system
administrator's manual ("How to Load and Generate your AOS
System") was created, issued a part number, and circulated as
photocopy folklore; it was called "How to Goad and Levitate
your CHAOS System". 3. /n./ Algebraic Operating System, in
reference
to those calculators which use infix instead of postfix (reverse
Polish) notation. 4. A {BSD}-like operating system for the IBM
RT.
Historical note: AOS in sense 1 was the name of a {PDP-10}
instruction that took any memory location in the computer and added
1 to it; AOS meant `Add One and do not Skip'. Why, you may ask,
does the `S' stand for `do not Skip' rather than for `Skip'? Ah,
here was a beloved piece of PDP-10 folklore. There were eight such
instructions: AOSE added 1 and then skipped the next instruction
if the result was Equal to zero; AOSG added 1 and then skipped if
the result was Greater than 0; AOSN added 1 and then skipped
if the result was Not 0; AOSA added 1 and then skipped Always;
and so on. Just plain AOS didn't say when to skip, so it never
skipped.
For similar reasons, AOJ meant `Add One and do not Jump'. Even
more bizarre, SKIP meant `do not SKIP'! If you wanted to skip the
next instruction, you had to say `SKIPA'. Likewise, JUMP meant
`do not JUMP'; the unconditional form was JUMPA. However, hackers
never did this. By some quirk of the 10's design, the {JRST}
(Jump and ReSTore flag with no flag specified) was actually faster
and so was invariably used. Such were the perverse mysteries of
assembler programming.
:app: /ap/ /n./ Short for `application program', as opposed
to a systems program. Apps are what systems vendors are forever
chasing developers to create for their environments so they can
sell more boxes. Hackers tend not to think of the things they
themselves run as apps; thus, in hacker parlance the term excludes
compilers, program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a
user would consider all those to be apps. (Broadly, an app is
often a self-contained environment for performing some well-defined
task such as `word processing'; hackers tend to prefer more
general-purpose tools.) See {killer app}; oppose {tool},
{operating system}.
:arena: [Unix] /n./ The area of memory attached to a process by
`brk(2)' and `sbrk(2)' and used by `malloc(3)' as
dynamic storage. So named from a `malloc: corrupt arena'
message emitted when some early versions detected an impossible
value in the free block list. See {overrun screw}, {aliasing
bug}, {memory leak}, {memory smash}, {smash the stack}.
:arg: /arg/ /n./ Abbreviation for `argument' (to a
function), used so often as to have become a new word (like
`piano' from `pianoforte'). "The sine function takes 1 arg,
but the arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args."
Compare {param}, {parm}, {var}.
:ARMM: /n./ [acronym, `Automated Retroactive Minimal
Moderation'] A Usenet robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls,
Ohio. ARMM was intended to automatically cancel posts from
anonymous-posting sites. Unfortunately, the robot's recognizer for
anonymous postings triggered on its own automatically-generated
control messages! Transformed by this stroke of programming
ineptitude into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke
loose on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to {spam}
news.admin.policy with a recursive explosion of over 200
messages.
ARMM's bug produced a recursive {cascade} of messages each of which
mechanically added text to the ID and Subject and some other
headers of its parent. This produced a flood of messages in which
each header took up several screens and each message ID and subject
line got longer and longer and longer.
Reactions varied from amusement to outrage. The pathological
messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people paying
line charges for their Usenet feeds. One poster described the ARMM
debacle as "instant Usenet history" (also establishing the term
{despew}), and it has since been widely cited as a cautionary
example of the havoc the combination of good intentions and
incompetence can wreak on a network. Compare {Great Worm, the};
{sorcerer's apprentice mode}. See also {software laser},
{network meltdown}.
:armor-plated: /n./ Syn. for {bulletproof}.
:asbestos: /adj./ Used as a modifier to anything intended to
protect one from {flame}s; also in other highly
{flame}-suggestive usages. See, for example, {asbestos
longjohns} and {asbestos cork award}.
:asbestos cork award: /n./ Once, long ago at MIT, there was a
{flamer} so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed,
had made, and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had
been nominated for the `asbestos cork award'. (Any reader in
doubt as to the intended application of the cork should consult the
etymology under {flame}.) Since then, it is agreed that only a
select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn
this dubious dignity -- but there is no agreement on *which*
few.
:asbestos longjohns: /n./ Notional garments donned by
{Usenet} posters just before emitting a remark they expect will
elicit {flamage}. This is the most common of the {asbestos}
coinages. Also `asbestos underwear', `asbestos overcoat', etc.
:ASCII:: /as'kee/ /n./ [acronym: American Standard Code for
Information Interchange] The predominant character set encoding of
present-day computers. The modern version uses 7 bits for each
character, whereas most earlier codes (including an early version
of ASCII) used fewer. This change allowed the inclusion of
lowercase letters -- a major {win} -- but it did not provide
for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in English
(such as the German sharp-S
or the ae-ligature
which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse,
though. It could be much worse. See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.
Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names -- some
formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII
characters are collected here. See also individual entries for
{bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi}, {shriek},
{splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.
This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII
pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character,
common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the
particularly silly names introduced by {INTERCAL}. The
abbreviations "l/r" and "o/c" stand for left/right and
"open/close" respectively. Ordinary parentheticals provide some
usage information.
!
Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>. Rare:
factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey; wham;
eureka; [spark-spot]; soldier.
"
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark; double-glitch;
<quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk; [rabbit-ears]; double prime.
#
Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; {crunch};
hex; [mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash;
<square>, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; {splat}.
$
Common: dollar; <dollar sign>. Rare: currency symbol; buck;
cash; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of ASCII
ESC); ding; cache; [big money].
%
Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes. Rare:
[double-oh-seven].
&
Common: <ampersand>; amper; and. Rare: address (from C);
reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from
`sh(1)'); pretzel; amp. [INTERCAL called this `ampersand'; what
could be sillier?]
'
Common: single quote; quote; <apostrophe>. Rare: prime; glitch;
tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation mark>; <acute
accent>.
( )
Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close;
paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r
banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen; <opening/closing
parenthesis>; o/c round bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane];
parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.
*
Common: star; [{splat}]; <asterisk>. Rare: wildcard; gear;
dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see {glob});
{Nathan Hale}.
+
Common: <plus>; add. Rare: cross; [intersection].
,
Common: <comma>. Rare: <cedilla>; [tail].
-
Common: dash; <hyphen>; <minus>. Rare: [worm]; option; dak;
bithorpe.
.
Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>. Rare: radix
point; full stop; [spot].
/
Common: slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash. Rare: diagonal;
solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].
:
Common: <colon>. Rare: dots; [two-spot].
;
Common: <semicolon>; semi. Rare: weenie; [hybrid], pit-thwong.
< >
Common: <less/greater than>; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle
bracket; l/r broket. Rare: from/{into, towards}; read from/write
to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out; crunch/zap (all from
UNIX); [angle/right angle].
=
Common: <equals>; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe; [half-mesh].
?
Common: query; <question mark>; {ques}. Rare: whatmark; [what];
wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.
@
Common: at sign; at; strudel. Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
[whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage; <commercial
at>.
V
Rare: [book].
[ ]
Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing
bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U
turn back].
\
Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh;
backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; <reverse slant>; reversed
virgule; [backslat].
^
Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare:
chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
fang; pointer (in Pascal).
_
Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under. Rare: score;
backarrow; skid; [flatworm].
`
Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
<grave accent>; grave. Rare: backprime; [backspark];
unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
<opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.
{ }
Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly
bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>.
Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly;
[embrace/bracelet].
|
Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
<vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX);
[spike].
~
Common: <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not. Rare: approx; wiggle;
swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].
The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S.
but a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more
apposite use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards
the pound graphic
happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes
call `#' on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the
American error). The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned
commercial practice of using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights
on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced `hash'
outside the U.S. There are more culture wars over the correct
pronunciation of this character than any other, which has led to
the {ha ha only serious} suggestion that it be pronounced
`shibboleth' (see Judges 12.6 in a Christian Bible).
The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
version), which had these graphics in those character positions
rather than the modern punctuation characters.
The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
as tilde in typeset material
but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
brackets}).
Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The `#',
`$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
`$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
`&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See
also {splat}.
The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
international networks continues to increase (see {software
rot}). Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set and that
characters have 7 bits; this is a a major irritant to people who
want to use a character set suited to their own languages.
Perversely, though, efforts to solve this problem by proliferating
`national' character sets produce an evolutionary pressure to use
a *smaller* subset common to all those in use.
:ASCII art: /n./ The fine art of drawing diagrams using the
ASCII character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\',
and `+'). Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
graphics'; see also {boxology}. Here is a serious
example:
o----)||(--+--|<----+ +---------o + D O
L )||( | | | C U
A I )||( +-->|-+ | +-\/\/-+--o - T
C N )||( | | | | P
E )||( +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o U
)||( | | | GND T
o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+
A power supply consisting of a full wave rectifier circuit
feeding a capacitor input filter circuit
And here are some very silly examples:
|\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___
| | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` '| _/ \
| | =(_)= THPHTH! / \/ \/ \
| (o)(o) U / \
C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/
| ,___| (oo) \/ \/
| / \/-------\ U (__)
/____\ || | \ /---V `v'- oo )
/ \ ||---W|| * * |--| || |`. |_/\
//-o-\\
____---=======---____
====___\ /.. ..\ /___==== Klingons rule OK!
// ---\__O__/--- \\
\_\ /_/
There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the
standard character names in the fashion of a rebus.
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
" A Bee in the Carrot Patch "
Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are
reproduced in the silly examples above, here are three more:
(__) (__) (__)
(\/) ($$) (**)
/-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/
/ | 666 || / |=====|| / | ||
* ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----||
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love
Finally, here's a magnificent example of ASCII art depicting an
Edwardian train station in Dunedin, New Zealand:
.-.
/___\
|___|
|]_[|
/ I \
JL/ | \JL
.-. i () | () i .-.
|_| .^. /_\ LJ=======LJ /_\ .^. |_|
._/___\._./___\_._._._._.L_J_/.-. .-.\_L_J._._._._._/___\._./___\._._._
., |-,-| ., L_J |_| [I] |_| L_J ., |-,-| ., .,
JL |-O-| JL L_J%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%L_J JL |-O-| JL JL
IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII|_|=======H=======|_|IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII_HH_
-------[]-------[]-------[_]----\.=I=./----[_]-------[]-------[]--------[]-
_/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ [_] []_/_L_J_\_[] [_] _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ ||\
|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__|_|_| _L_L_J_J_ |_|_|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__| ||-
|__| |||__|__||| |__[___]__--__===__--__[___]__| |||__|__||| |__| |||
IIIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIL___J__II__|_|__II__L___JIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIIII[_]
\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_[_]\II/[]\_\I/_/[]\II/[_]\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_/ [_]
./ \.L_J/ \L_J./ L_JI I[]/ \[]I IL_J \.L_J/ \L_J./ \.L_J
| |L_J| |L_J| L_J| |[]| |[]| |L_J |L_J| |L_J| |L_J
|_____JL_JL___JL_JL____|-|| |[]| |[]| ||-|_____JL_JL___JL_JL_____JL_J
There is a newsgroup, alt.ascii.art, devoted to this
genre; however, see also {warlording}.
:ASCIIbetical order: /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ /adj.,n./ Used
to indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than
alphabetical order. This lexicon is sorted in something close to
ASCIIbetical order, but with case ignored and entries beginning
with non-alphabetic characters moved to the end.
:atomic: /adj./ [from Gk. `atomos', indivisible]
1. Indivisible; cannot be split up. For example, an instruction
may be said to do several things `atomically', i.e., all the
things are done immediately, and there is no chance of the
instruction being half-completed or of another being interspersed.
Used esp. to convey that an operation cannot be screwed up by
interrupts. "This routine locks the file and increments the
file's semaphore atomically." 2. [primarily techspeak] Guaranteed
to complete successfully or not at all, usu. refers to database
transactions. If an error prevents a partially-performed
transaction from proceeding to completion, it must be "backed out,"
as the database must not be left in an inconsistent state.
Computer usage, in either of the above senses, has none of the
connotations that `atomic' has in mainstream English (i.e. of
particles of matter, nuclear explosions etc.).
:attoparsec: /n./ About an inch. `atto-' is the standard SI
prefix for multiplication by 10^(-18). A parsec
(parallax-second) is 3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus
3.26 * 10^(-18) light years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1
attoparsec/{microfortnight} equals about 1 inch/sec). This unit
is reported to be in use (though probably not very seriously) among
hackers in the U.K. See {micro-}.
:autobogotiphobia: /aw'toh-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ /n./ See
{bogotify}.
:automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ /adv./ Automatically, but
in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too
complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker
doesn't feel like explaining to you. See {magic}. "The
C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes
`cc(1)' to produce an executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s and
probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in
advertising
(for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
:avatar: /n./ Syn. 1. Among people working on virtual reality
and {cyberspace} interfaces, an "avatar" is an icon or
representation of a user in a shared virtual reality. The term is
sometimes used on {MUD}s. 2. [CMU, Tektronix] {root},
{superuser}. There are quite a few Unix machines on which the
name of the superuser account is `avatar' rather than `root'.
This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term
`superuser', and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at
Tektronix.
:awk: /awk/ 1. /n./ [Unix techspeak] An interpreted language
for massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger,
and Brian Kernighan (the name derives from their initials). It is
characterized by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to
variable typing and declarations, associative arrays, and
field-oriented text processing. See also {Perl}. 2. n.
Editing term for an expression awkward to manipulate through normal
{regexp} facilities (for example, one containing a
{newline}). 3. /vt./ To process data using `awk(1)'.
= B =
=====
:back door: /n./ A hole in the security of a system
deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The
motivation for such holes is not always sinister; some operating
systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts
intended for use by field service technicians or the vendor's
maintenance programmers. Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a
`wormhole'. See also {iron box}, {cracker}, {worm},
{logic bomb}.
Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than
anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM admitted the
existence of a back door in early Unix versions that may have
qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time.
In this scheme, the C compiler contained code that would recognize
when the `login' command was being recompiled and insert some
code recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to
the system whether or not an account had been created for him.
Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the
source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to
recompile the compiler, you have to *use* the compiler -- so
Thompson also arranged that the compiler would *recognize when
it was compiling a version of itself*, and insert into the
recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled
`login' the code to allow Thompson entry -- and, of course, the
code to recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time
around! And having done this once, he was then able to recompile
the compiler from the original sources; the hack perpetuated itself
invisibly, leaving the back door in place and active but with no
trace in the sources.
The talk that suggested this truly moby hack was published as
"Reflections on Trusting Trust", "Communications of the ACM
27", 8 (August 1984), pp. 761--763 (text available at
http://www.acm.org/classics). Ken Thompson has since
confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse
code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group
machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed.
Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the
crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and
that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by
someone using the login name `kt'.
:backbone cabal: /n./ A group of large-site administrators who
pushed through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of
{Usenet} during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list}
disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight.
:backbone site: /n./ A key Usenet and email site; one that
processes a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it
is the home site of any of the regional coordinators for the Usenet
maps. Notable backbone sites as of early 1993, when this sense of
the term was beginning to pass out of general use due to wide
availability of cheap Internet connections, included uunet and
the mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, {DEC}'s
Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the
University of Texas. Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.
[1996 update: This term is seldom heard any more. The UUCP network
world that gave it meaning has nearly disappeared; everyone is on
the Internet now and network traffic is distributed in very
different patterns. --ESR]
:backgammon:: See {bignum} (sense 3), {moby} (sense 4),
and {pseudoprime}.
:background: /n.,adj.,vt./ To do a task `in background' is to
do it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your
undivided attention, and `to background' something means to
relegate it to a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a
list of nodes and links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem
in background." Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a
reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back
burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption
of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing
that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that
one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in
creative work). Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}.
Technically, a task running in background is detached from the
terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower
priority); oppose {foreground}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{Unix}}, but it appears to have been first used
in this sense on OS/360.
:backspace and overstrike: /interj./ Whoa! Back up. Used to
suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Common
among APL programmers.
:backward combatability: /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ /n./
[CMU, Tektronix: from `backward compatibility'] A property of
hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols,
formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favor of `new
and improved' protocols, formats, and layouts, leaving the previous
ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the
old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such
that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or
other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple "version
mismatch" message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other
hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error
messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate
backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme {software
bloat}. See also {flag day}.
:BAD: /B-A-D/ /adj./ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed']
Said of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and
misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See {working as
designed}.
:Bad Thing: /n./ [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody "1066
And All That"] Something that can't possibly result in
improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in
"Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would
be a Bad Thing". Oppose {Good Thing}. British correspondents
confirm that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob.
therefore {Right Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book
referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good
Kings but Bad Things. This has apparently created a mainstream
idiom on the British side of the pond.
:bag on the side: /n./ [prob. originally related to a
colostomy bag] An extension to an established hack that
is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually
derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and
should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,
inelegant, or bloated. Also /v./ phrase, `to hang a bag on the
side
[of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...."
"They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting
system."
:bagbiter: /bag'bi:t-*r/ /n./ 1. Something, such as a program
or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy
manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line
longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has
caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by
failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: {loser},
{cretin}, {chomper}. 3. `bite the bag' /vi./ To fail in some
manner. "The computer keeps crashing every five minutes."
"Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag." The
original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene,
possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current usage they
have become almost completely sanitized.
ITS's `lexiphage' program was the first and to date only known
example of a program *intended* to be a bagbiter.
:bagbiting: /adj./ Having the quality of a {bagbiter}.
"This bagbiting system won't let me compute the factorial of a
negative number." Compare {losing}, {cretinous},
{bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under {barfulous}) and
`chomping' (under {chomp}).
:balloonian variable: /n./ [Commodore users; perh. a deliberate
phonetic mangling of `boolean variable'?] Any variable that
doesn't actually hold or control state, but must nevertheless be
declared, checked, or set. A typical balloonian variable started
out as a flag attached to some environment feature that either
became obsolete or was planned but never implemented.
Compatibility concerns (or politics attached to same) may require
that such a flag be treated as though it were {live}.
:bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from X-Men comics; originally "bampf"]
/interj./ Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in
or
out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality}
(esp. {MUD}) electronic {fora} when a character wishes to
make a dramatic entrance or exit. 2. The sound of magical
transformation, used in virtual reality {fora} like MUDs. 3. In
MUD circles, "bamf" is also used to refer to the act by which a
MUD server sends a special notification to the MUD client to switch
its connection to another server ("I'll set up the old site to
just bamf people over to our new location."). 4. Used by MUDders
on occasion in a more general sense related to sense 3, to refer to
directing someone to another location or resource ("A user was
asking about some technobabble so I bamfed them to
http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html.")
:banana label: /n./ The labels often used on the sides of
{macrotape} reels, so called because they are shaped roughly
like blunt-ended bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves,
is still current but visibly headed for obsolescence.
:banana problem: /n./ [from the story of the little girl who
said "I know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to
stop"]. Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a
close (compare {fencepost error}). One may say `there is a
banana problem' of an algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect
termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design
that may be succumbing to featuritis (see also {creeping
elegance}, {creeping featuritis}). See item 176 under
{HAKMEM}, which describes a banana problem in a {Dissociated
Press} implementation. Also, see {one-banana problem} for a
superficially similar but unrelated usage.
:bandwidth: /n./ 1. Used by hackers (in a generalization of its
technical meaning) as the volume of information per unit time that
a computer, person, or transmission medium can handle. "Those are
amazing graphics, but I missed some of the detail -- not enough
bandwidth, I guess." Compare {low-bandwidth}. 2. Attention
span. 3. On {Usenet}, a measure of network capacity that is
often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others
are a waste of bandwidth.
:bang: 1. /n./ Common spoken name for `!' (ASCII 0100001),
especially when used in pronouncing a {bang path} in spoken
hackish. In {elder days} this was considered a CMUish usage,
with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring {excl} or {shriek};
but the spread of Unix has carried `bang' with it (esp. via the
term {bang path}) and it is now certainly the most common spoken
name for `!'. Note that it is used exclusively for
non-emphatic written `!'; one would not say "Congratulations
bang" (except possibly for humorous purposes), but if one wanted
to specify the exact characters `foo!' one would speak "Eff oh oh
bang". See {shriek}, {{ASCII}}. 2. /interj./ An exclamation
signifying roughly "I have achieved enlightenment!", or "The
dynamite has cleared out my brain!" Often used to acknowledge
that one has perpetrated a {thinko} immediately after one has
been called on it.
:bang on: /vt./ To stress-test a piece of hardware or software:
"I banged on the new version of the simulator all day yesterday
and it didn't crash once. I guess it is ready for release." The
term {pound on} is synonymous.
:bang path: /n./ An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address
specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the
addressee, so called because each {hop} is signified by a
{bang} sign. Thus, for example, the path
...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me directs people to route their mail
to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known location accessible
to everybody) and from there through the machine foovax to the
account of user me on barbox.
In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
using the { } convention (see {glob}) to give paths from
*several* big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me). Bang paths
of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths
were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
messages would often get lost. See {{Internet address}},
{network, the}, and {sitename}.
:banner: /n./ 1. The title page added to printouts by most
print spoolers (see {spool}). Typically includes user or
account ID information in very large character-graphics capitals.
Also called a `burst page', because it indicates where to burst
(tear apart) fanfold paper to separate one user's printout from the
next. 2. A similar printout generated (typically on multiple pages
of fan-fold paper) from user-specified text, e.g., by a program
such as Unix's `banner({1,6})'. 3. On interactive software,
a first screen containing a logo and/or author credits and/or a
copyright notice.
:bar: /bar/ /n./ 1. The second {metasyntactic variable},
after {foo} and before {baz}. "Suppose we have two
functions: FOO and BAR. FOO calls BAR...." 2. Often
appended to {foo} to produce {foobar}.
:bare metal: /n./ 1. New computer hardware, unadorned with such
snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or
even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the
bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing}
needed to create these basic tools for a new machine. Real
bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and
BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device
drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the
compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real
development environment. 2. `Programming on the bare metal' is
also used to describe a style of {hand-hacking} that relies on
bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, esp.
tricks for speed and space optimization that rely on crocks such as
overlapping instructions (or, as in the famous case described in
{The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer} (in Appendix A),
interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimize fetch delays
due to the device's rotational latency). This sort of thing has
become less common as the relative costs of programming time and
machine resources have changed, but is still found in heavily
constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems, and
in the code of hackers who just can't let go of that low-level
control. See {Real Programmer}.
In the world of personal computing, bare metal programming
(especially in sense 1 but sometimes also in sense 2) is often
considered a {Good Thing}, or at least a necessary evil
(because these machines have often been sufficiently slow and
poorly designed to make it necessary; see {ill-behaved}).
There, the term usually refers to bypassing the BIOS or OS
interface and writing the application to directly access device
registers and machine addresses. "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the
serial port, you need to get down to the bare metal." People who
can do this sort of thing well are held in high regard.
:barf: /barf/ /n.,v./ [from mainstream slang meaning `vomit']
1. /interj./ Term of disgust. This is the closest hackish
equivalent of the Valspeak "gag me with a spoon". (Like, euwww!)
See {bletch}. 2. /vi./ To say "Barf!" or emit some similar
expression of disgust. "I showed him my latest hack and he
barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he
literally vomited. 3. /vi./ To fail to work because of
unacceptable input, perhaps with a suitable error message, perhaps
not. Examples: "The division operation barfs if you try to divide
by 0." (That is, the division operation checks for an attempt to
divide by zero, and if one is encountered it causes the operation
to fail in some unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.) "The
text editor barfs if you try to read in a new file before writing
out the old one." See {choke}, {gag}. In Commonwealth
Hackish, `barf' is generally replaced by `puke' or `vom'.
{barf} is sometimes also used as a {metasyntactic variable},
like {foo} or {bar}.
:barfmail: /n./ Multiple {bounce message}s accumulating to
the level of serious annoyance, or worse. The sort of thing that
happens when an inter-network mail gateway goes down or wonky.
:barfulation: /bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ /interj./ Variation of
{barf} used around the Stanford area. An exclamation,
expressing disgust. On seeing some particularly bad code one might
exclaim, "Barfulation! Who wrote this, Quux?"
:barfulous: /bar'fyoo-l*s/ /adj./ (alt. `barfucious',
/bar-fyoo-sh*s/) Said of something that would make anyone
barf, if only for esthetic reasons.
:barney: /n./ In Commonwealth hackish, `barney' is to
{fred} (sense #1) as {bar} is to {foo}. That is, people
who commonly use `fred' as their first metasyntactic variable
will often use `barney' second. The reference is, of course, to
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the Flintstones cartoons.
:baroque: /adj./ Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on
excessive. Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has
many of the connotations of {elephantine} or {monstrosity}
but is less extreme and not pejorative in itself. "Metafont even
has features to introduce random variations to its letterform
output. Now *that* is baroque!" See also {rococo}.
:BASIC: /bay'-sic/ /n./ [acronym: Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code] A programming language, originally designed for
Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s,
which has since become the leading cause of brain damage in
proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected
Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" that "It is
practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers
they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." This is
another case (like {Pascal}) of the cascading lossage that
happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy
gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs
(on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer
(a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make
it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so
bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end
micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a
year.
[1995: Some languages called `BASIC' aren't quite this nasty any
more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control
structures and shed their line numbers. --ESR]
:batch: /adj./ 1. Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat
more loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in
particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare
it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to
as `batch mode' switches. A `batch file' is a series of
instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running
in batch mode. 2. Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting.
"I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all
those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next
week..." 3. `batching up': Accumulation of a number of small
tasks that can be lumped together for greater efficiency. "I'm
batching up those letters to send sometime" "I'm batching up
bottles to take to the recycling center."
:bathtub curve: /n./ Common term for the curve (resembling an
end-to-end section of one of those claw-footed antique bathtubs)
that describes the expected failure rate of electronics with time:
initially high, dropping to near 0 for most of the system's
lifetime, then rising again as it `tires out'. See also
{burn-in period}, {infant mortality}.
:baud: /bawd/ /n./ [simplified from its technical meaning]
/n./ Bits per second. Hence kilobaud or Kbaud, thousands of bits
per
second. The technical meaning is `level transitions per
second'; this coincides with bps only for two-level modulation with
no framing or stop bits. Most hackers are aware of these nuances
but blithely ignore them.
Historical note: `baud' was originally a unit of telegraph
signalling speed, set at one pulse per second. It was proposed at
the International Telegraph Conference of 1927, and named after
J.M.E. Baudot (1845--1903), the French engineer who constructed
the first successful teleprinter.
:baud barf: /bawd barf/ /n./ The garbage one gets on the
monitor when using a modem connection with some protocol setting
(esp. line speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice
extension on the same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts
the connection. Baud barf is not completely {random}, by the
way; hackers with a lot of serial-line experience can usually tell
whether the device at the other end is expecting a higher or lower
speed than the terminal is set to. *Really* experienced ones
can identify particular speeds.
:baz: /baz/ /n./ 1. The third {metasyntactic variable}
"Suppose we have three functions: FOO, BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls
BAR, which calls BAZ...." (See also {fum}) 2. /interj./ A
term of mild annoyance. In this usage the term is often drawn out
for 2 or 3 seconds, producing an effect not unlike the bleating of
a sheep; /baaaaaaz/. 3. Occasionally appended to {foo} to
produce `foobaz'.
Earlier versions of this lexicon derived `baz' as a Stanford
corruption of {bar}. However, Pete Samson (compiler of the
{TMRC} lexicon) reports it was already current when he joined TMRC
in 1958. He says "It came from "Pogo". Albert the Alligator,
when vexed or outraged, would shout `Bazz Fazz!' or `Rowrbazzle!'
The club layout was said to model the (mythical) New England
counties of Rowrfolk and Bassex (Rowrbazzle mingled with
(Norfolk/Suffolk/Middlesex/Essex)."
:bboard: /bee'bord/ /n./ [contraction of `bulletin board']
1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used of {BBS} systems
running on personal micros, less frequently of a Usenet
{newsgroup} (in fact, use of this term for a newsgroup generally
marks one either as a {newbie} fresh in from the BBS world or as
a real old-timer predating Usenet). 2. At CMU and other colleges
with similar facilities, refers to campus-wide electronic bulletin
boards. 3. The term `physical bboard' is sometimes used to refer
to an old-fashioned, non-electronic cork-and-thumbtack memo board.
At CMU, it refers to a particular one outside the CS Lounge.
In either of senses 1 or 2, the term is usually prefixed by the
name of the intended board (`the Moonlight Casino bboard' or
`market bboard'); however, if the context is clear, the better-read
bboards may be referred to by name alone, as in (at CMU) "Don't
post for-sale ads on general".
:BBS: /B-B-S/ /n./ [abbreviation, `Bulletin Board System'] An
electronic bulletin board system; that is, a message database where
people can log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped
(typically) into {topic group}s. Thousands of local BBS systems
are in operation throughout the U.S., typically run by amateurs for
fun out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line
each. Fans of Usenet and Internet or the big commercial
timesharing bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tend to consider
local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they
serve a valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and
users in the personal-micro world who would otherwise be unable to
exchange code at all. See also {bboard}.
:beam: /vt./ [from Star Trek Classic's "Beam me up, Scotty!"]
To transfer {softcopy} of a file electronically; most often
in combining forms such as `beam me a copy' or `beam that over
to his site'. Compare {blast}, {snarf}, {BLT}.
:beanie key: /n./ [Mac users] See {command key}.
:beep: /n.,v./ Syn. {feep}. This term is techspeak under
MS-DOS and OS/2, and seems to be generally preferred among micro
hobbyists.
:beige toaster: /n./ A Macintosh. See {toaster}; compare
{Macintrash}, {maggotbox}.
:bells and whistles: /n./ [by analogy with the toyboxes on theater
organs] Features added to a program or system to make it more
{flavorful} from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily
adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished from
{chrome}, which is intended to attract users. "Now that we've
got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and
whistles." No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a
whistle.
:bells, whistles, and gongs: /n./ A standard elaborated form of
{bells and whistles}; typically said with a pronounced and
ironic accent on the `gongs'.
:benchmark: [techspeak] /n./ An inaccurate measure of computer
performance. "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of
lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." Well-known ones include
Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see {h}), the Gabriel LISP
benchmarks (see {gabriel}), the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK.
See also {machoflops}, {MIPS}, {smoke and mirrors}.
:Berkeley Quality Software: /adj./ (often abbreviated `BQS')
Term used in a pejorative sense to refer to software that was
apparently created by rather spaced-out hackers late at night to
solve some unique problem. It usually has nonexistent, incomplete,
or incorrect documentation, has been tested on at least two
examples, and core dumps when anyone else attempts to use it. This
term was frequently applied to early versions of the `dbx(1)'
debugger. See also {Berzerkeley}.
Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not
/bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation.
:berklix: /berk'liks/ /n.,adj./ [contraction of `Berkeley
Unix'] See {BSD}. Not used at Berkeley itself. May be more
common among {suit}s attempting to sound like cognoscenti than
among hackers, who usually just say `BSD'.
:Berzerkeley: /b*r-zer'klee/ /n./ [from `berserk', via the
name of a now-deceased record label] Humorous distortion of
`Berkeley' used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the
{BSD} Unix hackers. See {software bloat},
{Missed'em-five}, {Berkeley Quality Software}.
Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and
political peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported
from as far back as the 1960s.
:beta: /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ /n./
1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in
beta'. In the {Real World}, systems (hardware or software)
software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha
(in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made
to a group of lucky (or unlucky) trusted customers.
2. Anything that is new and experimental. "His girlfriend is in
beta" means that he is still testing for compatibility and
reserving judgment. 3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta
software is notoriously buggy).
Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a
pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software
by making it available to selected (or self-selected) customers and
users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product
cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout
the industry. `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test
phase; `Beta Test' was initial system test. These themselves came
from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a
feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any
commitment to design and development. The B-test was a
demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified.
The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed
on early samples of the production design.
:BFI: /B-F-I/ /n./ See {brute force and ignorance}. Also
encountered in the variants `BFMI', `brute force and
*massive* ignorance' and `BFBI' `brute force and bloody
ignorance'.
:bible: /n./ 1. One of a small number of fundamental source
books such as {Knuth} and {K&R}. 2. The most detailed and
authoritative reference for a particular language, operating
system, or other complex software system.
:BiCapitalization: /n./ The act said to have been performed on
trademarks (such as {PostScript}, NeXT, {NeWS}, VisiCalc,
FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the
ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalization. Too many
{marketroid} types think this sort of thing is really cute, even
the 2,317th time they do it. Compare {studlycaps}.
:B1FF: /bif/ [Usenet] (alt. `BIFF') /n./ The most famous
{pseudo}, and the prototypical {newbie}. Articles from B1FF
feature all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs,
typos, `cute' misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ
HE"S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS
LIKE THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments of {talk mode}
abbreviations, a long {sig block} (sometimes even a {doubled
sig}), and unbounded naivete. B1FF posts articles using his
elder brother's VIC-20. B1FF's location is a mystery, as his
articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However,
{BITNET} seems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that
B1FF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by B1FF's (unfortunately
invalid) electronic mail address: B1FF@BIT.NET.
[1993: Now It Can Be Told! My spies inform me that B1FF was
originally created by Joe Talmadge <jat@cup.hp.com>, also the
author of the infamous and much-plagiarized "Flamer's Bible".
The BIFF filter he wrote was later passed to Richard Sexton, who
posted BIFFisms much more widely. Versions have since been posted
for the amusement of the net at large. --ESR]
:biff: /bif/ /vt./ To notify someone of incoming mail. From
the BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after a
friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls at
UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that it
had a habit of barking whenever the mailman came, but the author of
`biff' says this is not true. No relation to {B1FF}.
:Big Gray Wall: /n./ What faces a {VMS} user searching for
documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation
taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of
layered products such as compilers, databases, multivendor
networking, and programming tools. Recent (since VMS version 5)
DEC documentation comes with gray binders; under VMS version 4 the
binders were orange (`big orange wall'), and under version 3 they
were blue. See {VMS}. Often contracted to `Gray Wall'.
:big iron: /n./ Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used
generally of {number-crunching} supercomputers such as Crays,
but can include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes.
Term of approval; compare {heavy metal}, oppose {dinosaur}.
:Big Red Switch: /n./ [IBM] The power switch on a computer,
esp. the `Emergency Pull' switch on an IBM {mainframe} or the
power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This
!@%$% {bitty box} is hung again; time to hit the Big Red
Switch." Sources at IBM report that, in tune with the company's
passion for {TLA}s, this is often abbreviated as `BRS' (this
has also become established on FidoNet and in the PC {clone}
world). It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM
360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power
feed; the BRSes on more recent mainframes physically drop a block
into place so that they can't be pushed back in. People get fired
for pulling them, especially inappropriately (see also
{molly-guard}). Compare {power cycle}, {three-finger
salute}, {120 reset}; see also {scram switch}.
:Big Room, the: /n./ The extremely large room with the blue
ceiling and intensely bright light (during the day) or black
ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found
outside all computer installations. "He can't come to the phone
right now, he's somewhere out in the Big Room."
:big win: /n./ Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists
discovered high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic
that had been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental
schedule. Small mistake; big win!" See {win big}.
:big-endian: /adj./ [From Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" via
the famous paper "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" by Danny
Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] 1. Describes a
computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric
representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address
(the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most processors,
including the IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola
microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs
current in late 1995, are big-endian. Big-endian byte order is
also sometimes called `network order'. See {little-endian},
{middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}. 2. An
{{Internet address}} the wrong way round. Most of the world
follows the Internet standard and writes email addresses starting
with the name of the computer and ending up with the name of the
country. In the U.K. the Joint Networking Team had decided to do
it the other way round before the Internet domain standard was
established. Most gateway sites have {ad-hockery} in their
mailers to handle this, but can still be confused. In particular,
the address me@uk.ac.bris.pys.as could be interpreted in
JANET's big-endian way as one in the U.K. (domain uk) or in the
standard little-endian way as one in the domain as (American
Samoa) on the opposite side of the world.
:bignum: /big'nuhm/ /n./ [orig. from MIT MacLISP]
1. [techspeak] A multiple-precision computer representation for
very large integers. 2. More generally, any very large number.
"Have you ever looked at the United States Budget? There's
bignums for you!" 3. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on
the dice especially a roll of double fives or double sixes (compare
{moby}, sense 4). See also {El Camino Bignum}.
Sense 1 may require some explanation. Most computer languages
provide a kind of data called `integer', but such computer
integers are usually very limited in size; usually they must be
smaller than than 2^(31) (2,147,483,648) or (on a
{bitty box}) 2^(15) (32,768). If you want to work
with numbers larger than that, you have to use floating-point
numbers, which are usually accurate to only six or seven decimal
places. Computer languages that provide bignums can perform exact
calculations on very large numbers, such as 1000! (the factorial
of 1000, which is 1000 times 999 times 998 times ... times 2
times 1). For example, this value for 1000! was computed by the
MacLISP system using bignums:
40238726007709377354370243392300398571937486421071
46325437999104299385123986290205920442084869694048
00479988610197196058631666872994808558901323829669
94459099742450408707375991882362772718873251977950
59509952761208749754624970436014182780946464962910
56393887437886487337119181045825783647849977012476
63288983595573543251318532395846307555740911426241
74743493475534286465766116677973966688202912073791
43853719588249808126867838374559731746136085379534
52422158659320192809087829730843139284440328123155
86110369768013573042161687476096758713483120254785
89320767169132448426236131412508780208000261683151
02734182797770478463586817016436502415369139828126
48102130927612448963599287051149649754199093422215
66832572080821333186116811553615836546984046708975
60290095053761647584772842188967964624494516076535
34081989013854424879849599533191017233555566021394
50399736280750137837615307127761926849034352625200
01588853514733161170210396817592151090778801939317
81141945452572238655414610628921879602238389714760
88506276862967146674697562911234082439208160153780
88989396451826324367161676217916890977991190375403
12746222899880051954444142820121873617459926429565
81746628302955570299024324153181617210465832036786
90611726015878352075151628422554026517048330422614
39742869330616908979684825901254583271682264580665
26769958652682272807075781391858178889652208164348
34482599326604336766017699961283186078838615027946
59551311565520360939881806121385586003014356945272
24206344631797460594682573103790084024432438465657
24501440282188525247093519062092902313649327349756
55139587205596542287497740114133469627154228458623
77387538230483865688976461927383814900140767310446
64025989949022222176590433990188601856652648506179
97023561938970178600408118897299183110211712298459
01641921068884387121855646124960798722908519296819
37238864261483965738229112312502418664935314397013
74285319266498753372189406942814341185201580141233
44828015051399694290153483077644569099073152433278
28826986460278986432113908350621709500259738986355
42771967428222487575867657523442202075736305694988
25087968928162753848863396909959826280956121450994
87170124451646126037902930912088908694202851064018
21543994571568059418727489980942547421735824010636
77404595741785160829230135358081840096996372524230
56085590370062427124341690900415369010593398383577
79394109700277534720000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000.
:bigot: /n./ A person who is religiously attached to a
particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other
tool (see {religious issues}). Usually found with a specifier;
thus, `cray bigot', `ITS bigot', `APL bigot', `VMS bigot',
`Berkeley bigot'. Real bigots can be distinguished from mere
partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn
alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is
threatening to obsolete the favored tool. It is truly said "You
can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." Compare
{weenie}.
:bit: /n./ [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT']
1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information
obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes
are equally probable. 2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that
can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done
eventually. "I have a bit set for you." (I haven't seen you for
a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.) 4. More
generally, a (possibly incorrect) mental state of belief. "I have
a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS."
(Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what
I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this
isn't true.")
"I just need one bit from you" is a polite way of indicating that
you intend only a short interruption for a question that can
presumably be answered yes or no.
A bit is said to be `set' if its value is true or 1, and
`reset' or `clear' if its value is false or 0. One speaks of
setting and clearing bits. To {toggle} or `invert' a bit is
to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. See also
{flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.
The term `bit' first appeared in print in the computer-science
sense in 1949, and seems to have been coined by early computer
scientist John Tukey. Tukey records that it evolved over a lunch
table as a handier alternative to `bigit' or `binit'.
:bit bang: /n./ Transmission of data on a serial line, when
accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit, in software,
at the appropriate times. The technique is a simple loop with
eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte. Input is more
interesting. And full duplex (doing input and output at the same
time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the
{wannabee}s.
Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers,
presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros
with a Zilog PIO but no SIO. In an interesting instance of the
{cycle of reincarnation}, this technique returned to use in the
early 1990s on some RISC architectures because it consumes such
an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense
not to have a UART. Compare {cycle of reincarnation}.
:bit bashing: /n./ (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit
twiddling}) Term used to describe any of several kinds of low-level
programming characterized by manipulation of {bit}, {flag},
{nybble}, and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data;
these include low-level device control, encryption algorithms,
checksum and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors
of graphics programming (see {bitblt}), and assembler/compiler
code generation. May connote either tedium or a real technical
challenge (more usually the former). "The command decoding for
the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the
control registers still has bugs." See also {bit bang},
{mode bit}.
:bit bucket: /n./ 1. The universal data sink (originally, the
mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end
of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or
destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'. On
{{Unix}}, often used for {/dev/null}. Sometimes amplified as
`the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky'. 2. The place where all lost
mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed
according to {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely
to end up in the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost
100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket
is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems,
and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all
unwanted mail responses: "Flames about this article to the bit
bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox
with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I
mailed you those figures last week; they must have landed in the
bit bucket." Compare {black hole}.
This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the fanciful
notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only
misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term
`bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time
hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU
stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the
bit box'. See also {chad box}.
Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the
`parity preservation law', the number of 1 bits that go to the bit
bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in
bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician
can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.
:bit decay: /n./ See {bit rot}. People with a physics
background tend to prefer this variant for the analogy with
particle decay. See also {computron}, {quantum
bogodynamics}.
:bit rot: /n./ Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the
existence of which has been deduced from the observation that
unused programs or features will often stop working after
sufficient time has passed, even if `nothing has changed'. The
theory explains that bits decay as if they were radioactive. As
time passes, the contents of a file or the code in a program will
become increasingly garbled.
There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
(alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip
packages, for example, can change the contents of a computer memory
unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle media failures can
corrupt files in mass storage), but they are quite rare (and
computers are built with error-detecting circuitry to compensate
for them). The notion long favored among hackers that cosmic
rays are among the causes of such events turns out to be a myth;
see the {cosmic rays} entry for details.
The term {software rot} is almost synonymous. Software rot is
the effect, bit rot the notional cause.
:bit twiddling: /n./ 1. (pejorative) An exercise in tuning (see
{tune}) in which incredible amounts of time and effort go to
produce little noticeable improvement, often with the result that
the code becomes incomprehensible. 2. Aimless small modification
to a program, esp. for some pointless goal. 3. Approx. syn. for
{bit bashing}; esp. used for the act of frobbing the device
control register of a peripheral in an attempt to get it back to a
known state.
:bit-paired keyboard: /n./ obs. (alt. `bit-shift keyboard')
A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with
the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early
computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see
{EOU}), so the only way to generate the character codes from
keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33
assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified
by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In
order to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than
it already was, the design had to group characters that shared the
same basic bit pattern on one key.
Looking at the ASCII chart, we find:
high low bits
bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001
010 ! " # $ % & ' ( )
011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a
Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was
*not* the weirdest variant of the {QWERTY} layout widely
seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several
(differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card
punches.
When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there
was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be
laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard,
while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make
their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives
became known as `bit-paired' and `typewriter-paired' keyboards. To
a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical -- and
because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type,
there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt
keyboards to the typewriter standard.
The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale
introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office
environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use
the equipment. The `typewriter-paired' standard became universal,
`bit-paired' hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty
corners, and both terms passed into disuse.
:bitblt: /bit'blit/ /n./ [from {BLT}, q.v.] 1. Any of a
family of closely related algorithms for moving and copying
rectangles of bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped
device, or between two areas of either main or display memory (the
requirement to do the {Right Thing} in the case of overlapping
source and destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky).
2. Synonym for {blit} or {BLT}. Both uses are borderline
techspeak.
:BITNET: /bit'net/ /n./ [acronym: Because It's Time NETwork]
Everybody's least favorite piece of the network (see {network,
the}). The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs and
VAXen (the latter with lobotomized comm hardware) that communicate
using 80-character {{EBCDIC}} card images (see {eighty-column
mind}); thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of
third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/{RFC}-822 world
with annoying regularity. BITNET was also notorious as the
apparent home of {B1FF}.
:bits: /pl.n./ 1. Information. Examples: "I need some bits
about file formats." ("I need to know about file formats.")
Compare {core dump}, sense 4. 2. Machine-readable
representation of a document, specifically as contrasted with
paper: "I have only a photocopy of the Jargon File; does anyone
know where I can get the bits?". See {softcopy}, {source of
all good bits} See also {bit}.
:bitty box: /bit'ee boks/ /n./ 1. A computer sufficiently
small, primitive, or incapable as to cause a hacker acute
claustrophobia at the thought of developing software on or for it.
Especially used of small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal
machines such as the Atari 800, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80,
or IBM PC. 2. [Pejorative] More generally, the opposite of
`real computer' (see {Get a real computer!}). See also
{mess-dos}, {toaster}, and {toy}.
:bixie: /bik'see/ /n./ Variant {emoticon}s used on BIX
(the Byte Information eXchange). The {smiley} bixie is <@_@>,
apparently intending to represent two cartoon eyes and a mouth. A
few others have been reported.
:black art: /n./ A collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by
implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular
application or systems area (compare {black magic}). VLSI
design and compiler code optimization were (in their beginnings)
considered classic examples of black art; as theory developed they
became {deep magic}, and once standard textbooks had been
written, became merely {heavy wizardry}. The huge proliferation
of formal and informal channels for spreading around new
computer-related technologies during the last twenty years has made
both the term `black art' and what it describes less common than
formerly. See also {voodoo programming}.
:black hole: /n./ What a piece of email or netnews has fallen
into if it disappears mysteriously between its origin and
destination sites (that is, without returning a {bounce
message}). "I think there's a black hole at foovax!" conveys
suspicion that site foovax has been dropping a lot of stuff on
the floor lately (see {drop on the floor}). The implied
metaphor of email as interstellar travel is interesting in itself.
Compare {bit bucket}.
:black magic: /n./ A technique that works, though nobody really
understands why. More obscure than {voodoo programming}, which
may be done by cookbook. Compare also {black art}, {deep
magic}, and {magic number} (sense 2).
:Black Screen of Death: n. [prob. related to the
Floating Head of Death in a famous "Far Side" cartoon.] A
failure mode of {Microsloth Windows}. On an attempt to launch a
DOS box, a networked Windows system not uncommonly blanks the
screen and locks up the PC so hard that it requires a cold
{boot} to recover. This unhappy phenomenon is known as The Black
Screen of Death.
:Black Thursday: n. February 8th, 1996 -- the day of the
signing into law of the {CDA}, so called by analogy with the
catastrophic "Black Friday" in 1929 that began the Great
Depression.
:blammo: /v./ [Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To
forcibly remove someone from any interactive system, especially
talker systems. The operators, who may remain hidden, may `blammo'
a user who is misbehaving. Very similar to MIT {gun}; in fact,
the `blammo-gun' is a notional device used to `blammo' someone.
While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the
command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different
levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to `stun' will
temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to `maim' will
stop someone coming back on for a while.
:blargh: /blarg/ /n./ [MIT] The opposite of {ping}, sense
5; an exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a
quantum of unhappiness. Less common than {ping}.
:blast: 1. /v.,n./ Synonym for {BLT}, used esp. for large
data sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of {snarf}.
Usage: uncommon. The variant `blat' has been reported. 2. vt.
[HP/Apollo] Synonymous with {nuke} (sense 3). Sometimes the
message `Unable to kill all processes. Blast them (y/n)?'
would appear in the command window upon logout.
:blat: /n./ 1. Syn. {blast}, sense 1. 2. See {thud}.
:bletch: /blech/ /interj./ [from Yiddish/German `brechen', to
vomit, poss. via comic-strip exclamation `blech'] Term
of disgust. Often used in "Ugh, bletch". Compare {barf}.
:bletcherous: /blech'*-r*s/ /adj./ Disgusting in design or
function; esthetically unappealing. This word is seldom used of
people. "This keyboard is bletcherous!" (Perhaps the keys don't
work very well, or are misplaced.) See {losing},
{cretinous}, {bagbiting}, {bogus}, and {random}. The
term {bletcherous} applies to the esthetics of the thing so
described; similarly for {cretinous}. By contrast, something
that is `losing' or `bagbiting' may be failing to meet
objective criteria. See also {bogus} and {random}, which
have richer and wider shades of meaning than any of the above.
:blink: /vi.,n./ To use a navigator or off-line message reader
to minimize time spent on-line to a commercial network service.
As of late 1994, this term was said to be in wide use in the UK,
but is rare or unknown in the US.
:blinkenlights: /blink'*n-li:tz/ /n./ Front-panel diagnostic
lights on a computer, esp. a {dinosaur}. Derives from the
last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled
pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the
English-speaking world. One version ran in its entirety as
follows:
ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS! Das
computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in
das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.
This silliness dates back at least as far as 1959 at Stanford
University and had already gone international by the early 1960s,
when it was reported at London University's ATLAS computing site.
There are several variants of it in circulation, some of which
actually do end with the word `blinkenlights'.
In an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers
have developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in
fractured English, one of which is reproduced here:
ATTENTION
This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away
and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen
astaunished the blinkenlights.
See also {geef}.
Old-time hackers sometimes get nostalgic for blinkenlights because
they were so much more fun to look at than a blank panel. Sadly,
very few computers still have them (the three LEDs on a PC keyboard
certainly don't count). The obvious reasons (cost of wiring, cost
of front-panel cutouts, almost nobody needs or wants to interpret
machine-register states on the fly anymore) are only part of the
story. Another part of it is that radio-frequency leakage from the
lamp wiring was beginning to be a problem as far back as transistor
machines. But the most fundamental fact is that there are very few
signals slow enough to blink an LED these days! With slow CPUs,
you could watch the bus register or instruction counter tick, but
at 33/66/150MHz it's all a blur.
:blit: /blit/ /vt./ 1. To copy a large array of bits from one
part of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the
memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display
screen. "The storage allocator picks through the table and copies
the good parts up into high memory, and then blits it all back down
again." See {bitblt}, {BLT}, {dd}, {cat}, {blast},
{snarf}. More generally, to perform some operation (such as
toggling) on a large array of bits while moving them. 2. Sometimes
all-capitalized as `BLIT': an early experimental bit-mapped
terminal designed by Rob Pike at Bell Labs, later commercialized as
the AT&T 5620. (The folk etymology from `Bell Labs Intelligent
Terminal' is incorrect. Its creators liked to claim that "Blit"
stood for the Bacon, Lettuce, and Interactive Tomato.)
:blitter: /blit'r/ /n./ A special-purpose chip or hardware
system built to perform {blit} operations, esp. used for fast
implementation of bit-mapped graphics. The Commodore Amiga and a
few other micros have these, but sine 1990 the trend is away from
them (however, see {cycle of reincarnation}). Syn. {raster
blaster}.
:blivet: /bliv'*t/ /n./ [allegedly from a World War II
military term meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"]
1. An intractable problem. 2. A crucial piece of hardware that
can't be fixed or replaced if it breaks. 3. A tool that has been
hacked over by so many incompetent programmers that it has become
an unmaintainable tissue of hacks. 4. An out-of-control but
unkillable development effort. 5. An embarrassing bug that pops up
during a customer demo. 6. In the subjargon of computer security
specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging
limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared
spool space on a multi-user system).
This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it
seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to
hackish use of {frob}). It has also been used to describe an
amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that
appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes
that the parts fit together in an impossible way.
:BLOB: 1. /n./ [acronym: Binary Large OBject] Used by database
people to refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be
stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file. The
essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be
interpreted within the database itself. 2. /v./ To {mailbomb}
someone by sending a BLOB to him/her; esp. used as a mild threat.
"If that program crashes again, I'm going to BLOB the core dump to
you."
:block: /v./ [from process scheduling terminology in OS theory]
1. /vi./ To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. "We're
blocking until everyone gets here." Compare {busy-wait}.
2. `block on' /vt./ To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is
blocked on Phil's arrival."
:block transfer computations: /n./ [from the television series
"Dr. Who"] 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.
(The Z80's LDIR instruction, "Computed Block Transfer with
increment", may also be relevant)
:Bloggs Family, the: /n./ An imaginary family consisting of
Fred and Mary Bloggs and their children. Used as a standard
example in knowledge representation to show the difference between
extensional and intensional objects. For example, every occurrence
of "Fred Bloggs" is the same unique person, whereas occurrences
of "person" may refer to different people. Members of the Bloggs
family have been known to pop up in bizarre places such as the DEC
Telephone Directory. Compare {Mbogo, Dr. Fred}.
:blow an EPROM: /bloh *n ee'prom/ /v./ (alt. `blast an
EPROM', `burn an EPROM') To program a read-only memory, e.g.
for use with an embedded system. This term arose because the
programming process for the Programmable Read-Only Memories (PROMs)
that preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memories
(EPROMs) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on
the chip. The usage lives on (it's too vivid and expressive to
discard) even though the write process on EPROMs is nondestructive.
:blow away: /vt./ To remove (files and directories) from
permanent storage, generally by accident. "He reformatted the
wrong partition and blew away last night's netnews." Oppose
{nuke}.
:blow out: /vi./ [prob. from mining and tunneling jargon] Of
software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious as {crash and
burn}. See {blow past}, {blow up}, {die horribly}.
:blow past: /vt./ To {blow out} despite a safeguard. "The
server blew past the 5K reserve buffer."
:blow up: /vi./ 1. [scientific computation] To become unstable.
Suggests that the computation is diverging so rapidly that it will
soon overflow or at least go {nonlinear}. 2. Syn. {blow
out}.
:BLT: /B-L-T/, /bl*t/ or (rarely) /belt/ /n.,vt./ Synonym
for {blit}. This is the original form of {blit} and the
ancestor of {bitblt}. It referred to any large bit-field copy
or move operation (one resource-intensive memory-shuffling
operation done on pre-paged versions of ITS, WAITS, and TOPS-10 was
sardonically referred to as `The Big BLT'). The jargon usage has
outlasted the {PDP-10} BLock Transfer instruction from which
{BLT} derives; nowadays, the assembler mnemonic {BLT} almost
always means `Branch if Less Than zero'.
:Blue Book: /n./ 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on the page-layout and graphics-control language
{{PostScript}} ("PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook",
Adobe Systems, Addison-Wesley 1985, QA76.73.P67P68, ISBN
0-201-10179-3); the other three official guides are known as the
{Green Book}, the {Red Book}, and the {White Book} (sense
2). 2. Informal name for one of the three standard references on
Smalltalk: "Smalltalk-80: The Language and its
Implementation", David Robson, Addison-Wesley 1983, QA76.8.S635G64,
ISBN 0-201-11371-63 (this book also has green and red siblings).
3. Any of the 1988 standards issued by the CCITT's ninth plenary
assembly. These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec
and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards. See also {{book
titles}}.
:blue box: /n./ 1. obs. Once upon a time, before
all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to
move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones
used to route long-distance calls. Early {phreaker}s built
devices called `blue boxes' that could reproduce these tones,
which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network.
(This was not as hard as it may sound; one early phreak acquired
the sobriquet `Captain Crunch' after he proved that he could
generate switching tones with a plastic whistle pulled out of a box
of Captain Crunch cereal!) There were other colors of box with more
specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes,
etc. 2. /n./ An {IBM} machine, especially a large (non-PC)
one.
:Blue Glue: /n./ [IBM] IBM's SNA (Systems Network
Architecture), an incredibly {losing} and {bletcherous}
communications protocol widely favored at commercial shops that
don't know any better. The official IBM definition is "that which
binds blue boxes together." See {fear and loathing}. It may
not be irrelevant that {Blue Glue} is the trade name of a 3M
product that is commonly used to hold down the carpet squares to
the removable panel floors common in {dinosaur pen}s. A
correspondent at U. Minn. reports that the CS department there has
about 80 bottles of the stuff hanging about, so they often refer to
any messy work to be done as `using the blue glue'.
:blue goo: /n./ Term for `police' {nanobot}s intended to
prevent {gray goo}, denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution,
put ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and
promote truth, justice, and the American way, etc. The term
`Blue Goo' can be found in Dr. Seuss's "Fox In Socks" to
refer to a substance much like bubblegum. `Would you like to
chew blue goo, sir?'. See {{nanotechnology}}.
:blue wire: /n./ [IBM] Patch wires added to circuit boards at
the factory to correct design or fabrication problems. These may
be necessary if there hasn't been time to design and qualify
another board version. Compare {purple wire}, {red wire},
{yellow wire}.
:blurgle: /bler'gl/ /n./ [UK] Spoken {metasyntactic
variable}, to indicate some text that is obvious from context, or
which is already known. If several words are to be replaced,
blurgle may well be doubled or tripled. "To look for something in
several files use `grep string blurgle blurgle'." In each case,
"blurgle blurgle" would be understood to be replaced by the file
you wished to search. Compare {mumble}, sense 7.
:BNF: /B-N-F/ /n./ 1. [techspeak] 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 U.S. postal address:
<postal-address> ::= <name-part> <street-address> <zip-part>
<personal-part> ::= <name> | <initial> "."
<name-part> ::= <personal-part> <last-name> [<jr-part>] <EOL>
| <personal-part> <name-part>
<street-address> ::= [<apt>] <house-num> <street-name> <EOL>
<zip-part> ::= <town-name> "," <state-code> <ZIP-code> <EOL>
This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a
name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a
zip-code part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or
an initial followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a
personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional
`jr-part' (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a
personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the
use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use
multiple first and middle names and/or initials). A street address
consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street
number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consists of a
town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed
by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note that many things
(such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or
ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These are presumed to be obvious
from context or detailed somewhere nearby. See also {parse}.
2. Any of a number number of variants and extensions of BNF proper,
possibly containing some or all of the {regexp} wildcards such
as `*' or `+'. In fact the example above isn't the pure
form invented for the Algol-60 report; it uses `[]', which was
introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now
universally recognized. 3. In {{science-fiction fandom}}, a
`Big-Name Fan' (someone famous or notorious). Years ago a fan
started handing out black-on-green BNF buttons at SF conventions;
this confused the hacker contingent terribly.
:boa: [IBM] /n./ Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the
floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they
display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them
straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is
rumored within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to
200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous -- and
it is worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the
trademark `Anaconda'.
:board: /n./ 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes
used even for Usenet newsgroups (but see usage note under
{bboard}, sense 1). 2. An electronic circuit board.
:boat anchor: /n./ 1. Like {doorstop} but more severe;
implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or
useless. "That was a working motherboard once. One lightning
strike later, instant boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up
space. 3. Obsolete but still working hardware, especially
when used of an old S100-bus hobbyist system; originally a term of
annoyance, but became more and more affectionate as the hardware
became more and more obsolete.
:bodysurf code: /n./ A program or segment of code written
quickly in the heat of inspiration without the benefit of formal
design or deep thought. Like its namesake sport, the result is
too often a wipeout that leaves the programmer eating sand.
:BOF: /B-O-F/ or /bof/ /n./ Abbreviation for the phrase
"Birds Of a Feather" (flocking together), an informal discussion
group and/or bull session scheduled on a conference program. It is
not clear where or when this term originated, but it is now
associated with the USENIX conferences for Unix techies and was
already established there by 1984. It was used earlier than that
at DECUS conferences and is reported to have been common at SHARE
meetings as far back as the early 1960s.
:BOFH: // /n./ Acronym, Bastard Operator From Hell. A system
administrator with absolutely no tolerance for {luser}s. "You
say you need more filespace? <massive-global-delete> Seems to me
you have plenty left..." Many BOFHs (and others who would be
BOFHs if they could get away with it) hang out in the newsgroup
alt.sysadmin.recovery, although there has also been created a
top-level newsgroup hierarchy (bofh.*) of their own.
Several people have written stories about BOFHs. The set usually
considered canonical is by Simon Travaglia and may be found at the
Bastard Home Page,
http://prime-mover.cc.waikato.ac.nz/Bastard.html.
:bogo-sort: /boh`goh-sort'/ /n./ (var. `stupid-sort') The
archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as opposed to {bubble
sort}, which is merely the generic *bad* algorithm).
Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in
the air, picking them up at random, and then testing whether they
are in order. It serves as a sort of canonical example of
awfulness. Looking at a program and seeing a dumb algorithm, one
might say "Oh, I see, this program uses bogo-sort." Compare
{bogus}, {brute force}, {Lasherism}.
:bogometer: /boh-gom'-*t-er/ /n./ A notional instrument for
measuring {bogosity}. Compare the `wankometer' described in
the {wank} entry; see also {bogus}.
:bogon: /boh'gon/ /n./ [by analogy with
proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the
similarity to Douglas Adams's `Vogons'; see the {Bibliography}
in Appendix C and note that Arthur Dent actually mispronounces
`Vogons' as `Bogons' at one point] 1. The elementary particle of
bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}). For instance, "the
Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is broken or
acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet sent from
a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set
instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed
packet sent on a network. 4. By synecdoche, used to refer to any
bogus thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got
to go to the weekly staff bogon". 5. A person who is bogus or
who says bogus things. This was historically the original usage,
but has been overtaken by its derivative senses 1--4. See also
{bogosity}, {bogus}; compare {psyton}, {fat electrons},
{magic smoke}.
The bogon has become the type case for a whole bestiary of nonce
particle names, including the `clutron' or `cluon' (indivisible
particle of cluefulness, obviously the antiparticle of the bogon)
and the futon (elementary particle of {randomness}, or sometimes
of lameness). These are not so much live usages in themselves as
examples of a live meta-usage: that is, it has become a standard
joke or linguistic maneuver to "explain" otherwise mysterious
circumstances by inventing nonce particle names. And these imply
nonce particle theories, with all their dignity or lack thereof (we
might note parenthetically that this is a generalization from
"(bogus particle) theories" to "bogus (particle theories)"!).
Perhaps such particles are the modern-day equivalents of trolls and
wood-nymphs as standard starting-points around which to construct
explanatory myths. Of course, playing on an existing word (as in
the `futon') yields additional flavor. Compare {magic
smoke}.
:bogon filter: /boh'gon fil'tr/ /n./ Any device, software or
hardware, that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of
bogons. "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and
the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets." See also
{bogosity}, {bogus}.
:bogon flux: /boh'gon fluhks/ /n./ A measure of a supposed
field of {bogosity} emitted by a speaker, measured by a
{bogometer}; as a speaker starts to wander into increasing
bogosity a listener might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is
rising". See {quantum bogodynamics}.
:bogosity: /boh-go's*-tee/ /n./ 1. The degree to which
something is {bogus}. At CMU, bogosity is measured with a
{bogometer}; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus,
a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just
triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer"
means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it
is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest
possible reading (one might also say "You just redlined my
bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the
{microLenat}. 2. The potential field generated by a {bogon
flux}; see {quantum bogodynamics}. See also {bogon flux},
{bogon filter}, {bogus}.
:bogotify: /boh-go't*-fi:/ /vt./ To make or become bogus. A
program that has been changed so many times as to become completely
disorganized has become bogotified. If you tighten a nut too hard
and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has become bogotified
and you had better not use it any more. This coinage led to the
notional `autobogotiphobia' defined as `the fear of becoming
bogotified'; but is not clear that the latter has ever been
`live' jargon rather than a self-conscious joke in jargon about
jargon. See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.
:bogue out: /bohg owt/ /vi./ To become bogus, suddenly and
unexpectedly. "His talk was relatively sane until somebody asked
him a trick question; then he bogued out and did nothing but
{flame} afterwards." See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.
:bogus: /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. Unbelievable. "You claim to have solved the halting problem
for Turing Machines? That's totally bogus." 6. Silly. "Stop
writing those bogus sagas."
Astrology is bogus. So is a bolt that is obviously about to break.
So is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have solved a
scientific problem. (This word seems to have some, but not all, of
the connotations of {random} -- mostly the negative ones.)
It is claimed that `bogus' was originally used in the hackish sense
at Princeton in the late 1960s. It was spread to CMU and Yale by
Michael Shamos, a migratory Princeton alumnus. A glossary of bogus
words was compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized (see
{autobogotiphobia} under {bogotify}). The word spread into
hackerdom from CMU and MIT. By the early 1980s it was also
current in something like the hackish sense in West Coast teen
slang, and it had gone mainstream by 1985. A correspondent from
Cambridge reports, by contrast, that these uses of `bogus' grate on
British nerves; in Britain the word means, rather specifically,
`counterfeit', as in "a bogus 10-pound note".
:Bohr bug: /bohr buhg/ /n./ [from quantum physics] A repeatable
{bug}; one that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but
well-defined set of conditions. Antonym of {heisenbug}; see also
{mandelbug}, {schroedinbug}.
:boink: /boynk/ [Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV
series "Cheers" "Moonlighting", and "Soap"]
1. /v./ To have sex with; compare {bounce}, sense 3. (This is
mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant `bonk' is
more common. 2. /n./ After the original Peter Korn `Boinkon'
{Usenet} parties, used for almost any net social gathering,
e.g., Miniboink, a small boink held by Nancy Gillett in 1988;
Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota in 1989; Humpdayboinks,
Wednesday get-togethers held in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Compare {@-party}. 3. Var of `bonk'; see {bonk/oif}.
:bomb: 1. /v./ General synonym for {crash} (sense 1) except
that it is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS
failures. "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll
bomb." 2. /n.,v./ Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a Unix
`panic' or Amiga {guru} (sense 2), in which icons of little
black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating
that the system has died. On the Mac, this may be accompanied by a
decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal) number indicating what went
wrong, similar to the Amiga {guru meditation} number.
{{MS-DOS}} machines tend to get {locked up} in this situation.
:bondage-and-discipline language: /n./ A language (such as
{{Pascal}}, {{Ada}}, APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly
general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of
`right programming' even though said theory is demonstrably
inadequate for systems hacking or even vanilla general-purpose
programming. Often abbreviated `B&D'; thus, one may speak of
things "having the B&D nature". See {{Pascal}}; oppose
{languages of choice}.
:bonk/oif: /bonk/, /oyf/ /interj./ In the {MUD}
community, it has become traditional to express pique or censure by
`bonking' the offending person. Convention holds that one should
acknowledge a bonk by saying `oif!' and there is a myth to the
effect that failing to do so upsets the cosmic bonk/oif balance,
causing much trouble in the universe. Some MUDs have implemented
special commands for bonking and oifing. See also {talk mode}.
:book titles:: There is a tradition in hackerdom of
informally tagging important textbooks and standards documents with
the dominant color of their covers or with some other conspicuous
feature of the cover. Many of these are described in this lexicon
under their own entries. See {Aluminum Book}, {Blue Book},
{Camel Book}, {Cinderella Book}, {Devil Book}, {Dragon
Book}, {Green Book}, {Orange Book}, {Pink-Shirt Book},
{Purple Book}, {Red Book}, {Silver Book}, {White Book},
{Wizard Book}, {Yellow Book}, and {bible}; see also
{rainbow series}. Since about 1983 this tradition has gotten a
boost from the popular O'Reilly Associates line of technical books,
which usually feature some kind of exotic animal on the
cover.
:boot: /v.,n./ [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] To
load and initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage
is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given
rise to some derivatives that are still jargon.
The derivative `reboot' implies that the machine hasn't been down
for long, or that the boot is a {bounce} (sense 4) intended to
clear some state of {wedgitude}. This is sometimes used of
human thought processes, as in the following exchange: "You've
lost me." "OK, reboot. Here's the theory...."
This term is also found in the variants `cold boot' (from
power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all
devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software
crash).
Another variant: `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a
system, under control of other software still running: "If
you're running the {mess-dos} emulator, control-alt-insert will
cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the
system running."
Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility
towards or frustration with the machine being booted: "I'll have
to hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it
hard." One often hard-boots by performing a {power cycle}.
Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short
program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in
from the front panel switches. This program was always very short
(great efforts were expended on making it short in order to
minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in),
but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex
program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it
handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the
application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk
drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up
by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays the
bootstrap is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first
stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot
block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to
load the actual OS and hand control over to it.
:bottom feeder: /n./ Syn. for {slopsucker}, derived from the
fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist
on the primordial ooze.
:bottom-up implementation: /n./ Hackish opposite of the
techspeak term `top-down design'. It is now received wisdom in
most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher
levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action
in increasing detail until you get to actual code. Hackers often
find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely
specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in
the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive
operations and then knitting them together.
:bounce: /v./ 1. [perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An
electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error
notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also
{bounce message}. 2. [Stanford] To play volleyball. The
now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the Stanford
AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball court on the front lawn. From
5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled maintenance time for the
computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come over the intercom the
cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed by Brian McCune
loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of
known volleyballers. 3. To engage in sexual intercourse; prob.
from the expression `bouncing the mattress', but influenced by
Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the
"Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare {boink}. 4. To casually
reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported
primarily among {VMS} users. 5. [VM/CMS programmers]
*Automatic* warm-start of a machine after an error. "I
logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the
night" 6. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset
it.
:bounce message: /n./ [Unix] 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}, sense 1). 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} and {software laser}. The terms `bounce
mail' and `barfmail' are also common.
:boustrophedon: /n./ [from a Greek word for turning like an ox
while plowing] An ancient method of writing using alternate
left-to-right and right-to-left lines. This term is actually
philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon. Erudite hackers
use it for an optimization performed by some computer typesetting
software and moving-head printers. The adverbial form
`boustrophedonically' is also found (hackers purely love
constructions like this).
:box: /n./ 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo
box' where foo is some functional qualifier, like
`graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `Unix box', `MS-DOS
box', etc.) "We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before handing
it up to the mainframe." 2. [IBM] Without qualification but
within an SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM
front-end processor or FEP /F-E-P/. An FEP is a small computer
necessary to enable an IBM {mainframe} to communicate beyond the
limits of the {dinosaur pen}. Typically used in expressions
like the cry that goes up when an SNA network goes down: "Looks
like the {box} has fallen over." (See {fall over}.) See also
{IBM}, {fear and loathing}, {fepped out}, {Blue Glue}.
:boxed comments: /n./ Comments (explanatory notes attached to
program instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so
called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by
a box in a style something like this:
/*************************************************
*
* This is a boxed comment in C style
*
*************************************************/
Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add
a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The
sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves;
the `box' is implied. Oppose {winged comments}.
:boxen: /bok'sn/ /pl.n./ [by analogy with {VAXen}]
Fanciful plural of {box} often encountered in the phrase `Unix
boxen', used to describe commodity {{Unix}} hardware. The
connotation is that any two Unix boxen are interchangeable.
:boxology: /bok-sol'*-jee/ /n./ Syn. {ASCII art}. This
term implies a more restricted domain, that of box-and-arrow
drawings. "His report has a lot of boxology in it." Compare
{macrology}.
:bozotic: /boh-zoh'tik/ or /boh-zo'tik/ /adj./ [from the name of
a TV clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] Resembling
or having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously
wrong, unintentionally humorous. Compare {wonky},
{demented}. Note that the noun `bozo' occurs in slang, but
the mainstream adjectival form would be `bozo-like' or (in New
England) `bozoish'.
:BQS: /B-Q-S/ /adj./ Syn. {Berkeley Quality Software}.
:brain dump: /n./ The act of telling someone everything one
knows about a particular topic or project. Typically used when
someone is going to let a new party maintain a piece of code.
Conceptually analogous to an operating system {core dump} in
that it saves a lot of useful {state} before an exit. "You'll
have to give me a brain dump on FOOBAR before you start your new
job at HackerCorp." See {core dump} (sense 4). At Sun, this
is also known as `TOI' (transfer of information).
:brain fart: /n./ The actual result of a {braino}, as
opposed to the mental glitch that is the braino itself. E.g.,
typing `dir' on a Unix box after a session with DOS.
:brain-damaged: /adj./ 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain
Damage' (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain
utter cretinisms in Honeywell {{Multics}}] /adj./ Obviously
wrong; {cretinous}; {demented}. There is an implication that
the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he
should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is
really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to
work is due to poor design rather than some accident. "Only six
monocase characters per file name? Now *that's*
brain-damaged!" 2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free
demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some
way so as not to compete with the commercial product it is intended
to sell. Syn. {crippleware}.
:brain-dead: /adj./ Brain-damaged in the extreme. It tends to
imply terminal design failure rather than malfunction or simple
stupidity. "This comm program doesn't know how to send a break
-- how brain-dead!"
:braino: /bray'no/ /n./ Syn. for {thinko}. See also
{brain fart}.
:branch to Fishkill: /n./ [IBM: from the location of one of the
corporation's facilities] Any unexpected jump in a program that
produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See {jump
off into never-never land}, {hyperspace}.
:bread crumbs: /n./ Debugging statements inserted into a
program that emit output or log indicators of the program's
{state} to a file so you can see where it dies or pin down the
cause of surprising behavior. The term is probably a reference to
the Hansel and Gretel story from the Brothers Grimm; in several
variants, a character leaves a trail of bread crumbs so as not to
get lost in the woods.
:break: 1. /vt./ To cause to be {broken} (in any sense).
"Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands."
2. /v./ (of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may
debugged.
The place where it stops is a `breakpoint'. 3. [techspeak]
/vi./ To send an RS-232 break (two character widths of line high)
over a serial comm line. 4. [Unix] /vi./ To strike whatever key
currently causes the tty driver to send SIGINT to the current
process. Normally, break (sense 3), delete or {control-C} does
this. 5. `break break' may be said to interrupt a conversation
(this is an example of verb doubling). This usage comes from radio
communications, which in turn probably came from landline
telegraph/teleprinter usage, as badly abused in the Citizen's Band
craze a few years ago.
:break-even point: /n./ In the process of implementing a new
computer language, the point at which the language is sufficiently
effective that one can implement the language in itself. That is,
for a new language called, hypothetically, FOOGOL, one has reached
break-even when one can write a demonstration compiler for FOOGOL
in FOOGOL, discard the original implementation language, and
thereafter use working versions of FOOGOL to develop newer ones.
This is an important milestone; see {MFTL}.
Since this entry was first written, several correspondents have
reported that there actually was a compiler for a tiny Algol-like
language called Foogol floating around on various {VAXen} in the
early and mid-1980s. A FOOGOL implementation is available at the
Retrocomputing Museum http://www.ccil.org/retro.
:breath-of-life packet: /n./ [XEROX PARC] An Ethernet packet
that contains bootstrap (see {boot}) code, periodically sent out
from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any
computer on the network that has happened to crash. Machines
depending on such packets have sufficient hardware or firmware code
to wait for (or request) such a packet during the reboot process.
See also {dickless workstation}.
The notional `kiss-of-death packet', with a function
complementary to that of a breath-of-life packet, is recommended
for dealing with hosts that consume too many network resources.
Though `kiss-of-death packet' is usually used in jest, there is
at least one documented instance of an Internet subnet with limited
address-table slots in a gateway machine in which such packets were
routinely used to compete for slots, rather like Christmas shoppers
competing for scarce parking spaces.
:breedle: /n./ See {feep}.
:bring X to its knees: /v./ To present a machine, operating
system, piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or
{pathological} that it grinds to a halt. "To bring a MicroVAX
to its knees, try twenty users running {vi} -- or four running
{EMACS}." Compare {hog}.
:brittle: /adj./ Said of software that is functional but easily
broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by
any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that
responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected
external stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally
scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is
often used to describe the results of a research effort that were
never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially
developed software, which displays the quality far more often than
it ought to. Oppose {robust}.
:broadcast 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. See
{network meltdown}; compare {mail storm}.
:brochureware: /n./ Planned but non-existent product like
{vaporware}, but with the added implication that marketing is
actively selling and promoting it (they've printed brochures).
Brochureware is often deployed as a strategic weapon; the idea is
to con customers into not committing to an existing product of the
competition's. It is a safe bet that when a brochureware product
finally becomes real, it will be more expensive than and inferior
to the alternatives that had been available for years.
:broken: /adj./ 1. Not working properly (of programs).
2. Behaving strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting
extreme depression.
:broken arrow: /n./ [IBM] The error code displayed on line 25
of a 3270 terminal (or a PC emulating a 3270) for various kinds of
protocol violations and "unexpected" error conditions (including
connection to a {down} computer). On a PC, simulated with
`->/_', with the two center characters overstruck.
Note: to appreciate this term fully, it helps to know that `broken
arrow' is also military jargon for an accident involving nuclear
weapons....
:BrokenWindows: /n./ Abusive hackerism for the {crufty} and
{elephantine} {X} environment on Sun machines; properly
called `OpenWindows'.
:broket: /broh'k*t/ or /broh'ket`/ /n./ [by analogy with
`bracket': a `broken bracket'] Either of the characters
`<' and `>', when used as paired enclosing delimiters.
This word originated as a contraction of the phrase `broken
bracket', that is, a bracket that is bent in the middle. (At MIT,
and apparently in the {Real World} as well, these are usually
called {angle brackets}.)
:Brooks's Law: /prov./ "Adding manpower to a late software
project makes it later" -- a result of the fact that the expected
advantage from splitting work among N programmers is
O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity
and communications cost associated with coordinating and then
merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the
square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of
IBM's OS/360 project and author of "The Mythical Man-Month"
(Addison-Wesley, 1975, ISBN 0-201-00650-2), an excellent early book
on software engineering. The myth in question has been most
tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks
established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never
forgotten his advice; too often, {management} still does. See
also {creationism}, {second-system effect}, {optimism}.
:browser: /n./ A program specifically designed to help users view
and navigate hypertext, on-line documentation, or a database.
While this general sense has been present in jargon for a long
time, the proliferation of browsers for the World Wide Web after
1992 has made it much more popular and provided a central or
default meaning of the word previously lacking in hacker usage.
Nowadays, if someone mentions using a `browser' without
qualification, one may assume it is a Web browser.
:BRS: /B-R-S/ /n./ Syn. {Big Red Switch}. This
abbreviation is fairly common on-line.
:brute force: /adj./ Describes a primitive programming style,
one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing
power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the
problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive
methods suited to small problems directly to large ones. The term
can also be used in reference to programming style: brute-force
programs are written in a heavyhanded, tedious way, full of
repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see
also {brute force and ignorance}).
The {canonical} example of a brute-force algorithm is associated
with the `traveling salesman problem' (TSP), a classical
{NP-}hard problem: Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and
wishes to drive to N other cities. In what order should the
cities be visited in order to minimize the distance travelled? The
brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and
compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to
implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it
considers even obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to
Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that order). For very
small N it works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly
inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there are
already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for
N = 1000 -- well, see {bignum}). Sometimes,
unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute
force. See also {NP-}.
A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding
the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing
program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the
first number off the front.
Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered
stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not
terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force solution
may cost less than the programmer time it would take to develop a
more `intelligent' algorithm. Additionally, a more intelligent
algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing
than are justified by the speed improvement.
Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have uttered the
epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He probably intended
this as a {ha ha only serious}, but the original Unix kernel's
preference for simple, robust, and portable algorithms over
{brittle} `smart' ones does seem to have been a significant
factor in the success of that OS. Like so many other tradeoffs in
software design, the choice between brute force and complex,
finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both
engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment.
:brute force and ignorance: /n./ A popular design technique at
many software houses -- {brute force} coding unrelieved by any
knowledge of how problems have been previously solved in elegant
ways. Dogmatic adherence to design methodologies tends to
encourage this sort of thing. Characteristic of early {larval
stage} programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it. Often
abbreviated BFI: "Gak, they used a {bubble sort}! That's
strictly from BFI." Compare {bogosity}.
:BSD: /B-S-D/ /n./ [abbreviation for `Berkeley Software
Distribution'] a family of {{Unix}} versions for the {DEC}
{VAX} and PDP-11 developed by Bill Joy and others at
{Berzerkeley} starting around 1980, incorporating paged virtual
memory, TCP/IP networking enhancements, and many other features.
The BSD versions (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and the commercial versions
derived from them (SunOS, ULTRIX, and Mt. Xinu) held the technical
lead in the Unix world until AT&T's successful standardization
efforts after about 1986, and are still widely popular. Note that
BSD versions going back to 2.9 are often referred to by their
version numbers, without the BSD prefix. See {4.2}, {{Unix}},
{USG Unix}.
:BUAF: // /n./ [abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] Big
Ugly ASCII Font -- a special form of {ASCII art}. Various
programs exist for rendering text strings into block, bloob, and
pseudo-script fonts in cells between four and six character cells
on a side; this is smaller than the letters generated by older
{banner} (sense 2) programs. These are sometimes used to render
one's name in a {sig block}, and are critically referred to as
`BUAF's. See {warlording}.
:BUAG: // /n./ [abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] Big
Ugly ASCII Graphic. Pejorative term for ugly {ASCII art},
especially as found in {sig block}s. For some reason, mutations
of the head of Bart Simpson are particularly common in the least
imaginative {sig block}s. See {warlording}.
:bubble sort: /n./ Techspeak for a particular sorting technique
in which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are
compared and interchanged if they are out of order; thus, list
entries `bubble upward' in the list until they bump into one
with a lower sort value. Because it is not very good relative to
other methods and is the one typically stumbled on by {naive}
and untutored programmers, hackers consider it the {canonical}
example of a naive algorithm. The canonical example of a really
*bad* algorithm is {bogo-sort}. A bubble sort might be
used out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only
from brain damage or willful perversity.
:bucky bits: /buh'kee bits/ /n./ 1. obs. The bits produced by
the CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and
400 respectively), resulting in a 9-bit keyboard character set.
The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards extended this with TOP and
separate left and right CONTROL and META keys, resulting in a
12-bit character set; later, LISP Machines added such keys as
SUPER, HYPER, and GREEK (see {space-cadet keyboard}). 2. By
extension, bits associated with `extra' shift keys on any
keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and option keys on
a Macintosh.
It has long been rumored that `bucky bits' were named for
Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at
Stanford. Actually, bucky bits were invented by Niklaus Wirth when
*he* was at Stanford in 1964--65; he first suggested the idea
of an EDIT key to set the 8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit ASCII
character). It seems that, unknown to Wirth, certain Stanford
hackers had privately nicknamed him `Bucky' after a prominent
portion of his dental anatomy, and this nickname transferred to the
bit. Bucky-bit commands were used in a number of editors written
at Stanford, including most notably TV-EDIT and NLS.
The term spread to MIT and CMU early and is now in general use.
Ironically, Wirth himself remained unaware of its derivation for
nearly 30 years, until GLS dug up this history in early 1993! See
{double bucky}, {quadruple bucky}.
:buffer chuck: /n./ Shorter and ruder syn. for {buffer
overflow}.
:buffer overflow: /n./ What happens when you try to stuff more
data into a buffer (holding area) than it can handle. This may be
due to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and
consuming processes (see {overrun} and {firehose syndrome}),
or because the buffer is simply too small to hold all the data that
must accumulate before a piece of it can be processed. For
example, in a text-processing tool that {crunch}es a line at a
time, a short line buffer can result in {lossage} as input from
a long line overflows the buffer and trashes data beyond it. Good
defensive programming would check for overflow on each character
and stop accepting data when the buffer is full up. The term is
used of and by humans in a metaphorical sense. "What time did I
agree to meet you? My buffer must have overflowed." Or "If I
answer that phone my buffer is going to overflow." See also
{spam}, {overrun screw}.
:bug: /n./ An unwanted and unintended property of a program or
piece of hardware, esp. one that causes it to malfunction.
Antonym of {feature}. Examples: "There's a bug in the editor:
it writes things out backwards." "The system crashed because of
a hardware bug." "Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs"
(i.e., Fred is a good guy, but he has a few personality problems).
Historical note: Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer
better known for inventing {COBOL}) liked to tell a story in
which a technician solved a {glitch} in the Harvard Mark II
machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts
of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated {bug} in
its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though, as she was
careful to admit, she was not there when it happened). For many
years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug
in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface
Warfare Center (NSWC). The entire story, with a picture of the
logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the "Annals
of the History of Computing", Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981),
pp. 285--286.
The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1947), reads "1545
Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being
found". This wording establishes that the term was already
in use at the time in its current specific sense -- and Hopper
herself reports that the term `bug' was regularly applied to
problems in radar electronics during WWII.
Indeed, the use of `bug' to mean an industrial defect was already
established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather
modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896
("Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity", Theo. Audel & Co.)
which says: "The term `bug' is used to a limited extent to
designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of
electric apparatus." It further notes that the term is "said to
have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred
to all electric apparatus."
The latter observation may explain a common folk etymology of the
term; that it came from telephone company usage, in which "bugs in
a telephone cable" were blamed for noisy lines. Though this
derivation seems to be mistaken, it may well be a distorted memory
of a joke first current among *telegraph* operators more than
a century ago!
Or perhaps not a joke. Historians of the field inform us that the
term "bug" was regularly used in the early days of telegraphy to
refer to a variety of semi-automatic telegraphy keyers that would
send a string of dots if you held them down. In fact, the
Vibroplex keyers (which were among the most common of this type)
even had a graphic of a beetle on them! While the ability to send
repeated dots automatically was very useful for professional morse
code operators, these were also significantly trickier to use than
the older manual keyers, and it could take some practice to ensure
one didn't introduce extraneous dots into the code by holding the
key down a fraction too long. In the hands of an inexperienced
operator, a Vibroplex "bug" on the line could mean that a lot
of garbled Morse would soon be coming your way.
Actually, use of `bug' in the general sense of a disruptive event
goes back to Shakespeare! In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's
dictionary one meaning of `bug' is "A frightful object; a
walking spectre"; this is traced to `bugbear', a Welsh term for
a variety of mythological monster which (to complete the circle)
has recently been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through
fantasy role-playing games.
In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
Here is a plausible conversation that never actually happened:
"There is a bug in this ant farm!"
"What do you mean? I don't see any ants in it."
"That's the bug."
A careful discussion of the etymological issues can be found in a
paper by Fred R. Shapiro, 1987, "Entomology of the Computer Bug:
History and Folklore", American Speech 62(4):376-378.
[There has been a widespread myth that the original bug was moved
to the Smithsonian, and an earlier version of this entry so
asserted. A correspondent who thought to check discovered that the
bug was not there. While investigating this in late 1990, your
editor discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had
unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it -- and
that the present curator of their History of American Technology
Museum didn't know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile
exhibit. It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991, but due to
space and money constraints has not yet been exhibited. Thus, the
process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug fixed it in
an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth true! --ESR]
:bug-compatible: /adj./ Said of a design or revision that has
been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with
{fossil}s or {misfeature}s in other programs or (esp.)
previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path
separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an
option character in 1.0."
:bug-for-bug compatible: /n./ Same as {bug-compatible}, with
the additional implication that much tedious effort went into
ensuring that each (known) bug was replicated.
:bug-of-the-month club: /n./ [from "book-of-the-month
club", a time-honored mail-order-marketing technique in the U.S.]
A mythical club which users of `sendmail(1)' (the UNIX mail
daemon) belong to; this was coined on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.security.unix at a time when sendmail security holes, which
allowed outside {cracker}s access to the system, were being
uncovered at an alarming rate, forcing sysadmins to update very
often. Also, more completely, `fatal security bug-of-the-month
club'.
:buglix: /buhg'liks/ /n./ Pejorative term referring to
{DEC}'s ULTRIX operating system in its earlier *severely*
buggy versions. Still used to describe ULTRIX, but without nearly
so much venom. Compare {AIDX}, {HP-SUX}, {Nominal
Semidestructor}, {Telerat}, {sun-stools}.
:bulletproof: /adj./ Used of an algorithm or implementation
considered extremely {robust}; lossage-resistant; capable of
correctly recovering from any imaginable exception condition -- a
rare and valued quality. Syn. {armor-plated}.
:bum: 1. /vt./ To make highly efficient, either in time or
space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three
more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night
bumming the interrupt code." In 1996, this term and the practice
it
describes are semi-obsolete. In {elder days}, John McCarthy
(inventor of {LISP}) used to compare some efficiency-obsessed
hackers among his students to "ski bums"; thus, optimization
became "program bumming", and eventually just "bumming". 2. To
squeeze out excess; to remove something in order to improve
whatever it was removed from (without changing function; this
distinguishes the process from a {featurectomy}). 3. /n./ A small
change to an algorithm, program, or hardware device to make it more
efficient. "This hardware bum makes the jump instruction
faster." Usage: now uncommon, largely superseded by /v./ {tune}
(and /n./ {tweak}, {hack}), though none of these exactly
capture sense 2. All these uses are rare in Commonwealth hackish,
because in the parent dialects of English `bum' is a rude synonym
for `buttocks'.
:bump: /vt./ Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as
C's ++ operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers, and
index dummies in `for', `while', and `do-while'
loops.
:burble: /v./ [from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"] Like
{flame}, but connotes that the source is truly clueless and
ineffectual (mere flamers can be competent). A term of deep
contempt. "There's some guy on the phone burbling about how he
got a DISK FULL error and it's all our comm software's fault."
This is mainstream slang in some parts of England.
:buried treasure: /n./ A surprising piece of code found in some
program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from
{crufty} to {bletcherous}, and has lain undiscovered only
because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used
sarcastically, because what is found is anything *but*
treasure. Buried treasure almost always needs to be dug up and
removed. "I just found that the scheduler sorts its queue using
{bubble sort}! Buried treasure!"
:burn-in period: /n./ 1. A factory test designed to catch
systems with {marginal} components before they get out the door;
the theory is that burn-in will protect customers by outwaiting the
steepest part of the {bathtub curve} (see {infant
mortality}). 2. A period of indeterminate length in which a person
using a computer is so intensely involved in his project that he
forgets basic needs such as food, drink, sleep, etc. Warning:
Excessive burn-in can lead to burn-out. See {hack mode},
{larval stage}.
Historical note: the origin of "burn-in" (sense 1) is apparently
the practice of setting a new-model airplane's brakes on fire, then
extinguishing the fire, in order to make them hold better. This
was
done on the first version of the U.S. spy-plane, the U-2.
:burst page: /n./ Syn. {banner}, sense 1.
:busy-wait: /vi./ Used of human behavior, conveys that the
subject is busy waiting for someone or something, intends to move
instantly as soon as it shows up, and thus cannot do anything else
at the moment. "Can't talk now, I'm busy-waiting till Bill gets
off the phone."
Technically, `busy-wait' means to wait on an event by
{spin}ning through a tight or timed-delay loop that polls for
the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt
handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. This
is a wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where
a busy-waiting program may {hog} the processor.
:buzz: /vi./ 1. Of a program, to run with no indication of
progress and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; esp.
said of programs thought to be executing tight loops of code. A
program that is buzzing appears to be {catatonic}, but never
gets out of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of
its own accord. "The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying
to sort all the names into order." See {spin}; see also
{grovel}. 2. [ETA Systems] To test a wire or printed circuit
trace for continuity by applying an AC rather than DC signal. Some
wire faults will pass DC tests but fail a buzz test. 3. To process
an array or list in sequence, doing the same thing to each element.
"This loop buzzes through the tz array looking for a terminator
type."
:BWQ: /B-W-Q/ /n./ [IBM: abbreviation, `Buzz Word Quotient']
The percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents. Usually
roughly proportional to {bogosity}. See {TLA}.
:by hand: /adv./ 1. Said of an operation (especially a
repetitive, trivial, and/or tedious one) that ought to be performed
automatically by the computer, but which a hacker instead has to
step tediously through. "My mailer doesn't have a command to
include the text of the message I'm replying to, so I have to do it
by hand." This does not necessarily mean the speaker has to
retype a copy of the message; it might refer to, say, dropping into
a subshell from the mailer, making a copy of one's mailbox file,
reading that into an editor, locating the top and bottom of the
message in question, deleting the rest of the file, inserting `>'
characters on each line, writing the file, leaving the editor,
returning to the mailer, reading the file in, and later remembering
to delete the file. Compare {eyeball search}. 2. By extension,
writing code which does something in an explicit or low-level way
for which a presupplied library routine ought to have been
available. "This cretinous B-tree library doesn't supply a decent
iterator, so I'm having to walk the trees by hand."
:byte:: /bi:t/ /n./ [techspeak] A unit of memory or data equal to
the amount used to represent one character; on modern architectures
this is usually 8 bits, but may be 9 on 36-bit machines. Some
older architectures used `byte' for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and
the PDP-10 supported `bytes' that were actually bitfields of
1 to 36 bits! These usages are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes
have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.
Historical note: The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956
during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer;
originally it was described as 1 to 6 bits (typical I/O equipment
of the period used 6-bit chunks of information). The move to an
8-bit byte happened in late 1956, and this size was later adopted
and promulgated as a standard by the System/360. The word was
coined by mutating the word `bite' so it would not be
accidentally misspelled as {bit}. See also {nybble}.
:bytesexual: /bi:t`sek'shu-*l/ /adj./ Said of hardware,
denotes willingness to compute or pass data in either
{big-endian} or {little-endian} format (depending,
presumably, on a {mode bit} somewhere). See also {NUXI
problem}.
:bzzzt, wrong: /bzt rong/ /excl./ [Usenet/Internet] From a Robin
Williams routine in the movie "Dead Poets Society" spoofing
radio or TV quiz programs, such as *Truth or Consequences*,
where an incorrect answer earns one a blast from the buzzer and
condolences from the interlocutor. A way of expressing mock-rude
disagreement, usually immediately following an included quote from
another poster. The less abbreviated "*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thank
you for playing" is also common; capitalization and emphasis of
the buzzer sound varies.
= C =
=====
:C: /n./ 1. The third letter of the English alphabet. 2. ASCII
1000011. 3. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis
Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement
{{Unix}}; so called because many features derived from an earlier
compiler named `B' in commemoration of *its* parent, BCPL.
(BCPL was in turn descended from an earlier Algol-derived language,
CPL.) Before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the question by designing
{C++}, there was a humorous debate over whether C's successor
should
be named `D' or `P'. C became immensely popular outside Bell Labs
after about 1980 and is now the dominant language in systems and
microcomputer applications programming. See also {languages of
choice}, {indent style}.
C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain
varying according to the speaker, as "a language that combines
all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the
readability and maintainability of assembly language".
:C Programmer's Disease: /n./ The tendency of the undisciplined
C programmer to set arbitrary but supposedly generous static limits
on table sizes (defined, if you're lucky, by constants in header
files) rather than taking the trouble to do proper dynamic storage
allocation. If an application user later needs to put 68 elements
into a table of size 50, the afflicted programmer reasons that he
or she can easily reset the table size to 68 (or even as much as
70, to allow for future expansion) and recompile. This gives the
programmer the comfortable feeling of having made the effort to
satisfy the user's (unreasonable) demands, and often affords the
user multiple opportunities to explore the marvelous consequences
of {fandango on core}. In severe cases of the disease, the
programmer cannot comprehend why each fix of this kind seems only
to further disgruntle the user.
:C++: /C'-pluhs-pluhs/ /n./ Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup
of AT&T Bell Labs as a successor to {C}. Now one of the
{languages of choice}, although many hackers still grumble that
it is the successor to either Algol 68 or {Ada} (depending on
generation), and a prime example of {second-system effect}.
Almost anything that can be done in any language can be done in
C++, but it requires a {language lawyer} to know what is and
what is not legal-- the design is *almost* too large to hold
in even hackers' heads. Much of the {cruft} results from C++'s
attempt to be backward compatible with C. Stroustrup himself has
said in his retrospective book "The Design and Evolution of
C++" (p. 207), "Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner
language struggling to get out." [Many hackers would now add
"Yes, and it's called Java" --ESR]
:calculator: [Cambridge] /n./ Syn. for {bitty box}.
:Camel Book: /n./ Universally recognized nickname for the book
"Programming Perl", by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz,
O'Reilly Associates 1991, ISBN 0-937175-64-1. The definitive
reference on {Perl}.
:can: /vt./ To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used
esp. when the person doing the deed is an operator, as in
"canned from the {{console}}". Frequently used in an imperative
sense, as in "Can that print job, the LPT just popped a
sprocket!" Synonymous with {gun}. It is said that the ASCII
character with mnemonic CAN (0011000) was used as a kill-job
character on some early OSes. Alternatively, this term may derive
from mainstream slang `canned' for being laid off or fired.
:can't happen: The traditional program comment for code
executed under a condition that should never be true, for example a
file size computed as negative. Often, such a condition being true
indicates data corruption or a faulty algorithm; it is almost
always handled by emitting a fatal error message and terminating or
crashing, since there is little else that can be done. Some case
variant of "can't happen" is also often the text emitted if the
`impossible' error actually happens! Although "can't happen"
events are genuinely infrequent in production code, programmers
wise enough to check for them habitually are often surprised at how
frequently they are triggered during development and how many
headaches checking for them turns out to head off. See also
{firewall code} (sense 2).
:candygrammar: /n./ A programming-language grammar that is
mostly {syntactic sugar}; the term is also a play on
`candygram'. {COBOL}, Apple's Hypertalk language, and a lot
of the so-called `4GL' database languages share this property.
The usual intent of such designs is that they be as English-like as
possible, on the theory that they will then be easier for unskilled
people to program. This intention comes to grief on the reality
that syntax isn't what makes programming hard; it's the mental
effort and organization required to specify an algorithm precisely
that costs. Thus the invariable result is that `candygrammar'
languages are just as difficult to program in as terser ones, and
far more painful for the experienced hacker.
[The overtones from the old Chevy Chase skit on Saturday Night Live
should not be overlooked. This was a "Jaws" parody.
Someone lurking outside an apartment door tries all kinds of bogus
ways to get the occupant to open up, while ominous music plays in
the background. The last attempt is a half-hearted "Candygram!"
When the door is opened, a shark bursts in and chomps the poor
occupant. There is a moral here for those attracted to
candygrammars. Note that, in many circles, pretty much the same
ones who remember Monty Python sketches, all it takes is the word
"Candygram!", suitably timed, to get people rolling on the
floor. -- GLS]
:canonical: /adj./ [historically, `according to religious law']
The usual or standard state or manner of something. This word has
a somewhat more technical meaning in mathematics. Two formulas
such as 9 + x and x + 9 are said to be equivalent
because they mean the same thing, but the second one is in
`canonical form' because it is written in the usual way, with the
highest power of x first. Usually there are fixed rules you
can use to decide whether something is in canonical form. The
jargon meaning, a relaxation of the technical meaning, acquired its
present loading in computer-science culture largely through its
prominence in Alonzo Church's work in computation theory and
mathematical logic (see {Knights of the Lambda Calculus}).
Compare {vanilla}.
Non-technical academics do not use the adjective `canonical' in
any of the senses defined above with any regularity; they do
however use the nouns `canon' and `canonicity' (not
**canonicalness or **canonicality). The `canon' of a given author
is the complete body of authentic works by that author (this usage
is familiar to Sherlock Holmes fans as well as to literary
scholars). `*The* canon' is the body of works in a given
field (e.g., works of literature, or of art, or of music) deemed
worthwhile for students to study and for scholars to investigate.
The word `canon' has an interesting history. It derives
ultimately from the Greek
`kanon'
(akin to the English `cane') referring to a reed. Reeds were used
for measurement, and in Latin and later Greek the word `canon'
meant a rule or a standard. The establishment of a canon of
scriptures within Christianity was meant to define a standard or a
rule for the religion. The above non-techspeak academic usages
stem from this instance of a defined and accepted body of work.
Alongside this usage was the promulgation of `canons' (`rules')
for the government of the Catholic Church. The techspeak usages
("according to religious law") derive from this use of the Latin
`canon'.
Hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an ironic
contrast with its historical meaning. A true story: One Bob
Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the
incessant use of jargon. Over his loud objections, GLS and RMS
made a point of using as much of it 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: "Bob just used
`canonical' in the canonical way."
Of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is implicitly
defined as the way *hackers* normally expect things to be.
Thus, a hacker may claim with a straight face that `according to
religious law' is *not* the canonical meaning of
`canonical'.
:card walloper: /n./ An EDP programmer who grinds out batch
programs that do stupid things like print people's paychecks.
Compare {code grinder}. See also {{punched card}},
{eighty-column mind}.
:careware: /keir'weir/ /n./ A variety of {shareware} for
which either the author suggests that some payment be made to a
nominated charity or a levy directed to charity is included on top
of the distribution charge. Syn. {charityware}; compare
{crippleware}, sense 2.
:cargo cult programming: /n./ A style of (incompetent)
programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program
structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer
will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some
bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the
reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully
understood (compare {shotgun debugging}, {voodoo
programming}).
The term `cargo cult' is a reference to aboriginal religions that
grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of
these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and
military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of
the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the
war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's
characterization of certain practices as "cargo cult science" in
his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (W. W. Norton
& Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).
:cascade: /n./ 1. A huge volume of spurious error-message
output produced by a compiler with poor error recovery. Too
frequently, one trivial syntax error (such as a missing `)' or
`}') throws the parser out of synch so that much of the remaining
program text is interpreted as garbaged or ill-formed. 2. A chain
of Usenet followups, each adding some trivial variation or riposte
to the text of the previous one, all of which is reproduced in the
new message; an {include war} in which the object is to create a
sort of communal graffito.
:case and paste: /n./ [from `cut and paste'] 1. The addition of a new
{feature} to an existing system by selecting the code from an
existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes. Common in
telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are
selected using `case' statements. Leads to {software bloat}.
In some circles of EMACS users this is called `programming by
Meta-W', because Meta-W is the EMACS command for copying a block of
text to a kill buffer in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere.
The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting
mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to
integrate the code for two similar cases.
At DEC, this is sometimes called `clone-and-hack' coding.
:casters-up mode: /n./ [IBM, prob. fr. slang belly up] Yet
another synonym for `broken' or `down'. Usually connotes a
major failure. A system (hardware or software) which is `down'
may be already being restarted before the failure is noticed,
whereas one which is `casters up' is usually a good excuse to
take the rest of the day off (as long as you're not responsible for
fixing it).
:casting the runes: /n./ What a {guru} does when you ask him
or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never
works for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what
the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does.
Compare {incantation}, {runes}, {examining the entrails};
also see the AI koan about Tom Knight in "{AI Koans}"
(Appendix A).
A correspondent from England tells us that one of ICL's most
talented systems designers used to be called out occasionally to
service machines which the {field circus} had given up on.
Since he knew the design inside out, he could often find faults
simply by listening to a quick outline of the symptoms. He used to
play on this by going to some site where the field circus had just
spent the last two weeks solid trying to find a fault, and
spreading a diagram of the system out on a table top. He'd then
shake some chicken bones and cast them over the diagram, peer at
the bones intently for a minute, and then tell them that a certain
module needed replacing. The system would start working again
immediately upon the replacement.
:cat: [from `catenate' via {{Unix}} `cat(1)'] /vt./
1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
output sink without pause. 2. By extension, to dump large amounts
of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it
carefully. Usage: considered silly. Rare outside Unix sites. See
also {dd}, {BLT}.
Among Unix fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example
of user-interface design, because it delivers the file contents
without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and
because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text,
but works with any sort of data.
Among Unix haters, `cat(1)' is considered the {canonical}
example of *bad* user-interface design, because of its
woefully unobvious name. It is far more often used to {blast} a
file to standard output than to concatenate two files. The name
`cat' for the former operation is just as unintuitive as, say,
LISP's {cdr}.
Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made....
:catatonic: /adj./ Describes a condition of suspended animation
in which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no
response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the
computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you
type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer
is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed).
"There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and
it went catatonic on me! Aaargh!" Compare {buzz}.
:cd tilde: /C-D til-d*/ /vi./ To go home. From the Unix
C-shell and Korn-shell command `cd ~', which takes one to
one's `$HOME' (`cd' with no arguments happens to do the
same thing). By extension, may be used with other arguments; thus,
over an electronic chat link, `cd ~coffee' would mean "I'm
going to the coffee machine."
:CDA: /C-D-A/ The "Communications Decency Act" of 1996,
passed on {Black Thursday} as section 502 of a major
telecommunications reform bill. The CDA made it a federal crime in
the USA to send a communication which is "obscene,
lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse,
threaten, or harass another person." It also threatens with
imprisonment anyone who "knowingly" makes accessible to minors
any message that "describes, in terms patently offensive as
measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory
activities or organs".
While the CDA was sold as a measure to protect minors from the
putative evils of pornography, the repressive political aims of the
bill were laid bare by the Hyde amendment, which intended to
outlaw discussion of abortion on the Internet.
To say that this direct attack on First Amendment free-speech
rights was not well received on the Internet would be putting it
mildly. A firestorm of protest followed, including a February 29th
mass demonstration by thousands of netters who turned their
{home page}s black for 48 hours. Several civil-rights groups
and computing/telecommunications companies sought an immediate
injunction to block enforcement of the CDA pending a constitutional
challenge. This injunction was granted on the likelihood that
plaintiffs would prevail on the merits of the case. At time of
writing (Spring 1996), the fate of the CDA, and its effect on the
Internet, is still unknown. See also {Exon}.
To join the fight against the CDA (if it's still law) and other
forms of Internet censorship, visit the Center for Democracy and
Technology Home Page at http://www.cdt.org.
:cdr: /ku'dr/ or /kuh'dr/ /vt./ [from LISP] To skip past
the first item from a list of things (generalized from the LISP
operation on binary tree structures, which returns a list
consisting of all but the first element of its argument). In the
form `cdr down', to trace down a list of elements: "Shall we cdr
down the agenda?" Usage: silly. See also {loop through}.
Historical note: The instruction format of the IBM 704 that hosted
the original LISP implementation featured two 15-bit fields called
the `address' and `decrement' parts. The term `cdr' was originally
`Contents of Decrement part of Register'. Similarly, `car' stood
for `Contents of Address part of Register'.
The cdr and car operations have since become bases for
formation of compound metaphors in non-LISP contexts. GLS recalls,
for example, a programming project in which strings were
represented as linked lists; the get-character and skip-character
operations were of course called CHAR and CHDR.
:chad: /chad/ /n./ 1. The perforated edge strips on printer
paper, after they have been separated from the printed portion.
Also called {selvage} and {perf}. 2. obs. The confetti-like
paper bits punched out of cards or paper tape; this has also been
called `chaff', `computer confetti', and `keypunch
droppings'. This use may now be mainstream; it has been reported
seen (1993) in directions for a card-based voting machine in
California.
Historical note: One correspondent believes `chad' (sense 2)
derives from the Chadless keypunch (named for its inventor), which
cut little u-shaped tabs in the card to make a hole when the tab
folded back, rather than punching out a circle/rectangle; it was
clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the
stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'. There is a
legend that the word was originally acronymic, standing for
"Card Hole Aggregate Debris", but this has all the earmarks of
a bogus folk etymology.
:chad box: /n./ A metal box about the size of a lunchbox (or in
some models a large wastebasket), for collecting the {chad}
(sense 2) that accumulated in {Iron Age} card punches. You had
to open the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the
chad box. The {bit bucket} was notionally the equivalent device
in the CPU enclosure, which was typically across the room in
another great gray-and-blue box.
:chain: 1. /vi./ [orig. from BASIC's `CHAIN' statement]
To hand off execution to a child or successor without going
through the {OS} command interpreter that invoked it. The state
of the parent program is lost and there is no returning to it.
Though this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and
is still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon
usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most Unix programmers
will think of this as an {exec}. Oppose the more modern
`subshell'. 2. /n./ A series of linked data areas within an
operating system or application. `Chain rattling' is the process
of repeatedly running through the linked data areas searching for
one which is of interest to the executing program. The implication
is that there is a very large number of links on the chain.
:channel: /n./ [IRC] The basic unit of discussion on {IRC}.
Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on
that channel. Channels are named with strings that begin with a
`#' sign and can have topic descriptions (which are generally
irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion). Some notable
channels are `#initgame', `#hottub', and `#report'.
At times of international crisis, `#report' has hundreds of
members, some of whom take turns listening to various news services
and typing in summaries of the news, or in some cases, giving
first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud missile attacks in
Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).
:channel hopping: /n./ [IRC, GEnie] To rapidly switch channels
on {IRC}, or a GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly
might hop from one group to another at a party. This term may
derive from the TV watcher's idiom, `channel surfing'.
:channel op: /chan'l op/ /n./ [IRC] Someone who is endowed
with privileges on a particular {IRC} channel; commonly
abbreviated `chanop' or `CHOP'. These privileges include the
right to {kick} users, to change various status bits, and to
make others into CHOPs.
:chanop: /chan'-op/ /n./ [IRC] See {channel op}.
:char: /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ /n./ Shorthand for
`character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is C's
typename for character data.
:charityware: /cha'rit-ee-weir`/ /n./ Syn. {careware}.
:chase pointers: 1. /vi./ To go through multiple levels of
indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.
Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very
common data type. This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when
used of human networks. "I'm chasing pointers. Bob said you
could tell me who to talk to about...." See {dangling
pointer} and {snap}. 2. [Cambridge] `pointer chase' or
`pointer hunt': The process of going through a {core dump}
(sense 1), interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with
hex {runes}, following dynamic data-structures. Used only in a
debugging context.
:chawmp: /n./ [University of Florida] 16 or 18 bits (half of a
machine word). This term was used by FORTH hackers during the late
1970s/early 1980s; it is said to have been archaic then, and may
now be obsolete. It was coined in revolt against the promiscuous
use of `word' for anything between 16 and 32 bits; `word' has
an additional special meaning for FORTH hacks that made the
overloading intolerable. For similar reasons, /gaw'bl/ (spelled
`gawble' or possibly `gawbul') was in use as a term for 32 or
48 bits (presumably a full machine word, but our sources are
unclear on this). These terms are more easily understood if one
thinks of them as faithful phonetic spellings of `chomp' and
`gobble' pronounced in a Florida or other Southern U.S. dialect.
For general discussion of similar terms, see {nybble}.
:check: /n./ A hardware-detected error condition, most commonly
used to refer to actual hardware failures rather than
software-induced traps. E.g., a `parity check' is the result of
a hardware-detected parity error. Recorded here because the word
often humorously extended to non-technical problems. For example,
the term `child check' has been used to refer to the problems
caused by a small child who is curious to know what happens when
s/he presses all the cute buttons on a computer's console (of
course, this particular problem could have been prevented with
{molly-guard}s).
:chemist: /n./ [Cambridge] Someone who wastes computer time
on {number-crunching} when you'd far rather the machine were
doing something more productive, such as working out anagrams of
your name or printing Snoopy calendars or running {life}
patterns. May or may not refer to someone who actually studies
chemistry.
:Chernobyl chicken: /n./ See {laser chicken}.
:Chernobyl packet: /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ /n./ A network
packet that induces a {broadcast storm} and/or {network
meltdown}, in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at
Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet
datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and
destination Ether and IP address set as the respective broadcast
addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare
{Christmas tree packet}.
:chicken head: /n./ [Commodore] The Commodore Business
Machines logo, which strongly resembles a poultry part. Rendered
in ASCII as `C='. With the arguable exception of the Amiga (see
{amoeba}), Commodore's machines are notoriously crocky little
{bitty box}es (see also {PETSCII}). Thus, this usage may owe
something to Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?" (the basis for the movie "Blade Runner"; the
novel is now sold under that title), in which a `chickenhead' is
a mutant with below-average intelligence.
:chiclet keyboard: /n./ A keyboard with a small, flat
rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like
pieces of chewing gum. (Chiclets is the brand name of a variety of
chewing gum that does in fact resemble the keys of chiclet
keyboards.) Used esp. to describe the original IBM PCjr
keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap,
and a lot of early portable and laptop products got launched using
them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and
chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch
any more.
:chine nual: /sheen'yu-*l/ /n. obs./ [MIT] The LISP Machine
Manual, so called because the title was wrapped around the cover so
only those letters showed on the front.
:Chinese Army technique: /n./ Syn. {Mongolian Hordes
technique}.
:choad: /chohd/ /n./ Synonym for `penis' used in
alt.tasteless and popularized by the denizens thereof. They
say: "We think maybe it's from Middle English but we're all too
damned lazy to check the OED." [I'm not. It isn't. --ESR] This
term is alleged to have been inherited through 1960s underground
comics, and to have been recently sighted in the Beavis and
Butthead cartoons. Speakers of the Hindi, Bengali and Gujarati
languages have confirmed that `choad' is in fact an Indian
vernacular word equivalent to `fuck'; it is therefore likely to
have entered English slang via the British Raj.
:choke: /v./ 1. To reject input, often ungracefully. "NULs
make System V's `lpr(1)' choke." "I tried building an
{EMACS} binary to use {X}, but `cpp(1)' choked on all
those `#define's." See {barf}, {gag}, {vi}.
2. [MIT] More generally, to fail at any endeavor, but with some
flair or bravado; the popular definition is "to snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory."
:chomp: /vi./ To {lose}; specifically, to chew on something
of which more was bitten off than one can. Probably related to
gnashing of teeth. See {bagbiter}.
A hand gesture commonly accompanies this. To perform it, hold the
four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now
open and close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much
like what Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this
pantomime seems to predate that). The gesture alone means `chomp
chomp' (see "{Verb Doubling}" in the "{Jargon
Construction}" section of the Prependices). The hand may be
pointed at the object of complaint, and for real emphasis you can
use both hands at once. Doing this to a person is equivalent to
saying "You chomper!" If you point the gesture at yourself, it
is a humble but humorous admission of some failure. You might do
this if someone told you that a program you had written had failed
in some surprising way and you felt dumb for not having anticipated
it.
:chomper: /n./ Someone or something that is chomping; a loser.
See {loser}, {bagbiter}, {chomp}.
:CHOP: /chop/ /n./ [IRC] See {channel op}.
:Christmas tree: /n./ A kind of RS-232 line tester or breakout
box featuring rows of blinking red and green LEDs suggestive of
Christmas lights.
:Christmas tree packet: /n./ A packet with every single option
set for whatever protocol is in use. See {kamikaze packet},
{Chernobyl packet}. (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful
image of each little option bit being represented by a
different-colored light bulb, all turned on.)
:chrome: /n./ [from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features
added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to
the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome,
but they certainly are *pretty* chrome!" Distinguished from
{bells and whistles} by the fact that the latter are usually
added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness.
Often used as a term of contempt.
:chug: /vi./ To run slowly; to {grind} or {grovel}.
"The disk is chugging like crazy."
:Church of the SubGenius: /n./ A mutant offshoot of
{Discordianism} launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist
Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist
with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source
of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine
drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the
Stark Fist of Removal. Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the
acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of {slack}.
:Cinderella Book: [CMU] /n./ "Introduction to Automata
Theory, Languages, and Computation", by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey
Ullman, (Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover
depicts a girl (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube
Goldberg device and holding a rope coming out of it. On the back
cover, the device is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled
on the rope. See also {{book titles}}.
:CI$: // /n./ Hackerism for `CIS', CompuServe Information
Service. The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line
charges. Often used in {sig block}s just before a CompuServe
address. Syn. {Compu$erve}.
:Classic C: /klas'ik C/ [a play on `Coke Classic'] /n./ The
C programming language as defined in the first edition of {K&R},
with some small additions. It is also known as `K&R C'. The name
came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11
committee. Also `C Classic'.
An analogous construction is sometimes applied elsewhere: thus,
`X Classic', where X = Star Trek (referring to the original TV
series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines as opposed
to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially used of
product series in which the newer versions are considered serious
losers relative to the older ones.
:clean: 1. /adj./ Used of hardware or software designs, implies
`elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that
may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is
reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the
outside. The antonym is `grungy' or {crufty}. 2. /v./ To
remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter:
"I'm cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now
have 100 Meg free on that partition."
:CLM: /C-L-M/ [Sun: `Career Limiting Move'] 1. /n./ An action
endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and
raises, and possibly one's job: "His Halloween costume was a
parody of his manager. He won the prize for `best CLM'." 2. adj.
Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a customer and
obviously missed earlier because of poor testing: "That's a CLM
bug!"
:clobber: /vt./ To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I
walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack." Compare
{mung}, {scribble}, {trash}, and {smash the stack}.
:clocks: /n./ Processor logic cycles, so called because each
generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing.
The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are
usually discussed in clocks rather than absolute fractions of a
second; one good reason for this is that clock speeds for various
models of the machine may increase as technology improves, and it
is usually the relative times one is interested in when discussing
the instruction set. Compare {cycle}.
:clone: /n./ 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of
their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from
documentation or by reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower
price. 2. A shoddy, spurious copy: "Their product is a clone of
our product." 3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating
copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: "Your product is a
clone of my product." This use implies legal action is pending.
4. `PC clone:' a PC-BUS/ISA or EISA-compatible 80x86-based
microcomputer (this use is sometimes spelled `klone' or
`PClone'). These invariably have much more bang for the buck
than the IBM archetypes they resemble. 5. In the construction
`Unix clone': An OS designed to deliver a Unix-lookalike
environment without Unix license fees, or with additional
`mission-critical' features such as support for real-time
programming. 6. /v./ To make an exact copy of something. "Let me
clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I can make
a photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before you
{mung} it".
:clone-and-hack coding: /n./ [DEC] Syn. {case and paste}.
:clover key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.
:clustergeeking: /kluh'st*r-gee`king/ /n./ [CMU] Spending
more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people
spend breathing.
:COBOL: /koh'bol/ /n./ [COmmon Business-Oriented Language]
(Synonymous with {evil}.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language
used by {card walloper}s to do boring mindless things on
{dinosaur} mainframes. Hackers believe that all COBOL
programmers are {suit}s or {code grinder}s, and no
self-respecting hacker will ever admit to having learned the
language. Its very name is seldom uttered without ritual
expressions of disgust or horror. One popular one is Edsger W.
Dijkstra's famous observation that "The use of COBOL cripples the
mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal
offense." (from "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal
Perspective") See also {fear and loathing}, {software
rot}.
:COBOL fingers: /koh'bol fing'grz/ /n./ Reported from Sweden,
a (hypothetical) disease one might get from coding in COBOL. The
language requires code verbose beyond all reason (see
{candygrammar}); thus it is alleged that programming too much in
COBOL causes one's fingers to wear down to stubs by the endless
typing. "I refuse to type in all that source code again; it would
give me COBOL fingers!"
:code grinder: /n./ 1. A {suit}-wearing minion of the sort
hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to
implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable
horrors. In its native habitat, the code grinder often removes the
suit jacket to reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down
shirt (starch optional) and a tie. In times of dire stress, the
sleeves (if long) may be rolled up and the tie loosened about half
an inch. It seldom helps. The {code grinder}'s milieu is about
as far from hackerdom as one can get and still touch a computer;
the term connotes pity. See {Real World}, {suit}. 2. Used
of or to a hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creative
ability; connotes a design style characterized by primitive
technique, rule-boundedness, {brute force}, and utter lack of
imagination. Compare {card walloper}; contrast {hacker},
{Real Programmer}.
:Code of the Geeks: /n./ see {geek code}.
:code police: /n./ [by analogy with George Orwell's `thought
police'] A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might
burst into one's office and arrest one for violating programming
style rules. May be used either seriously, to underline a claim
that a particular style violation is dangerous, or ironically, to
suggest that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by
anal-retentive {weenie}s. "Dike out that goto or the code
police will get you!" The ironic usage is perhaps more common.
:codes: /n./ [scientific computing] Programs. This usage is common
in people who hack supercomputers and heavy-duty
{number-crunching}, rare to unknown elsewhere (if you say
"codes" to hackers outside scientific computing, their
first association is likely to be "and cyphers").
:codewalker: /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. Other utility programs that try to do too much with source
code may turn into codewalkers. As in "This new `vgrind'
feature would require a codewalker to implement."
:coefficient of X: /n./ Hackish speech makes heavy use of
pseudo-mathematical metaphors. Four particularly important
ones involve the terms `coefficient', `factor', `index', and
`quotient'. They are often loosely applied to things you cannot
really be quantitative about, but there are subtle distinctions
among them that convey information about the way the speaker
mentally models whatever he or she is describing.
`Foo factor' and `foo quotient' tend to describe something for
which the issue is one of presence or absence. The canonical
example is {fudge factor}. It's not important how much you're
fudging; the term simply acknowledges that some fudging is needed.
You might talk of liking a movie for its silliness factor.
Quotient tends to imply that the property is a ratio of two
opposing factors: "I would have won except for my luck quotient."
This could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor",
but using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck
overpowering good luck (or someone else's good luck overpowering
your own).
`Foo index' and `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply
that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that
can be larger or smaller. Thus, you might refer to a paper or
person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you would be less
likely to speak of a `high bogosity factor'. `Foo index' suggests
that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane
cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a
fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of friction. The choice
between these terms is often one of personal preference; e.g., some
people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus
say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a
combination of factors and thus say `bogosity index'.
:cokebottle: /kohk'bot-l/ /n./ Any very unusual character,
particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your
keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the
`control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complained right back about the `{altmode}-altmode-cokebottle'
commands at MIT. After the demise of the {space-cadet
keyboard}, `cokebottle' faded away as serious usage, but was
often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or
non-intuitive keystroke command. It may be due for a second
inning, however. The OSF/Motif window manager, `mwm(1)', has
a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of
keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or not)
`control-meta-bang' (see {bang}). Since the exclamation point
looks a lot like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have
begun referring to this keystroke as `cokebottle'. See also
{quadruple bucky}.
:cold boot: /n./ See {boot}.