9. There is no escape_The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996

This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is

inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape

its limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking

when necessary. There is no way to replace the defective

run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the

compiler that defines the "standard procedures". The language is

closed.

People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal

trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended.

But each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it

look like whatever language they really want. Extensions for

separate compilation, FORTRAN-like COMMON, string data types,

internal static variables, initialization, octal numbers, bit

operators, etc., all add to the utility of the language for one

group but destroy its portability to others.

I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much

beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy

language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming.

Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the

niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems

programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in

the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds.

:pastie: /pay'stee/ /n./ An adhesive-backed label designed to

be attached to a key on a keyboard to indicate some non-standard

character which can be accessed through that key. Pasties are

likely to be used in APL environments, where almost every key is

associated with a special character. A pastie on the R key, for

example, might remind the user that it is used to generate the

rho character. The term properly refers to

nipple-concealing devices formerly worn by strippers in concession

to indecent-exposure laws; compare {tits on a keyboard}.

:patch: 1. /n./ A temporary addition to a piece of code,

usually as a {quick-and-dirty} remedy to an existing bug or

misfeature. A patch may or may not work, and may or may not

eventually be incorporated permanently into the program.

Distinguished from a {diff} or {mod} by the fact that a patch

is generated by more primitive means than the rest of the program;

the classical examples are instructions modified by using the front

panel switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable

of a program originally written in an {HLL}. Compare

{one-line fix}. 2. /vt./ To insert a patch into a piece of code.

3. [in the Unix world] /n./ A {diff} (sense 2). 4. A set of

modifications to binaries to be applied by a patching program. IBM

operating systems often receive updates to the operating system in

the form of absolute hexadecimal patches. If you have modified

your OS, you have to disassemble these back to the source. The

patches might later be corrected by other patches on top of them

(patches were said to "grow scar tissue"). The result was often

a convoluted {patch space} and headaches galore. 5. [Unix] the

`patch(1)' program, written by Larry Wall, which automatically

applies a patch (sense 3) to a set of source code.

There is a classic story of a {tiger team} penetrating a secure

military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary

patches (or, indeed, any patches that you can't -- or don't ---

inspect and examine before installing). They couldn't find any

{trap door}s or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so

they made a site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were

official military types who were purportedly on official business),

swiped some IBM stationery, and created a fake patch. The patch

was actually the trapdoor they needed. The patch was distributed

at about the right time for an IBM patch, had official stationery

and all accompanying documentation, and was dutifully installed.

The installation manager very shortly thereafter learned something

about proper procedures.

:patch space: /n./ An unused block of bits left in a binary so

that it can later be modified by insertion of machine-language

instructions there (typically, the patch space is modified to

contain new code, and the superseded code is patched to contain a

jump or call to the patch space). The widening use of HLLs has

made this term rare; it is now primarily historical outside IBM

shops. See {patch} (sense 4), {zap} (sense 4), {hook}.

:path: /n./ 1. A {bang path} or explicitly routed

{{Internet address}}; a node-by-node specification of a link

between two machines. 2. [Unix] A filename, fully specified

relative to the root directory (as opposed to relative to the

current directory; the latter is sometimes called a `relative

path'). This is also called a `pathname'. 3. [Unix and MS-DOS]

The `search path', an environment variable specifying the

directories in which the {shell} (COMMAND.COM, under MS-DOS)

should look for commands. Other, similar constructs abound under

Unix (for example, the C preprocessor has a `search path' it

uses in looking for `#include' files).

:pathological: /adj./ 1. [scientific computation] Used of a

data set that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, esp.

one that exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is

using. An algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may

still be useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in

practice. 2. When used of test input, implies that it was

purposefully engineered as a worst case. The implication in both

senses is that the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that

someone had to explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order

to come up with such a crazy example. 3. Also said of an unlikely

collection of circumstances. "If the network is down and comes up

halfway through the execution of that command by root, the system

may just crash." "Yes, but that's a pathological case." Often

used to dismiss the case from discussion, with the implication that

the consequences are acceptable, since they will happen so

infrequently (if at all) that it doesn't seem worth going to the

extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).

:payware: /pay'weir/ /n./ Commercial software. Oppose

{shareware} or {freeware}.

:PBD: /P-B-D/ /n./ [abbrev. of `Programmer Brain Damage']

Applied to bug reports revealing places where the program was

obviously broken by an incompetent or short-sighted programmer.

Compare {UBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.

:PC-ism: /P-C-izm/ /n./ A piece of code or coding technique

that takes advantage of the unprotected single-tasking environment

in IBM PCs and the like, e.g., by busy-waiting on a hardware

loops. Compare {ill-behaved}, {vaxism}, {unixism}. Also,

`PC-ware' n., a program full of PC-isms on a machine with a more

capable operating system. Pejorative.

:PD: /P-D/ /adj./ Common abbreviation for `public domain',

applied to software distributed over {Usenet} and from Internet

archive sites. Much of this software is not in fact public domain

in the legal sense but travels under various copyrights granting

reproduction and use rights to anyone who can {snarf} a copy.

See {copyleft}.

:PDL: /P-D-L/, /pid'l/, /p*d'l/ or /puhd'l/

1. /n./ `Program Design Language'. Any of a large class of formal

and profoundly useless pseudo-languages in which {management}

forces one to design programs. Too often, management expects PDL

descriptions to be maintained in parallel with the code, imposing

massive overhead to little or no benefit. See also {{flowchart}}.

2. /v./ To design using a program design language. "I've been

pdling so long my eyes won't focus beyond 2 feet." 3. /n./ `Page

Description Language'. Refers to any language which is used to

control a graphics device, usually a laserprinter. The most common

example is, of course, Adobe's {{PostScript}} language, but there

are many others, such as Xerox InterPress, etc.

:pdl: /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ /n./ [abbreviation for `Push Down

List'] 1. In ITS days, the preferred MITism for {stack}. See

{overflow pdl}. 2. Dave Lebling, one of the co-authors of

{Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS machines was at one

time pdl@dms). 3. Rarely, any sense of {PDL}, as these are not

invariably capitalized.

:PDP-10: /n./ [Programmed Data Processor model 10] The machine

that made timesharing real. It looms large in hacker folklore

because of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many university

computing facilities and research labs, including the MIT AI Lab,

Stanford, and CMU. Some aspects of the instruction set (most

notably the bit-field instructions) are still considered

unsurpassed. The 10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines

(descendants of the PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10 and VAX

product lines were competing with each other and decided to

concentrate its software development effort on the more profitable

VAX. The machine was finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983,

following the failure of the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a

viable new model. (Some attempts by other companies to market

clones came to nothing; see {Foonly} and {Mars}.) This event

spelled the doom of {{ITS}} and the technical cultures that had

spawned the original Jargon File, but by mid-1991 it had become

something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood among hackers to

have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10. See {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}},

{AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT}, {DPB}, {EXCH}, {HAKMEM},

{JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop}, {push}.

:PDP-20: /n./ The most famous computer that never was.

{PDP-10} computers running the {{TOPS-10}} operating system

were labeled `DECsystem-10' as a way of differentiating them from

the PDP-11. Later on, those systems running {TOPS-20} were labeled

`DECSYSTEM-20' (the block capitals being the result of a lawsuit

brought against DEC by Singer, which once made a computer called

`system-10'), but contrary to popular lore there was never a

`PDP-20'; the only difference between a 10 and a 20 was the

operating system and the color of the paint. Most (but not all)

machines sold to run TOPS-10 were painted `Basil Blue', whereas

most TOPS-20 machines were painted `Chinese Red' (often mistakenly

called orange).

:peek: /n.,vt./ (and {poke}) The commands in most

microcomputer BASICs for directly accessing memory contents at an

absolute address; often extended to mean the corresponding

constructs in any {HLL} (peek reads memory, poke modifies it).

Much hacking on small, non-MMU micros consists of `peek'ing

around memory, more or less at random, to find the location where

the system keeps interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate)

lists of such addresses for various computers circulate (see

{{interrupt list, the}}). The results of `poke's at these

addresses may be highly useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat,

or (most likely) total {lossage} (see {killer poke}).

Since a {real operating system} provides useful, higher-level

services for the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes on

micros, and real languages tend not to encourage low-level memory

groveling, a question like "How do I do a peek in C?" is

diagnostic of the {newbie}. (Of course, OS kernels often have to

do exactly this; a real C hacker would unhesitatingly, if

unportably, assign an absolute address to a pointer variable and

indirect through it.)

:pencil and paper: /n./ An archaic information storage and

transmission device that works by depositing smears of graphite on

bleached wood pulp. More recent developments in paper-based

technology include improved `write-once' update devices which use

tiny rolling heads similar to mouse balls to deposit colored

pigment. All these devices require an operator skilled at

so-called `handwriting' technique. These technologies are

ubiquitous outside hackerdom, but nearly forgotten inside it. Most

hackers had terrible handwriting to begin with, and years of

keyboarding tend to have encouraged it to degrade further. Perhaps

for this reason, hackers deprecate pencil-and-paper technology and

often resist using it in any but the most trivial contexts.

:peon: /n./ A person with no special ({root} or {wheel})

privileges on a computer system. "I can't create an account on

*foovax* for you; I'm only a peon there."

:percent-S: /per-sent' es'/ /n./ [From the code in C's

`printf(3)' library function used to insert an arbitrary

string argument] An unspecified person or object. "I was just

talking to some percent-s in administration." Compare

{random}.

:perf: /perf/ /n./ Syn. {chad} (sense 1). The term

`perfory' /per'f*-ree/ is also heard. The term {perf} may

also refer to the perforations themselves, rather than the chad

they produce when torn (philatelists use it this way).

:perfect programmer syndrome: /n./ Arrogance; the egotistical

conviction that one is above normal human error. Most frequently

found among programmers of some native ability but relatively

little experience (especially new graduates; their perceptions may

be distorted by a history of excellent performance at solving

{toy problem}s). "Of course my program is correct, there is no

need to test it." "Yes, I can see there may be a problem here,

but *I'll* never type `rm -r /' while in {root

mode}."

:Perl: /perl/ /n./ [Practical Extraction and Report Language,

a.k.a. Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister] An interpreted

language developed by Larry Wall (<lwall@jpl.nasa.gov>, author

of `patch(1)' and `rn(1)') and distributed over Usenet.

Superficially resembles {awk}, but is much hairier, including

many facilities reminiscent of `sed(1)' and shells and a

comprehensive Unix system-call interface. Unix sysadmins, who are

almost always incorrigible hackers, increasingly consider it one of

the {languages of choice}. Perl has been described, in a parody

of a famous remark about `lex(1)', as the "Swiss-Army

chainsaw" of Unix programming. See also {Camel Book}.

:person of no account: /n./ [University of California at Santa

Cruz] Used when referring to a person with no {network address},

frequently to forestall confusion. Most often as part of an

introduction: "This is Bill, a person of no account, but he used

to be bill@random.com". Compare {return from the

dead}.

:pessimal: /pes'im-l/ /adj./ [Latin-based antonym for

`optimal'] Maximally bad. "This is a pessimal situation."

Also `pessimize' /vt./ To make as bad as possible. These words are

the obvious Latin-based antonyms for `optimal' and `optimize',

but for some reason they do not appear in most English

dictionaries, although `pessimize' is listed in the OED.

:pessimizing compiler: /pes'*-mi:z`ing k*m-pi:l'r/ /n./ A

compiler that produces object [antonym of `optimizing compiler']

code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand

translation. The implication is that the compiler is actually

trying to optimize the program, but through excessive cleverness is

doing the opposite. A few pessimizing compilers have been written

on purpose, however, as pranks or burlesques.

:peta-: /pe't*/ pref [SI] See {{quantifiers}}.

:PETSCII: /pet'skee/ /n. obs./ [abbreviation of PET ASCII] The

variation (many would say perversion) of the {{ASCII}} character

set used by the Commodore Business Machines PET series of personal

computers and the later Commodore C64, C16, and C128 machines. The

PETSCII set used left-arrow and up-arrow (as in old-style ASCII)

instead of underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at

positions 65--90, put the shifted alphabet at positions 193--218,

and added graphics characters.

:phage: /n./ A program that modifies other programs or

databases in unauthorized ways; esp. one that propagates a

{virus} or {Trojan horse}. See also {worm},

{mockingbird}. The analogy, of course, is with phage viruses in

biology.

:phase: 1. /n./ The offset of one's waking-sleeping schedule

with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle; a useful concept among

people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed

schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6

hours per day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've

been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to {wrap

around} to the day schedule by Friday." A person who is roughly

12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'.

(The term `day mode' is also (but less frequently) used, meaning

you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).) The act of

altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase

shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech.

2. `change phase the hard way': To stay awake for a very long

time in order to get into a different phase. 3. `change phase

the easy way': To stay asleep, etc. However, some claim that

either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it

is *shortening* your day or night that is really hard (see

{wrap around}). The `jet lag' that afflicts travelers who

cross many time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct

causes: the strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing

phase. Hackers who suddenly find that they must change phase

drastically in a short period of time, particularly the hard way,

experience something very like jet lag without traveling.

:phase of the moon: /n./ Used humorously as a random parameter

on which something is said to depend. Sometimes implies

unreliability of whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems

to be dependent on conditions nobody has been able to determine.

"This feature depends on having the channel open in mumble mode,

having the foo switch set, and on the phase of the moon." See

also {heisenbug}.

True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend

on the phase of the moon. There was a little subroutine that had

traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an

approximation to the moon's true phase. GLS incorporated this

routine into a LISP program that, when it wrote out a file, would

print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long. Very

occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and

would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read

back in the program would {barf}. The length of the first line

depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the

phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug

literally depended on the phase of the moon!

The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included

an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug,

but the typesetter `corrected' it. This has since been

described as the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.

:phase-wrapping: /n./ [MIT] Syn. {wrap around}, sense 2.

:phreaker: /freek'r/ /n./ One who engages in

{phreaking}.

:phreaking: /freek'ing/ /n./ [from `phone phreak'] 1. The

art and science of {cracking} the phone network (so as, for

example, to make free long-distance calls). 2. By extension,

security-cracking in any other context (especially, but not

exclusively, on communications networks) (see {cracking}).

At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among

hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an

intellectual game and a form of exploration was OK, but serious

theft of services was taboo. There was significant crossover

between the hacker community and the hard-core phone phreaks who

ran semi-underground networks of their own through such media as

the legendary "TAP Newsletter". This ethos began to break

down in the mid-1980s as wider dissemination of the techniques put

them in the hands of less responsible phreaks. Around the same

time, changes in the phone network made old-style technical

ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came

to depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card

numbers. The crimes and punishments of gangs like the `414 group'

turned that game very ugly. A few old-time hackers still phreak

casually just to keep their hand in, but most these days have

hardly even heard of `blue boxes' or any of the other

paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.

:pico-: /pref./ [SI: a quantifier

meaning * 10^-12]

Smaller than {nano-}; used in the same rather loose

connotative way as {nano-} and {micro-}. This usage is not yet

common in the way {nano-} and {micro-} are, but should be

instantly recognizable to any hacker. See also {{quantifiers}},

{micro-}.

:pig, run like a: /v./ To run very slowly on given hardware,

said of software. Distinct from {hog}.

:pilot error: /n./ [Sun: from aviation] A user's

misconfiguration or misuse of a piece of software, producing

apparently buglike results (compare {UBD}). "Joe Luser

reported a bug in sendmail that causes it to generate bogus

headers." "That's not a bug, that's pilot error. His

`sendmail.cf' is hosed."

:ping: [from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1. n.

Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a

computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The

Unix command `ping(8)' can be used to do this manually (note

that `ping(8)''s author denies the widespread folk etymology

that the name was ever intended as acronym `Packet INternet

Groper'). Occasionally used as a phone greeting. See {ACK},

also {ENQ}. 2. /vt./ To verify the presence of. 3. /vt./ To get

the attention of. 4. /vt./ To send a message to all members of a

{mailing list} requesting an {ACK} (in order to verify that

everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't heard much of

anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I

pinged jargon-friends." 5. /n./ A quantum packet of happiness.

People who are very happy tend to exude pings; furthermore, one can

intentionally create pings and aim them at a needy party (e.g., a

depressed person). This sense of ping may appear as an

exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a quantum of

happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of happiness). The form

"pingfulness", which is used to describe people who exude pings,

also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language, "pingfulness"

can also be used as an exclamation, in which case it's a much

stronger exclamation than just "ping"!). Oppose {blargh}.

The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by

Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying

to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to

a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console

after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting

through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then

wrote a script that repeatedly invoked `ping(8)', listened for

an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet.

Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and

over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the

network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through

the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector

in no time.

:Pink-Shirt Book: "The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide

to the IBM PC". The original cover featured a picture of Peter

Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt.

Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a

different picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. See also

{{book titles}}.

:PIP: /pip/ vt.,obs. [Peripheral Interchange Program] To

copy; from the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, TOPS-10, and

OS/8 (derived from a utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file

copying (and in OS/8 and RT-11 for just about every other file

operation you might want to do). It is said that when the program

was originated, during the development of the PDP-6 in 1963, it was

called ATLATL (`Anything, Lord, to Anything, Lord'; this played on

the Nahuatl word `atlatl' for a spear-thrower, with connotations

of utility and primitivity that were no doubt quite intentional).

See also {twirling baton}.

:platinum-iridium: /adj./ Standard, against which all others of

the same category are measured. Usage: silly. The notion is that

one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium

alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. (From

1889 to 1960, the meter was defined to be the distance between two

scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in that same vault ---

this replaced an earlier definition as 10^(-7) times the

distance between the North Pole and the Equator along a meridian

through Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact

value of the circumference of the Earth. From 1960 to 1984 it was

defined to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of

krypton-86 propagating in a vacuum. It is now defined as the

length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time

interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. The kilogram is now the

only unit of measure officially defined in terms of a unique

artifact.) "This garbage-collection algorithm has been tested

against the platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare

{golden}.

:playpen: /n./ [IBM] A room where programmers work. Compare {salt

mines}.

:playte: /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and

{{byte}}. Usage: rare and extremely silly. See also {dynner}

and {crumb}. General discussion of such terms is under

{nybble}.

:plingnet: /pling'net/ /n./ Syn. {UUCPNET}. Also see

{{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for {bang} (as

in {bang path}).

:plokta: /plok't*/ /v./ [acronym: Press Lots Of Keys To

Abort] To press random keys in an attempt to get some response

from the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a

program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the system is

just sluggish or really hung. Plokta can also be used while trying

to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation.

Someone going into `plokta mode' usually places both hands flat

on the keyboard and mashes them down, hoping for some useful

response.

A slightly more directed form of plokta can often be seen in mail

messages or Usenet articles from new users -- the text might end

with

^X^C

quit

end

exit

help

as the user vainly tries to find the right exit sequence, with the

incorrect tries piling up at the end of the message....

:plonk: /excl.,vt./ [Usenet: possibly influenced by British

slang `plonk' for cheap booze, or `plonker' for someone

behaving stupidly (latter is lit. equivalent to Yiddish

`schmuck')] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the

bottom of a {kill file}. While it originated in the

{newsgroup} talk.bizarre, this term (usually written

"*plonk*") is now (1994) widespread on Usenet as a form of public

ridicule.

:plugh: /ploogh/ /v./ [from the {ADVENT} game] See

{xyzzy}.

:plumbing: /n./ [Unix] Term used for {shell} code, so called

because of the prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of

one program to the input of another. Under Unix, user utilities

can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable

collection of pipelines and temp-file grinding encapsulated in a

shell script; this is much less effort than writing C every time,

and the capability is considered one of Unix's major winning

features. A few other OSs such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar

facilities. Esp. used in the construction `hairy plumbing'

(see {hairy}). "You can kluge together a basic spell-checker

out of `sort(1)', `comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with a

little plumbing." See also {tee}.

:PM: /P-M/ 1. /v./ (from `preventive maintenance') To

bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes. See

{provocative maintenance}; see also {scratch monkey}.

2. /n./ Abbrev. for `Presentation Manager', an {elephantine} OS/2

graphical user interface.

:pnambic: /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film

version of "The Wizard of Oz" in which the true nature of the

wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind

the curtain."] 1. A stage of development of a process or function

that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of

the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some

or all of the actions, inputs, or outputs of the process or

function. 2. Of or pertaining to a process or function whose

apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified.

3. Requiring {prestidigitization}.

The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program

which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is

a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced

technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See

{magic}, sense 1, for illumination of this point.

:pod: /n./ [allegedly from abbreviation POD for `Prince Of

Darkness'] A Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact

printer). From the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted

text to it. Not to be confused with {P.O.D.}.

:point-and-drool interface: /n./ Parody of the techspeak term

`point-and-shoot interface', describing a windows, icons, and

mouse-based interface such as is found on the Macintosh. The

implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable

for idiots. See {for the rest of us}, {WIMP environment},

{Macintrash}, {drool-proof paper}. Also `point-and-grunt

interface'.

:poke: /n.,vt./ See {peek}.

:poll: /v.,n./ 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status

of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular

external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check

with someone: "I keep polling him, but he's not answering his

phone; he must be swapped out." 3. To ask. "Lunch? I poll for

a takeout order daily."

:polygon pusher: /n./ A chip designer who spends most of his or

her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing

*lots* of multi-colored polygons). Also `rectangle

slinger'.

:POM: /P-O-M/ /n./ Common abbreviation for {phase of the

moon}. Usage: usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means

{flaky}.

:pop: /pop/ [from the operation that removes the top of a

stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are usually

saved on the stack] (also capitalized `POP') 1. /vt./ To remove

something from a {stack} or {pdl}. If a person says he/she

has popped something from his stack, that means he/she has finally

finished working on it and can now remove it from the list of

things hanging overhead. 2. When a discussion gets to a level of

detail so deep that the main point of the discussion is being lost,

someone will shout "Pop!", meaning "Get back up to a higher

level!" The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm

with a finger pointing to the ceiling.

:POPJ: /pop'J/ /n.,v./ [from a {PDP-10}

return-from-subroutine instruction] To return from a digression.

By verb doubling, "Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see,

where were we?" See {RTI}.

:poser: /n./ A {wannabee}; not hacker slang, but used among

crackers, phreaks and {warez d00dz}. Not as negative as

{lamer} or {leech}. Probably derives from a similar usage

among punk-rockers and metalheads, putting down those who "talk

the talk but don't walk the walk".

:post: /v./ To send a message to a {mailing list} or

{newsgroup}. Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might

ask, for example: "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to

known users?"

:postcardware: /n./ A kind of {shareware} that borders on

{freeware}, in that the author requests only that satisfied

users send a postcard of their home town or something. (This

practice, silly as it might seem, serves to remind users that they

are otherwise getting something for nothing, and may also be

psychologically related to real estate `sales' in which $1

changes hands just to keep the transaction from being a gift.)

:posting: /n./ Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that

{post} can be nouned). Distinguished from a `letter' or

ordinary {email} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather

than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a

small mailing list are postings or email; perhaps the best dividing

line is that if you don't know the names of all the potential

recipients, it is a posting.

:postmaster: /n./ The email contact and maintenance person at a

site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always,

the same as the {admin}. The Internet standard for electronic

mail ({RFC}-822) requires each machine to have a `postmaster'

address; usually it is aliased to this person.

:PostScript:: /n./ A Page Description Language ({PDL}),

based on work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and

Sutherland in 1976, evolving through `JaM' (`John and Martin',

Martin Newell) at {XEROX PARC}, and finally implemented in its

current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke

founded Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1982. PostScript gets its

leverage by using a full programming language, rather than a series

of low-level escape sequences, to describe an image to be printed

on a laser printer or other output device (in this it parallels

{EMACS}, which exploited a similar insight about editing tasks).

It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly rasterization,

from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality fonts at low (e.g.

300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed that hand-tuned

bitmap fonts were required for this task). Hackers consider

PostScript to be among the most elegant hacks of all time, and the

combination of technical merits and widespread availability has

made PostScript the language of choice for graphical output.

:pound on: /vt./ Syn. {bang on}.

:power cycle: /vt./ (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle')

To power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the

intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.

Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare

{Vulcan nerve pinch}, {bounce} (sense 4), and {boot}, and

see the "{AI Koans}" (in Appendix A) about Tom Knight

and the novice.

:power hit: /n./ A spike or drop-out in the electricity

supplying your machine; a power {glitch}. These can cause

crashes and even permanent damage to your machine(s).

:PPN: /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ /n. obs./ [from `Project-Programmer

Number'] A user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant

progeny at SAIL, BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers

from the PDP-10 era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on

other systems as well.

:precedence lossage: /pre's*-dens los'*j/ /n./ [C

programmers] Coding error in an expression due to unexpected

grouping of arithmetic or logical operators by the compiler. Used

esp. of certain common coding errors in C due to the

nonintuitively low precedence levels of `&', `|',

`^', `<<', and `>>' (for this reason, experienced C

programmers deliberately forget the language's {baroque}

precedence hierarchy and parenthesize defensively). Can always be

avoided by suitable use of parentheses. {LISP} fans enjoy

pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favorite

language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use

explicit parentheses everywhere. See {aliasing bug}, {memory

leak}, {memory smash}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on

core}, {overrun screw}.

:prepend: /pree`pend'/ /vt./ [by analogy with `append'] To

prefix. As with `append' (but not `prefix' or `suffix' as a

verb), the direct object is always the thing being added and not

the original word (or character string, or whatever). "If you

prepend a semicolon to the line, the translation routine will pass

it through unaltered."

:prestidigitization: /pres`t*-di`j*-ti:-zay'sh*n/ /n./ 1. The

act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand.

2. Data entry through legerdemain.

:pretty pictures: /n./ [scientific computation] The next step

up from {numbers}. Interesting graphical output from a program

that may not have any sensible relationship to the system the

program is intended to model. Good for showing to {management}.

:prettyprint: /prit'ee-print/ /v./ (alt. `pretty-print')

1. To generate `pretty' human-readable output from a {hairy}

internal representation; esp. used for the process of

{grind}ing (sense 1) program code, and most esp. for LISP code.

2. To format in some particularly slick and nontrivial way.

:pretzel key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.

:priesthood: /n. obs./ [TMRC] The select group of system

managers responsible for the operation and maintenance of a batch

operated computer system. On these computers, a user never had

direct access to a computer, but had to submit his/her data and

programs to a priest for execution. Results were returned days or

even weeks later. See {acolyte}.

:prime time: /n./ [from TV programming] Normal high-usage hours

on a timesharing system; the day shift. Avoidance of prime time

was traditionally given as a major reason for {night mode}

hacking. The rise of the personal workstation has rendered this

term, along with timesharing itself, almost obsolete. The hackish

tendency to late-night {hacking run}s has changed not a bit.

:printing discussion: /n./ [XEROX PARC] A protracted,

low-level, time-consuming, generally pointless discussion of

something only peripherally interesting to all.

:priority interrupt: /n./ [from the hardware term] Describes

any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack

mode}. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an

{SO} for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane

interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity.

Also called an {NMI} (non-maskable interrupt), especially in

PC-land.

:profile: /n./ 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text

file automatically read from each user's home directory and

intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customize

the program's behavior. Used to avoid {hardcoded} choices (see

also {dot file}, {rc file}). 2. [techspeak] A report on the

amounts of time spent in each routine of a program, used to find

and {tune} away the {hot spot}s in it. This sense is often

verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time (such as

call counts) and/or report at granularities other than per-routine,

but the idea is similar. 3.[techspeak] A subset of a standard used

for a particular purpose. This sense confuses hackers who wander

into the weird world of ISO standards no end!

:progasm: /proh'gaz-m/ /n./ [University of Wisconsin] The

euphoria experienced upon the completion of a program or other

computer-related project.

:proglet: /prog'let/ /n./ [UK] A short extempore program

written to meet an immediate, transient need. Often written in

BASIC, rarely more than a dozen lines long, and containing no

subroutines. The largest amount of code that can be written off

the top of one's head, that does not need any editing, and that

runs correctly the first time (this amount varies significantly

according to one's skill and the language one is using). Compare

{toy program}, {noddy}, {one-liner wars}.

:program: /n./ 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing

it to turn one's input into error messages. 2. An exercise in

experimental epistemology. 3. A form of art, ostensibly intended

for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost

inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.

:Programmer's Cheer: "Shift to the left! Shift to the

right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" A joke so old it

has hair on it.

:programming: /n./ 1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of

paper (or, in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging

an empty file). "Bloody instructions which, being taught, return

to plague their inventor" ("Macbeth", Act 1, Scene 7) 2. A

pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with

fewer opportunities for reward. 3. The most fun you can have with

your clothes on (although clothes are not mandatory).

:programming fluid: /n./ 1. Coffee. 2. Cola. 3. Any

caffeinacious stimulant. Many hackers consider these essential for

those all-night hacking runs. See {wirewater}.

:propeller head: /n./ Used by hackers, this is syn. with

{computer geek}. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all

techies. Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (originally

invented by old-time fan Ray Faraday Nelson) of propeller beanies

as fannish insignia (though nobody actually wears them except as a

joke).

:propeller key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.

:proprietary: /adj./ 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior;

implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched

brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers.

2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a

product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that

puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on

service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the

customer in.

:protocol: /n./ As used by hackers, this never refers to

niceties about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal

Nuncio or the order in which one should use the forks in a

Russian-style place setting; hackers don't care about such things.

It is used instead to describe any set of rules that allow

different machines or pieces of software to coordinate with each

other without ambiguity. So, for example, it does include niceties

about the proper form for addressing packets on a network or the

order in which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers

Problem. It implies that there is some common message format and

an accepted set of primitives or commands that all parties involved

understand, and that transactions among them follow predictable

logical sequences. See also {handshaking}, {do protocol}.

:provocative maintenance: /n./ [common ironic mutation of

`preventive maintenance'] Actions performed upon a machine at

regularly scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in

a usable state. So called because it is all too often performed by

a {field servoid} who doesn't know what he is doing; such

`maintenance' often *induces* problems, or otherwise

results in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for

an indeterminate amount of time. See also {scratch monkey}.

:prowler: /n./ [Unix] A {daemon} that is run periodically (typically

once a week) to seek out and erase {core} files, truncate

administrative logfiles, nuke `lost+found' directories, and

otherwise clean up the {cruft} that tends to pile up in the

corners of a file system. See also {GFR}, {reaper},

{skulker}.

:pseudo: /soo'doh/ /n./ [Usenet: truncation of `pseudonym']

1. An electronic-mail or {Usenet} persona adopted by a human for

amusement value or as a means of avoiding negative repercussions of

one's net.behavior; a `nom de Usenet', often associated with

forged postings designed to conceal message origins. Perhaps the

best-known and funniest hoax of this type is {B1FF}. See also

{tentacle}. 2. Notionally, a {flamage}-generating AI program

simulating a Usenet user. Many flamers have been accused of

actually being such entities, despite the fact that no AI program

of the required sophistication yet exists. However, in 1989 there

was a famous series of forged postings that used a

phrase-frequency-based travesty generator to simulate the styles of

several well-known flamers; it was based on large samples of their

back postings (compare {Dissociated Press}). A significant

number of people were fooled by the forgeries, and the debate over

their authenticity was settled only when the perpetrator came

forward to publicly admit the hoax.

:pseudoprime: /n./ A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied

points) with one point missing. This term is an esoteric pun

derived from a mathematical method that, rather than determining

precisely whether a number is prime (has no divisors), uses a

statistical technique to decide whether the number is `probably'

prime. A number that passes this test was, before about 1985,

called a `pseudoprime' (the terminology used by number theorists

has since changed slightly; pre-1985 pseudoprimes are now

`probable primes' and `pseudoprime' has a more restricted meaning

in modular arithmetic). The hacker backgammon usage stemmed from

the idea that a pseudoprime is almost as good as a prime: it does

the job of a prime until proven otherwise, and that probably won't

happen.

:pseudosuit: /soo'doh-s[y]oot`/ /n./ A {suit} wannabee; a

hacker who has decided that he wants to be in management or

administration and begins wearing ties, sport coats, and (shudder!)

suits voluntarily. It's his funeral. See also {lobotomy}.

:psychedelicware: /si:`k*-del'-ik-weir/ /n./ [UK] Syn.

{display hack}. See also {smoking clover}.

:psyton: /si:'ton/ /n./ [TMRC] The elementary particle

carrying the sinister force. The probability of a process losing

is proportional to the number of psytons falling on it. Psytons

are generated by observers, which is why demos are more likely to

fail when lots of people are watching. [This term appears to have

been largely superseded by {bogon}; see also {quantum

bogodynamics}. --ESR]

:pubic directory: /pyoob'ik d*-rek't*-ree/) /n./ [NYU]

(also `pube directory' /pyoob' d*-rek't*-ree/) The `pub'

(public) directory on a machine that allows {FTP} access. So

called because it is the default location for {SEX} (sense 1).

"I'll have the source in the pube directory by Friday."

:puff: /vt./ To decompress data that has been crunched by

Huffman coding. At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder

program was actually *named* `PUFF', but these days it is

usually packaged with the encoder. Oppose {huff}, see

{inflate}.

:punched card:: n.obs. [techspeak] (alt. `punch card') The

signature medium of computing's {Stone Age}, now obsolescent

outside of some IBM shops. The punched card actually predated

computers considerably, originating in 1801 as a control device for

mechanical looms. The version patented by Hollerith and used with

mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 U.S. Census was a piece

of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm. There is a widespread myth

that it was designed to fit in the currency trays used for that

era's larger dollar bills, but recent investigations have falsified

this.

IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married

the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as

patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column,

80 columns per card. Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and

hole shapes were tried at various times.

The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the

IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards

distributed with many varieties of computers even today. See

{chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card},

{dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}.

:punt: /v./ [from the punch line of an old joke referring to

American football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt!"] 1. To give up,

typically without any intention of retrying. "Let's punt the

movie tonight." "I was going to hack all night to get this

feature in, but I decided to punt" may mean that you've decided

not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even

going to put in the feature. 2. More specifically, to give up on

figuring out what the {Right Thing} is and resort to an

inefficient hack. 3. A design decision to defer solving a problem,

typically because one cannot define what is desirable sufficiently

well to frame an algorithmic solution. "No way to know what the

right form to dump the graph in is -- we'll punt that for now."

4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off to some other

section of the design. "It's too hard to get the compiler to do

that; let's punt to the runtime system."

:Purple Book: /n./ 1. The "System V Interface Definition".

The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade

of off-lavender. 2. Syn. {Wizard Book}. Donald Lewine's

"POSIX Programmer's Guide" (O'Reilly, 1991, ISBN

0-937175-73-0). See also {{book titles}}.

:purple wire: /n./ [IBM] Wire installed by Field Engineers to work

around problems discovered during testing or debugging. These are

called `purple wires' even when (as is frequently the case) their

actual physical color is yellow.... Compare {blue wire},

{yellow wire}, and {red wire}.

:push: [from the operation that puts the current information

on a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved

on a stack] (Also PUSH /push/ or PUSHJ /push'J/, the latter

based on the PDP-10 procedure call instruction.) 1. To put

something onto a {stack} or {pdl}. If one says that

something has been pushed onto one's stack, it means that the

Damoclean list of things hanging over ones's head has grown longer

and heavier yet. This may also imply that one will deal with it

*before* other pending items; otherwise one might say that the

thing was `added to my queue'. 2. /vi./ To enter upon a

digression, to save the current discussion for later. Antonym of

{pop}; see also {stack}, {pdl}.

= Q =

=====

:quad: /n./ 1. Two bits; syn. for {quarter}, {crumb},

{tayste}. 2. A four-pack of anything (compare {hex}, sense

2). 3. The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for

various arcane purposes mostly related to I/O. Former

Ivy-Leaguers and Oxford types are said to associate it with

nostalgic memories of dear old University.

:quadruple bucky: /n. obs./ 1. On an MIT {space-cadet

keyboard}, use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta,

hyper, and super) while typing a character key. 2. On a Stanford

or MIT keyboard in {raw mode}, use of four shift keys while

typing a fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control

and meta keys on *both* sides of the keyboard. This was very

difficult to do! One accepted technique was to press the

left-control and left-meta keys with your left hand, the

right-control and right-meta keys with your right hand, and the

fifth key with your nose.

Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice,

because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to

some character that was easier to type. If you want to imply that

a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say

something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes

while whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is

quadruple-bucky-cokebottle." See {double bucky}, {bucky

bits}, {cokebottle}.

:quantifiers:: In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric

prefixes used in the SI (Syst`eme International) conventions for

scientific measurement have dual uses. With units of time or

things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they retain their

usual meanings of multiplication by powers of 1000 = 10^3.

But when used with bytes or other things that naturally come in

powers of 2, they usually denote multiplication by powers of

1024 = 2^(10).

Here are the SI magnifying prefixes, along with the corresponding

binary interpretations in common use:

prefix decimal binary

kilo- 1000^1 1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024

mega- 1000^2 1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576

giga- 1000^3 1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824

tera- 1000^4 1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776

peta- 1000^5 1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624

exa- 1000^6 1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976

zetta- 1000^7 1024^7 = 2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424

yotta- 1000^8 1024^8 = 2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176

Here are the SI fractional prefixes:

*prefix decimal jargon usage*

milli- 1000^-1 (seldom used in jargon)

micro- 1000^-2 small or human-scale (see {micro-})

nano- 1000^-3 even smaller (see {nano-})

pico- 1000^-4 even smaller yet (see {pico-})

femto- 1000^-5 (not used in jargon--yet)

atto- 1000^-6 (not used in jargon--yet)

zepto- 1000^-7 (not used in jargon--yet)

yocto- 1000^-8 (not used in jargon--yet)

The prefixes zetta-, yotta-, zepto-, and yocto- have been included

in these tables purely for completeness and giggle value; they were

adopted in 1990 by the `19th Conference Generale des Poids et

Mesures'. The binary peta- and exa- loadings, though well

established, are not in jargon use either -- yet. The prefix

milli-, denoting multiplication by 1/1000, has always

been rare in jargon (there is, however, a standard joke about the

`millihelen' -- notionally, the amount of beauty required to

launch one ship). See the entries on {micro-}, {pico-}, and

{nano-} for more information on connotative jargon use of these

terms. `Femto' and `atto' (which, interestingly, derive not

from Greek but from Danish) have not yet acquired jargon loadings,

though it is easy to predict what those will be once computing

technology enters the required realms of magnitude (however, see

{attoparsec}).

There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of

10. In the following table, the `prefix' column is the

international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the

`binary' column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the

corresponding power of 2. The B-suffixed forms are commonly used

for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns that may

(but do not always) pluralize with `s'.

prefix decimal binary pronunciation

kilo- k K, KB, /kay/

mega- M M, MB, meg /meg/

giga- G G, GB, gig /gig/,/jig/

Confusingly, hackers often use K or M as though they were suffix or

numeric multipliers rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars", "2M

of disk space". This is also true (though less commonly) of G.

Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is `k'; some use

this strictly, reserving `K' for multiplication by 1024 (KB is

thus `kilobytes').

K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is

64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of

`a G' as short for `a grand', that is, $1000). Whether one

pronounces `gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks

the proper pronunciation of `giga-' is.

Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in

magnitude) -- for example, describing a memory in units of

500K or 524K instead of 512K -- is a sure sign of the

{marketroid}. One example of this: it is common to refer to the

capacity of 3.5" {microfloppies} as `1.44 MB' In fact, this is a

completely {bogus} number. The correct size is 1440 KB, that

is, 1440 * 1024 = 1474560 bytes. So the `mega' in `1.44 MB' is

compounded of two `kilos', one of which is 1024 and the other of

which is 1000. The correct number of megabytes would of course be

1440 / 1024 = 1.40625. Alas, this fine point is probably lost on

the world forever.

[1993 update: hacker Morgan Burke has proposed, to general

approval on Usenet, the following additional prefixes:

groucho

10^(-30)

harpo

10^(-27)

harpi

10^(27)

grouchi

10^(30)

We observe that this would leave the prefixes zeppo-, gummo-, and

chico- available for future expansion. Sadly, there is little

immediate prospect that Mr. Burke's eminently sensible proposal

will be ratified.]

:quantum bogodynamics: /kwon'tm boh`goh-di:-nam'iks/ /n./ A

theory that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources

(such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and

{suit}s in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and

computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption, of

course, causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to

fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however,

the precise mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not

yet understood and remain to be elucidated. Quantum bogodynamics

is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and

software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons,

which the former absorb. See {bogon}, {computron},

{suit}, {psyton}.

:quarter: /n./ Two bits. This in turn comes from the `pieces

of eight' famed in pirate movies -- Spanish silver crowns that

could be broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make

change. Early in American history the Spanish coin was considered

equal to a dollar, so each of these `bits' was considered worth

12.5 cents. Syn. {tayste}, {crumb}, {quad}. Usage:

rare. General discussion of such terms is under {nybble}.

:ques: /kwes/ 1. /n./ The question mark character (`?',

ASCII 0111111). 2. /interj./ What? Also frequently verb-doubled

"Ques ques?" See {wall}.

:quick-and-dirty: /adj./ Describes a {crock} put together

under time or user pressure. Used esp. when you want to convey

that you think the fast way might lead to trouble further down the

road. "I can have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but

I'll have to rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying

design problem." See also {kluge}.

:quine: /kwi:n/ /n./ [from the name of the logician Willard

van Orman Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] A program that generates a

copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the

shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a

common hackish amusement. Here is one classic quine:

((lambda (x)

(list x (list (quote quote) x)))

(quote

(lambda (x)

(list x (list (quote quote) x)))))

This one works in LISP or Scheme. It's relatively easy to write

quines in other languages such as Postscript which readily handle

programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in

languages like C which do not. Here is a classic C quine for ASCII

machines:

char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main()

{printf(f,34,f,34,10);}%c";

main(){printf(f,34,f,34,10);}

For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the interior line

breaks. Some infamous {Obfuscated C Contest} entries have been

quines that reproduced in exotic ways.

:quote chapter and verse: /v./ [by analogy with the mainstream

phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate {bible}.

"I don't care if `rn' gets it wrong; `Followup-To: poster' is

explicitly permitted by {RFC}-1036. I'll quote chapter and

verse if you don't believe me." See also {legalese},

{language lawyer}, {RTFS} (sense 2).

:quotient: /n./ See {coefficient of X}.

:quux: /kwuhks/ /n./ [Mythically, from the Latin

semi-deponent verb quuxo, quuxare, quuxandum iri; noun form

variously `quux' (plural `quuces', anglicized to `quuxes')

and `quuxu' (genitive plural is `quuxuum', for four u-letters

out of seven in all, using up all the `u' letters in Scrabble).]

1. Originally, a {metasyntactic variable} like {foo} and

{foobar}. Invented by Guy Steele for precisely this purpose

when he was young and naive and not yet interacting with the real

computing community. Many people invent such words; this one seems

simply to have been lucky enough to have spread a little. In an

eloquent display of poetic justice, it has returned to the

originator in the form of a nickname. 2. /interj./ See {foo};

however, denotes very little disgust, and is uttered mostly for the

sake of the sound of it. 3. Guy Steele in his persona as `The

Great Quux', which is somewhat infamous for light verse and for the

`Crunchly' cartoons. 4. In some circles, used as a punning

opposite of `crux'. "Ah, that's the quux of the matter!"

implies that the point is *not* crucial (compare {tip of

the ice-cube}). 5. quuxy: /adj./ Of or pertaining to a quux.

:qux: /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard {metasyntactic

variable}, after {baz} and before the quu(u...)x series.

See {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}. This appears to be a

recent mutation from {quux}, and many versions (especially older

versions) of the standard series just run {foo}, {bar},

{baz}, {quux}, ....

:QWERTY: /kwer'tee/ /adj./ [from the keycaps at the upper

left] Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard

(sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as

opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts or a {space-cadet

keyboard} or APL keyboard.

Historical note: The QWERTY layout is a fine example of a {fossil}.

It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist,

but this is wrong; it was designed to allow *faster* typing

-- under a constraint now long obsolete. In early typewriters,

fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism. So Sholes

fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs

(he did a far from perfect job, though; `th', `tr', `ed', and `er',

for example, each use two nearby keys). Also, putting the letters

of `typewriter' on one line allowed it to be typed with particular

speed and accuracy for {demo}s. The jamming problem was

essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but

the keyboard layout lives on.

= R =

=====

:rabbit job: /n./ [Cambridge] A batch job that does little, if

any, real work, but creates one or more copies of itself, breeding

like rabbits. Compare {wabbit}, {fork bomb}.

:rain dance: /n./ 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a

hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be

accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit

boards, reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine.

We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any arcane

sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order

to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals

that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity

or motion. Compare {magic}, {voodoo programming}, {black

art}, {cargo cult programming}, {wave a dead chicken}; see

also {casting the runes}.

:rainbow series: /n./ Any of several series of technical

manuals distinguished by cover color. The original rainbow series

was the NCSC security manuals (see {Orange Book}, {crayola

books}); the term has also been commonly applied to the PostScript

reference set (see {Red Book}, {Green Book}, {Blue Book},

{White Book}). Which books are meant by "`the' rainbow

series" unqualified is thus dependent on one's local technical

culture.

:random: /adj./ 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical

definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty

randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the

conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types."

3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a

random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not

well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures."

"That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names

were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular order, though

deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file

is opened one is chosen randomly." 6. Arbitrary. "It generates

a random name for the scratch file." 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e.,

poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a

program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless

way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded

using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values

with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it

without first saving four extra registers. What {randomness}!

8. /n./ A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students

who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n.

Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the

hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. "I went to the talk,

but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".

10. /n./ (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See

also {J. Random}, {some random X}.

:random numbers:: /n./ When one wishes to specify a large but

random number of things, and the context is inappropriate for

{N}, certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is,

easily recognized as placeholders). These include the following:

Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see 23.

Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and

5).

The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe,

and Everything. (Note that this answer is completely

fortuitous. `:-)')

From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS

culture.

105

69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.

666

The Number of the Beast.

For further enlightenment, study the "Principia Discordia",

"{The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}", "The Joy

of Sex", and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:18). See also

{Discordianism} or consult your pineal gland. See also {for

values of}.

:randomness: /n./ 1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous

inelegance. 2. A {hack} or {crock} that depends on a complex

combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon

which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).

"This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the character

in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six

bits -- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing."

"What randomness!" 3. Of people, synonymous with `flakiness'.

The connotation is that the person so described is behaving

weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons which are

(a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are probably as

inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are likely to pass

with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe it's just

randomness. See if he calls back."

:rape: /vt./ 1. To {screw} someone or something, violently;

in particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably.

Often used in describing file-system damage. "So-and-so was

running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping

the master directory." 2. To strip a piece of hardware for parts.

3. [CMU/Pitt] To mass-copy files from an anonymous ftp site.

"Last night I raped Simtel's dskutl directory."

:rare mode: /adj./ [Unix] CBREAK mode (character-by-character

with interrupts enabled). Distinguished from {raw mode} and

{cooked mode}; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?) mode"

is used in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode. Usage: rare.

:raster blaster: /n./ [Cambridge] Specialized hardware for

{bitblt} operations (a {blitter}). Allegedly inspired by

`Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable stereo

Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto blaster'.

:raster burn: /n./ Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of

looking at low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp.

graphics monitors. See {terminal illness}.

:rat belt: /n./ A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed,

self-locking plastic kind that you can remove only by cutting (as

opposed to a random twist of wire or a twist tie or one of those

humongous metal clip frobs). Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.

:rat dance: /n./ [From the {Dilbert} comic strip of November

14, 1995] A {hacking run} that produces results which, while

superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its

original objectives. There are strong connotations that the coding

process and the objectives themselves were pretty {random}. (In

the original comic strip, the Ratbert is invited to dance

on Dilbert's keyboard in order to produce bugs for him to fix, and

authors a Web browser instead.) Compare {Infinite-Monkey

Theorem}.

This term seems to have become widely recognized quite rapidly

after the original strip, a fact which testifies to Dilbert's huge

popularity among hackers. All too many find the perverse

incentives and Kafkaesque atmosphere of Dilbert's mythical

workplace reflective of their own experiences.

:rave: /vi./ [WPI] 1. To persist in discussing a specific

subject. 2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one

knows very little. 3. To complain to a person who is not in a

position to correct the difficulty. 4. To purposely annoy another

person verbally. 5. To evangelize. See {flame}. 6. Also used

to describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly

bullshitting. `Rave' differs slightly from {flame} in that

`rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the

person speaking that is annoying, while {flame} implies somewhat

more strongly that the tone or content is offensive as well.

:rave on!: /imp./ Sarcastic invitation to continue a {rave},

often by someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes

this is unlikely.

:ravs: /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' /n./ Jiao-zi (steamed or

boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried). A Chinese appetizer, known

variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal

translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'. The

term `rav' is short for `ravioli', and among hackers always

means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind. Both consist

of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no

cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good

ones include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by

steaming or frying. A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a

potsticker is always the fried kind (so called because it sticks to

the frying pot and has to be scraped off). "Let's get

hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs." See also

{{oriental food}}.

:raw mode: /n./ A mode that allows a program to transfer bits

directly to or from an I/O device (or, under {bogus} systems

that make a distinction, a disk file) without any processing,

abstraction, or interpretation by the operating system. Compare

{rare mode}, {cooked mode}. This is techspeak under Unix,

jargon elsewhere.

:rc file: /R-C fi:l/ /n./ [Unix: from `runcom files' on

the {CTSS} system ca.1955, via the startup script

`/etc/rc'] Script file containing startup instructions for an

application program (or an entire operating system), usually a text

file containing commands of the sort that might have been invoked

manually once the system was running but are to be executed

automatically each time the system starts up. See also {dot

file}, {profile} (sense 1).

:RE: /R-E/ /n./ Common spoken and written shorthand for

{regexp}.

:read-only user: /n./ Describes a {luser} who uses computers

almost exclusively for reading Usenet, bulletin boards, and/or

email, rather than writing code or purveying useful information.

See {twink}, {terminal junkie}, {lurker}.

:README file: /n./ Hacker's-eye introduction traditionally

included in the top-level directory of a Unix source distribution,

containing a pointer to more detailed documentation, credits,

miscellaneous revision history, notes, etc. (The file may be named

README, or READ.ME, or rarely ReadMe or readme.txt or some other

variant.) In the Mac and PC worlds, software is not usually

distributed in source form, and the README is more likely to

contain user-oriented material like last-minute documentation

changes, error workarounds, and restrictions. When asked, hackers

invariably relate the README convention to the famous scene in

Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" in which

Alice confronts magic munchies labeled "Eat Me" and "Drink Me".

:real: /adj./ Not simulated. Often used as a specific antonym

to {virtual} in any of its jargon senses.

:real estate: /n./ May be used for any critical resource

measured in units of area. Most frequently used of `chip real

estate', the area available for logic on the surface of an

integrated circuit (see also {nanoacre}). May also be used of

floor space in a {dinosaur pen}, or even space on a crowded

desktop (whether physical or electronic).

:real hack: /n./ A {crock}. This is sometimes used

affectionately; see {hack}.

:real operating system: /n./ The sort the speaker is used to.

People from the BSDophilic academic community are likely to issue

comments like "System V? Why don't you use a *real*

operating system?", people from the commercial/industrial Unix

sector are known to complain "BSD? Why don't you use a

*real* operating system?", and people from IBM object

"Unix? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?" Only

{MS-DOS} is universally considered unreal. See {holy wars},

{religious issues}, {proprietary}, {Get a real computer!}

:Real Programmer: /n./ [indirectly, from the book

"Real Men Don't Eat Quiche"] A particular sub-variety of

hacker: one possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that

is arrogant even when justified by experience. The archetypal

`Real Programmer' likes to program on the {bare metal} and is

very good at same, remembers the binary opcodes for every machine

he has ever programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a

debugger to edit his code because full-screen editors are for

wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't

been {bum}med into a state of {tense}ness just short of

rupture. Real Programmers never use comments or write

documentation: "If it was hard to write", says the Real

Programmer, "it should be hard to understand." Real Programmers

can make machines do things that were never in their spec sheets;

in fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real

Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its

crockishness appalls. Real Programmers live on junk food and

coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap

out of other programmers -- because someday, somebody else might

have to try to understand their code in order to change it. Their

successors generally consider it a {Good Thing} that there

aren't many Real Programmers around any more. For a famous (and

somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see

"{The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer}" in Appendix A.

The term itself was popularized by a 1983 Datamation article

"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" by Ed Post, still

circulating on Usenet and Internet in on-line form.

You can browse "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" from the

Datamation home page http://www.datamation.com.

:Real Soon Now: /adv./ [orig. from SF's fanzine community,

popularized by Jerry Pournelle's column in "BYTE"] 1. Supposed

to be available (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now

according to somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical. 2. When

one's gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one to get to

it (in other words, don't hold your breath). Often abbreviated

RSN. Compare {copious free time}.

:real time: 1. [techspeak] /adj./ Describes an application

which requires a program to respond to stimuli within some small

upper limit of response time (typically milli- or microseconds).

Process control at a chemical plant is the classic example. Such

applications often require special operating systems (because

everything else must take a back seat to response time) and

speed-tuned hardware. 2. /adv./ In jargon, refers to doing

something

while people are watching or waiting. "I asked her how to find

the calling procedure's program counter on the stack and she came

up with an algorithm in real time."

:real user: /n./ 1. A commercial user. One who is paying

*real* money for his computer usage. 2. A non-hacker.

Someone using the system for an explicit purpose (a research

project, a course, etc.) other than pure exploration. See

{user}. Hackers who are also students may also be real users.

"I need this fixed so I can do a problem set. I'm not complaining

out of randomness, but as a real user." See also {luser}.

:Real World: /n./ 1. Those institutions at which

`programming' may be used in the same sentence as `FORTRAN',

`{COBOL}', `RPG', `{IBM}', `DBASE', etc. Places where

programs do such commercially necessary but intellectually

uninspiring things as generating payroll checks and invoices.

2. The location of non-programmers and activities not related to

programming. 3. A bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is

shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as

9 to 5 (see {code grinder}). 4. Anywhere outside a university.

"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the Real World." Used

pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation,

talking of someone who has entered the Real World is not unlike

speaking of a deceased person. It is also noteworthy that on the

campus of Cambridge University in England, there is a gaily-painted

lamp-post which bears the label `REALITY CHECKPOINT'. It marks the

boundary between university and the Real World; check your notions

of reality before passing. This joke is funnier because the

Cambridge `campus' is actually coextensive with the center of

Cambridge town. See also {fear and loathing}, {mundane}, and

{uninteresting}.

:reality check: /n./ 1. The simplest kind of test of software

or hardware; doing the equivalent of asking it what 2 + 2 is

and seeing if you get 4. The software equivalent of a {smoke

test}. 2. The act of letting a {real user} try out prototype

software. Compare {sanity check}.

:reaper: /n./ A {prowler} that {GFR}s files. A file

removed in this way is said to have been `reaped'.

:rectangle slinger: /n./ See {polygon pusher}.

:recursion: /n./ See {recursion}. See also {tail

recursion}.

:recursive acronym:: /n./ A hackish (and especially MIT)

tradition is to choose acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously

to themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations. The classic

examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS")

and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a

Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and

{GNU} (q.v., sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" -- and a

company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU

Support". See also {mung}, {EMACS}.

:Red Book: /n./ 1. Informal name for one of the three standard

references on {{PostScript}} ("PostScript Language Reference

Manual", Adobe Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN

0-201-10174-2, or the 1990 second edition ISBN 0-201-18127-4); the

others are known as the {Green Book}, the {Blue Book}, and

the {White Book} (sense 2). 2. Informal name for one of the 3

standard references on Smalltalk ("Smalltalk-80: The

Interactive Programming Environment" by Adele Goldberg

(Addison-Wesley, 1984; QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN 0-201-11372-4); this

too is associated with blue and green books). 3. Any of the 1984

standards issued by the CCITT eighth plenary assembly. These

include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group 1

through 4 fax standards. 4. The new version of the {Green Book}

(sense 4) -- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a ISO 9945-1 -- is (because of

the color and the fact that it is printed on A4 paper) known in the

USA as "the Ugly Red Book That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in

Europe as "the Ugly Red Book That's A Sensible Size". 5. The NSA

"Trusted Network Interpretation" companion to the {Orange

Book}. See also {{book titles}}.

:red wire: /n./ [IBM] Patch wires installed by programmers who have

no business mucking with the hardware. It is said that the only

thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a

{softy} with a soldering iron.... Compare {blue wire},

{yellow wire}, {purple wire}.

:regexp: /reg'eksp/ /n./ [Unix] (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')

1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular

expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by Unix

utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.

These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those

described under {glob}. For purposes of this lexicon, it is

sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character

sets using `^'; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic

character' with `[^A-Za-z]'. 2. Name of a well-known PD

regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered Usenetter

Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>.

:register dancing: /n./ Many older processor architectures

suffer from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers. This

is especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their

generated code needs places to store temporaries for things like

intermediate values in expression evaluation. Some designs with

this problem, like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of

special-purpose registers that can be pressed into service,

providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects

on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose register

is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is

required in which the previous value of the register is saved and

then restored just before the official function (and value) of the

special-purpose register is again needed.

:reincarnation, cycle of: /n./ See {cycle of reincarnation}.

:reinvent the wheel: /v./ To design or implement a tool

equivalent to an existing one or part of one, with the implication

that doing so is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid

criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden

rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times

before you get them right. On the third hand, people reinventing

the wheel do tend to come up with the moral equivalent of a

trapezoid with an offset axle.

:religion of CHI: /ki:/ /n./ [Case Western Reserve

University] Yet another hackish parody religion (see also

{Church of the SubGenius}, {Discordianism}). In the mid-70s,

the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were

taught in Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and

run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named

CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever

the worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she

would recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN,

ARCCOS, ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five

functions in the appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the

special pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more

common /ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of

11:08's arrival was {considered harmful}.

:religious issues: /n./ Questions which seemingly cannot be

raised without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the

best operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell,

mail reader, news reader)?", "What about that Heinlein guy,

eh?", "What should we add to the new Jargon File?" See

{holy wars}; see also {theology}, {bigot}.

This term is a prime example of {ha ha only serious}. People

actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense

attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.

The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the

crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave -- unless, of course,

one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct

choices are being slammed.

:replicator: /n./ Any construct that acts to produce copies of

itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a

program (see {quine}, {worm}, {wabbit}, {fork bomb},

and {virus}), a pattern in a cellular automaton (see {life},

sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or {nanobot}. It is even

claimed by some that {{Unix}} and {C} are the symbiotic halves

of an extremely successful replicator; see {Unix conspiracy}.

:reply: /n./ See {followup}.

:restriction: /n./ A {bug} or design error that limits a

program's capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that

nobody can quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a

{feature}. Often used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make

it sound as though some crippling bogosity had been intended by the

designers all along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical

constraints of a nature no mere user could possibly comprehend

(these claims are almost invariably false).

Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a

quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a

power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1. If you impose a limit of

107 items in a list, everyone will know it is a random number -- on

the other hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason

(involving 0- or 1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less

{flamage} for it. Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are

always especially suspect.

:retcon: /ret'kon/ [short for `retroactive continuity',

from the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.comics] 1. /n./ The common

situation in pulp fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a

new story `reveals' things about events in previous stories,

usually leaving the `facts' the same (thus preserving

continuity) while completely changing their interpretation. For

example, revealing that a whole season of "Dallas" was a

dream was a retcon. 2. /vt./ To write such a story about a

character

or fictitious object. "Byrne has retconned Superman's cape so

that it is no longer unbreakable." "Marvelman's old adventures

were retconned into synthetic dreams." "Swamp Thing was

retconned from a transformed person into a sentient vegetable."

"Darth Vader was retconned into Luke Skywalker's father in

"The Empire Strikes Back".

[This term is included because it is a good example of hackish

linguistic innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.

The word `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and

lose its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for

the record, it started here. --ESR]

[1993 update: some comics fans on the net now claim that retcon was

independently in use in comics fandom before rec.arts.comics.

In lexicography, nothing is ever simple. --ESR]

:RETI: /v./ Syn. {RTI}

:retrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ /n./ Refers to

emulations of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software,

or implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such

implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies,

written mostly for {hack value}, of more `serious' designs.

Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the

`pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)' program on V7 and other early Unix

versions, which would accept up to 80 characters of text argument

and display the corresponding pattern in {{punched card}} code.

Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have included the programming

language {INTERCAL}, a {JCL}-emulating shell for Unix, the

card-punch-emulating editor named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11

hardware emulators and RT-11 OS emulators written just to keep an

old, sourceless {Zork} binary running.

A tasty selection of retrocomputing programs are made available at

the Retrocomputing Museum, http://www.ccil.org/retro.

:return from the dead: /v./ To regain access to the net after a

long absence. Compare {person of no account}.

:RFC: /R-F-C/ /n./ [Request For Comment] One of a

long-established series of numbered Internet informational

documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and

freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Perhaps the single

most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet mail-format

standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by

technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by

the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an

institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as

RFCs even once adopted as standards.

The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact

standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has

important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process

typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is

the existence of a flourishing tradition of `joke' RFCs; usually

at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known

joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22

June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin;

1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP

Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April

1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody

of the TCP-IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan

skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for

transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon.

The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work -- they manage

to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal

specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that

often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has

grown to truly worldwide proportions.

:RFE: /R-F-E/ /n./ 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement

(compare {RFC}). 2. [from `Radio Free Europe', Bellcore and

Sun] Radio Free Ethernet, a system (originated by Peter Langston)

for broadcasting audio among Sun SPARCstations over the ethernet.

:rib site: /n./ [by analogy with {backbone site}] A machine

that has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and

serves as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party

traffic in email and Usenet news. Compare {leaf site},

{backbone site}.

:rice box: /n./ [from ham radio slang] Any Asian-made commodity

computer, esp. an 80x86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible

ISA or EISA-bus standards.

:Right Thing: /n./ That which is *compellingly* the

correct or appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc. Often

capitalized, always emphasized in speech as though capitalized.

Use of this term often implies that in fact reasonable people may

disagree. "What's the right thing for LISP to do when it sees

`(mod a 0)'? Should it return `a', or give a divide-by-0

error?" Oppose {Wrong Thing}.

:RL: // /n./ [MUD community] Real Life. "Firiss laughs in

RL" means that Firiss's player is laughing. Oppose {VR}.

:roach: /vt./ [Bell Labs] To destroy, esp. of a data

structure. Hardware gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets

roached.

:robot: /n./ [IRC, MUD] An {IRC} or {MUD} user who is

actually a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some

useful service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent

random users from adopting {nick}s already claimed by others,

and MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be

delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are

`annoybots', such as KissServ, which perform no useful function

except to send cute messages to other people. Service robots are

less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the `Julia' robot

active in 1990--91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test

experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen

minutes of conversation.

:robust: /adj./ Said of a system that has demonstrated an

ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional

inputs and situations in a given environment. One step below

{bulletproof}. Carries the additional connotation of elegance

in addition to just careful attention to detail. Compare

{smart}, oppose {brittle}.

:rococo: /adj./ Terminally {baroque}. Used to imply that a

program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of

gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the

underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms

of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the

mid-1700s in Europe. Alan Perlis said: "Every program eventually

becomes rococo, and then rubble." Compare {critical mass}.

:rogue: /n./ [Unix] A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character

graphics, written under BSD Unix and subsequently ported to other

Unix systems. The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling

package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support

`rogue(6)' and has since become one of Unix's most important

and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, and

an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the

inspiration provided by `rogue(6)'. See also {nethack}.

:room-temperature IQ: /quant./ [IBM] 80 or below (nominal room

temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, 22 degrees Celsius). Used in

describing the expected intelligence range of the {luser}.

"Well, but how's this interface going to play with the

room-temperature IQ crowd?" See {drool-proof paper}. This is

a much more insulting phrase in countries that use Celsius

thermometers.

:root: /n./ [Unix] 1. The {superuser} account (with user

name `root') that ignores permission bits, user number 0 on a

Unix system. The term {avatar} is also used. 2. The top node

of the system directory structure; historically the home directory

of the root user, but probably named after the root of an

(inverted) tree. 3. By extension, the privileged

system-maintenance login on any OS. See {root mode}, {go

root}, see also {wheel}.

:root mode: /n./ Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'.

Like these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states

in systems other than OSes.

:rot13: /rot ther'teen/ /n.,v./ [Usenet: from `rotate

alphabet 13 places'] The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that

replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back

along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur

ohgyre qvq vg!" Most Usenet news reading and posting programs

include a rot13 feature. It is used to enclose the text in a

sealed wrapper that the reader must choose to open -- e.g., for

posting things that might offend some readers, or {spoiler}s. A

major advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is

that it is self-inverse, so the same code can be used for encoding

and decoding.

:rotary debugger: /n./ [Commodore] Essential equipment for

those late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used

as sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colors, such

as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. See {pizza, ANSI standard}.

:round tape: /n./ Industry-standard 1/2-inch magnetic tape (7-

or 9-track) on traditional circular reels. See {macrotape},

oppose {square tape}.

:RSN: /R-S-N/ /adj./ See {Real Soon Now}.

:RTBM: /R-T-B-M/ /imp./ [Unix] Commonwealth Hackish variant

of {RTFM}; expands to `Read The Bloody Manual'. RTBM is often

the entire text of the first reply to a question from a

{newbie}; the *second* would escalate to "RTFM".

:RTFAQ: /R-T-F-A-Q/ /imp./ [Usenet: primarily written, by

analogy with {RTFM}] Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an

exhortation that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's

{FAQ list} before posting questions.

:RTFB: /R-T-F-B/ /imp./ [Unix] Acronym for `Read The Fucking

Binary'. Used when neither documentation nor source for the

problem at hand exists, and the only thing to do is use some

debugger or monitor and directly analyze the assembler or even the

machine code. "No source for the buggy port driver? Aaargh! I

*hate* proprietary operating systems. Time to RTFB."

Of the various RTF? forms, `RTFB' is the least pejorative against

anyone asking a question for which RTFB is the answer; the anger

here is directed at the absence of both source *and* adequate

documentation.

:RTFM: /R-T-F-M/ /imp./ [Unix] Acronym for `Read The Fucking

Manual'. 1. Used by {guru}s to brush off questions they

consider trivial or annoying. Compare {Don't do that, then!}.

2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just

asking out of {randomness}. "No, I can't figure out how to

interface Unix to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM." Unlike

sense 1, this use is considered polite. See also {FM},

{RTFAQ}, {RTFB}, {RTFS}, {RTM}, all of which mutated

from RTFM, and compare {UTSL}.

:RTFS: /R-T-F-S/ [Unix] 1. /imp./ Acronym for `Read The

Fucking Source'. Variant form of {RTFM}, used when the problem

at hand is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the

manuals -- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will

be. For even trickier situations, see {RTFB}. Unlike RTFM, the

anger inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking

the question, but rather at the people who failed to provide

adequate documentation. 2. /imp./ `Read The Fucking Standard';

this

oath can only be used when the problem area (e.g., a language or

operating system interface) has actually been codified in a

ratified standards document. The existence of these standards

documents (and the technically inappropriate but politically

mandated compromises that they inevitably contain, and the

impenetrable {legalese} in which they are invariably written,

and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are

produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain

amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems they use.

(Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long as the

{Right Thing} to do is obvious to any thinking observer; sadly,

this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable when

a system becomes popular in the {Real World}.) Since a hacker

is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and

technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be

directed as much against the standard as against the person who

ought to read it.

:RTI: /R-T-I/ /interj./ The mnemonic for the `return from

interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and

6800. The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers

(almost nobody programs these things in assembler anymore).

Equivalent to "Now, where was I?" or used to end a

conversational digression. See {pop}; see also {POPJ}.

:RTM: /R-T-M/ [Usenet: abbreviation for `Read The Manual']

1. Politer variant of {RTFM}. 2. Robert T. Morris,

perpetrator of the great Internet worm of 1988 (see {Great Worm,

the}); villain to many, naive hacker gone wrong to a few. Morris

claimed that the worm that brought the Internet to its knees was a

benign experiment that got out of control as the result of a coding

error. After the storm of negative publicity that followed this

blunder, Morris's username on ITS was hacked from RTM to

{RTFM}.

:RTS: /R-T-S/ /imp./ Acronym for `Read The Screen'. Mainly

used by hackers in the microcomputer world. Refers to what one

would like to tell the {suit} one is forced to explain an

extremely simple application to. Particularly appropriate when the

suit failed to notice the `Press any key to continue' prompt, and

wishes to know `why won't it do anything'. Also seen as `RTFS' in

especially deserving cases.

:rude: [WPI] /adj./ 1. (of a program) Badly written.

2. Functionally poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use

because of gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. Oppose

{cuspy}. 3. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without

regard for its other users in such a way as to cause a (non-fatal)

problem. Examples: programs that change tty modes without

resetting them on exit, or windowing programs that keep forcing

themselves to the top of the window stack. Compare

{all-elbows}.

:runes: /pl.n./ 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry}

or {black art} to {parse}: core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or

code in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Not quite as

bad as {line noise}, but close. Compare {casting the runes},

{Great Runes}. 2. Special display characters (for example, the

high-half graphics on an IBM PC). 3. [borderline techspeak]

16-bit characters from the Unicode multilingual character set.

:runic: /adj./ Syn. {obscure}. VMS fans sometimes refer to

Unix as `Runix'; Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS

to `Very Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Syst`eme' (French

idiom, "Hugely Bad System").

:rusty iron: /n./ Syn. {tired iron}. It has been claimed

that this is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.

:rusty memory: /n./ Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based

magnetic media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk

packs used in {washing machine}s). Compare {donuts}.

:rusty wire: /n./ [Amateur Packet Radio] Any very noisy network

medium, in which the packets are subject to frequent corruption.

Most prevalent in reference to wireless links subject to all the

vagaries of RF noise and marginal propagation conditions. "Yes,

but how good is your whizbang new protocol on really rusty

wire?".

= S =

=====

:S/N ratio: // /n./ (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio').

Syn. {signal-to-noise ratio}. Often abbreviated `SNR'.

:sacred: /adj./ Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an

extension of the standard meaning). Often means that anyone may

look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it

is sacred to. The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the interrupt

handler" appearing in a program would be interpreted by a hacker

to mean that if any *other* part of the program changes the

contents of register 7, dire consequences are likely to ensue.

:saga: /n./ [WPI] A cuspy but bogus raving story about N

random broken people.

Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L.

Steele:

Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at

MIT for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to

California for a week on research business, to consult

face-to-face with some people at Stanford, particularly our

mutual friend Richard P. Gabriel (RPG; see {gabriel}).

RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back

to Palo Alto (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to {El

Camino Bignum}). Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University

and about 40 miles south of San Francisco. We ate at The Good

Earth, a `health food' restaurant, very popular, the sort whose

milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder. JONL ordered

such a shake -- the waitress claimed the flavor of the day was

"lalaberry". I still have no idea what that might be, but it

became a running joke. It was the color of raspberry, and JONL

said it tasted rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than

I have ever had in a Mexican restaurant.

After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice

Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of

intriguing flavors. It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If

you don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's -- MOVE!" Also, Uncle

Gaylord (a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name

ice cream makers to print their ingredients on the package (like

air and plastic and other non-natural garbage). JONL and I had

first discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had

flown to a computer-science conference in Berkeley, California,

the first time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not

in the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the

length of Telegraph Avenue, which (like Harvard Square in

Cambridge) was lined with picturesque street vendors and

interesting little shops. On that street we discovered Uncle

Gaylord's Berkeley store. The ice cream there was very good.

During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to

speak) over one particular flavor, ginger honey.

Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth -- indeed, after every

lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit -- a trip

to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory. We had

arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there

at least four times. Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice

cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice

that drove the Europeans mad! That's why they sought a route to

the East! They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste

meat." After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were

getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase

him: "Wow! Ginger! The spice that makes rotten meat taste

good!" "Say! Why don't we find some dog that's been run over

and sat in the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for

dinner?!" "Right! With a lalaberry shake!" And so on. This

failed to faze JONL; he took it in good humor, as long as we kept

returning to Uncle Gaylord's. He loves ginger honey ice cream.

Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up

(putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them

JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their

choosing. I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had

je ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin

(rabbit). (Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh

today." RPG: "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any

*ginger*!")

We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M Boston

time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet

midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's!

Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo

Alto. In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101

going north instead of south. JONL and I wouldn't have known the

difference had RPG not mentioned it. We still knew very little

of the local geography. I did figure out, however, that we were

headed in the direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested

that we continue north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.

RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked. I was

drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes.

When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the

way over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San

Francisco Bay. Just then we came to a sign that said "University

Avenue". I mumbled something about working our way over to

Telegraph Avenue; RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more.

Eventually we pulled up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.

Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so

sleepy, and I didn't really understand what was happening until

RPG let me in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert

enough to notice that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle

Gaylord's after all.

JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't

caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at

night, and looks much different from the way it does in

daylight.) He said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in

Berkeley! It looked like a barn! But this place looks *just

like* the one back in Palo Alto!"

RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to when

I'm in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too.

Remember, they're a chain."

JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant

--- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,

not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that

there is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.

JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy

at the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,

evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too

many people like it.

JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy

behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first.

"Some people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look, I

*love* ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I

already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto.

I *know* I like that flavor!"

At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a

very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his

eye and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped

what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor

laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched

into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the

forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully.