3. The assumption that a pointer to any one type can freely be cast
into a pointer to any other type. A stronger form of this is the
assumption that all pointers are the same size and format, which
means you don't have to worry about getting the casts or types
correct in calls. Problem: this fails on word-oriented machines
or others with multiple pointer formats.
4. The assumption that the parameters of a routine are stored in
memory, on a stack, contiguously, and in strictly ascending or
descending order. Problem: this fails on many RISC
architectures.
5. The assumption that pointer and integer types are the same size,
and that pointers can be stuffed into integer variables (and
vice-versa) and drawn back out without being truncated or
mangled. Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or
word-oriented machines with funny pointer formats.
6. The assumption that a data type of any size may begin at any byte
address in memory (for example, that you can freely construct and
dereference a pointer to a word- or greater-sized object at an
odd char address). Problem: this fails on many (esp. RISC)
architectures better optimized for {HLL} execution speed, and can
cause an illegal address fault or bus error.
7. The (related) assumption that there is no padding at the end of
types and that in an array you can thus step right from the last
byte of a previous component to the first byte of the next one.
This is not only machine- but compiler-dependent.
8. The assumption that memory address space is globally flat and
that the array reference `foo[-1]' is necessarily valid.
Problem: this fails at 0, or other places on segment-addressed
machines like Intel chips (yes, segmentation is universally
considered a {brain-damaged} way to design machines (see {moby}),
but that is a separate issue).
9. The assumption that objects can be arbitrarily large with no
special considerations. Problem: this fails on segmented
architectures and under non-virtual-addressing environments.
10. The assumption that the stack can be as large as memory.
Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or almost anything
else without virtual addressing and a paged stack.
11. The assumption that bits and addressable units within an object
are ordered in the same way and that this order is a constant of
nature. Problem: this fails on {big-endian} machines.
12. The assumption that it is meaningful to compare pointers to
different objects not located within the same array, or to
objects of different types. Problem: the former fails on
segmented architectures, the latter on word-oriented machines or
others with multiple pointer formats.
13. The assumption that an `int' is 32 bits, or (nearly equivalently)
the assumption that `sizeof(int) == sizeof(long)'. Problem: this
fails on PDP-11s, 286-based systems and even on 386 and 68000
systems under some compilers.
14. The assumption that `argv[]' is writable. Problem: this fails in
many embedded-systems C environments and even under a few flavors
of Unix.
Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism
even if he or she has never seen a VAX. Some of these assumptions
(esp. 2--5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and
became endemic years before the VAX. The terms `vaxocentricity'
and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.
:vdiff: /vee'dif/ /v.,n./ Visual diff. The operation of
finding differences between two files by {eyeball search}. The
term `optical diff' has also been reported, and is sometimes more
specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical
printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot
differences. Though this method is poor for detecting omissions in
the `rear' file, it can also be used with printouts of graphics, a
claim few if any diff programs can make. See {diff}.
:veeblefester: /vee'b*l-fes`tr/ /n./ [from the "Born
Loser" comix via Commodore; prob. originally from "Mad"
Magazine's `Veeblefeetzer' parodies ca. 1960] Any obnoxious person
engaged in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management.
Antonym of {hacker}. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}.
:ventilator card: /n./ Syn. {lace card}.
:Venus flytrap: /n./ [after the insect-eating plant] See
{firewall machine}.
:verbage: /ver'b*j/ /n./ A deliberate misspelling and
mispronunciation of {verbiage} that assimilates it to the word
`garbage'. Compare {content-free}. More pejorative than
`verbiage'.
:verbiage: /n./ When the context involves a software or
hardware system, this refers to {{documentation}}. This term
borrows the connotations of mainstream `verbiage' to suggest that
the documentation is of marginal utility and that the motives
behind its production have little to do with the ostensible
subject.
:Version 7: alt. V7 /vee' se'vn/ /n./ The first widely
distributed version of {Unix}, released unsupported by Bell Labs
in 1978. The term is used adjectivally to describe Unix features
and programs that date from that release, and are thus guaranteed
to be present and portable in all Unix versions (this was the
standard gauge of portability before the POSIX and IEEE 1003
standards). Note that this usage does *not* derive from the
release being the "seventh version of {Unix}"; research
{Unix} at Bell Labs has traditionally been numbered according to
the edition of the associated documentation. Indeed, only the
widely-distributed Sixth and Seventh Editions are widely known as
V[67]; the OS that might today be known as `V10' is instead known
in full as "Tenth Edition Research Unix" or just "Tenth
Edition" for short. For this reason, "V7" is often read by
cognoscenti as "Seventh Edition". See {BSD}, {USG Unix},
{{Unix}}. Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and
kernel bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True Unix.
:vgrep: /vee'grep/ /v.,n./ Visual grep. The operation of
finding patterns in a file optically rather than digitally (also
called an `optical grep'). See {grep}; compare {vdiff}.
:vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ /n./
[from `Visual Interface'] A screen editor crufted together by Bill
Joy for an early {BSD} release. Became the de facto
standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite
outside of MIT until the rise of {EMACS} after about 1984.
Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take
commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default
setup provides no indication of which mode the editor is in (one
correspondent accordingly reports that he has often heard the
editor's name pronounced /vi:l/). Nevertheless it is still
widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll
preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail
editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up
faster than the bulkier versions of EMACS). See {holy wars}.
:videotex: /n. obs./ An electronic service offering people the
privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens
instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they
brush their teeth. The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't
government-subsidized, because by the time videotex was practical
the installed base of personal computers could hook up to
timesharing services and do the things for which videotex might
have been worthwhile better and cheaper. Videotex planners badly
overestimated both the appeal of getting information from a
computer and the cost of local intelligence at the user's end.
Like the {gorilla arm} effect, this has been a cautionary tale
to hackers ever since. See also {vannevar}.
:virgin: /adj./ Unused; pristine; in a known initial state.
"Let's bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again."
(Esp. useful after contracting a {virus} through {SEX}.)
Also, by extension, buffers and the like within a program that have
not yet been used.
:virtual: /adj./ [via the technical term `virtual memory',
prob. from the term `virtual image' in optics] 1. Common
alternative to {logical}; often used to refer to the artificial
objects (like addressable virtual memory larger than physical
memory) simulated by a computer system as a convenient way to
manage
access to shared resources. 2. Simulated; performing the functions
of something that isn't really there. An imaginative child's doll
may be a virtual playmate. Oppose {real}.
:virtual Friday: /n./ (also `logical Friday') The last day
before an extended weekend, if that day is not a `real' Friday.
For example, the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.
The next day is often also a holiday or taken as an extra day off,
in which case Wednesday of that week is a virtual Friday (and
Thursday is a virtual Saturday, as is Friday). There are also
`virtual Mondays' that are actually Tuesdays, after the three-day
weekends associated with many national holidays in the U.S.
:virtual reality: /n./ 1. Computer simulations that use 3-D
graphics and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to
interact with the simulation. See {cyberspace}. 2. A form of
network interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games,
interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and `true
confessions' magazines. In a virtual reality forum (such as
Usenet's alt.callahans newsgroup or the {MUD} experiments on
Internet), interaction between the participants is written like a
shared novel complete with scenery, `foreground characters' that
may be personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and
common `background characters' manipulable by all parties. The
one iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a
character without the consent of the person who `owns' it.
Otherwise anything goes. See {bamf}, {cyberspace},
{teledildonics}.
:virtual shredder: /n./ The jargonic equivalent of the {bit
bucket} at shops using IBM's VM/CMS operating system. VM/CMS
officially supports a whole bestiary of virtual card readers,
virtual printers, and other phantom devices; these are used to
supply some of the same capabilities Unix gets from pipes and I/O
redirection.
:virus: /n./ [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses,
via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and
`infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that
they become {Trojan horse}s. When these programs are executed,
the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the
`infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user.
Unlike a {worm}, a virus cannot infect other computers without
assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading
programs with their friends (see {SEX}). The virus may do
nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run
normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a
while, it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the
terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses
include nice {display hack}s). Many nasty viruses, written by
particularly perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible
damage, like nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially
among IBM PC and Macintosh users (the lack of security on these
machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the
operating system). The production of special anti-virus software
has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports
have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many
{luser}s tend to blame *everything* that doesn't work as
they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of
`virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular
usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or
even a {Trojan horse}). See {phage}; compare {back door};
see also {Unix conspiracy}.
:visionary: /n./ 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an
Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of
getting computers to `see' things using TV cameras. (There
isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a
computer. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to
make use of the camera information? See {SMOP},
{AI-complete}.) 2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature.
At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.
:VMS: /V-M-S/ /n./ DEC's proprietary operating system for its
VAX minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom
largest in hacker folklore. Many Unix fans generously concede that
VMS would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if Unix
didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. One major
hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness -- thus the following
limerick:
There once was a system called VMS
Of cycles by no means abstemious.
It's chock-full of hacks
And runs on a VAX
And makes my poor stomach all squeamious.
-- The Great Quux
See also {VAX}, {{TOPS-10}}, {{TOPS-20}}, {{Unix}}, {runic}.
:voice: /vt./ To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or
connecting in {talk mode}. "I'm busy now; I'll voice you
later."
:voice-net: /n./ Hackish way of referring to the telephone
system, analogizing it to a digital network. Usenet {sig
block}s not uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a
"Voice:" or "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are
"Voicenet" and "V-Net". Compare {paper-net},
{snail-mail}.
:voodoo programming: /n./ [from George Bush's "voodoo
economics"] The use by guess or cookbook of an {obscure} or
{hairy} system, feature, or algorithm that one does not truly
understand. The implication is that the technique may not work,
and if it doesn't, one will never know why. Almost synonymous with
{black magic}, except that black magic typically isn't
documented and *nobody* understands it. Compare {magic},
{deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}, {rain dance}, {cargo
cult programming}, {wave a dead chicken}.
:VR: // [MUD] /n./ On-line abbrev for {virtual reality},
as opposed to {RL}.
:Vulcan nerve pinch: /n./ [from the old "Star Trek" TV
series via Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that
forces a soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support
such a feature). On many micros this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns,
L1-A; on some Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch>! Also called
{three-finger salute}. Compare {quadruple bucky}.
:vulture capitalist: /n./ Pejorative hackerism for `venture
capitalist', deriving from the common practice of pushing contracts
that deprive inventors of control over their own innovations and
most of the money they ought to have made from them.
= W =
=====
:wabbit: /wab'it/ /n./ [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's
immortal line "You wascawwy wabbit!"] 1. A legendary early hack
reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978; this may
have descended (if only by inspiration) from a hack called RABBITS
reported from 1969 on a Burroughs 5500 at the University of
Washington Computer Center. The program would make two copies of
itself every time it was run, eventually crashing the system.
2. By extension, any hack that includes infinite self-replication
but is not a {virus} or {worm}. See {fork bomb} and
{rabbit job}, see also {cookie monster}.
:WAITS:: /wayts/ /n./ The mutant cousin of {{TOPS-10}} used
on a handful of systems at {{SAIL}} up to 1990. There was never
an `official' expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been
arrived at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently
glossed as `West-coast Alternative to ITS'. Though WAITS was less
visible than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas
between the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS
exerted enormous indirect influence. The early screen modes of
{EMACS}, for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's `E'
editor -- one of a family of editors that were the first to do
`real-time editing', in which the editing commands were invisible
and where one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting.
The modern style of multi-region windowing is said to have
originated there, and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere
played major roles in the developments that led to the XEROX Star,
the Macintosh, and the Sun workstations. Also invented there were
{bucky bits} -- thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS
legacy. One notable WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was
a news-wire interface that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store,
and filter AP and UPI dispatches from their terminals; the system
also featured a still-unusual level of support for what is now
called `multimedia' computing, allowing analog audio and video
signals to be switched to programming terminals.
:waldo: /wol'doh/ /n./ [From Robert A. Heinlein's story
"Waldo"] 1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm,
controlled by a human limb. When these were developed for the
nuclear industry in the mid-1940s they were named after the
invention described by Heinlein in the story, which he wrote in
1942. Now known by the more generic term `telefactoring', this
technology is of intense interest to NASA for tasks like space
station maintenance. 2. At Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham
and students), this is used instead of {foobar} as a
metasyntactic variable and general nonsense word. See {foo},
{bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.
:walk: /n.,vt./ Traversal of a data structure, especially an
array or linked-list data structure in {core}. See also
{codewalker}, {silly walk}, {clobber}.
:walk off the end of: /vt./ To run past the end of an array,
list, or medium after stepping through it -- a good way to land in
trouble. Often the result of an {off-by-one error}. Compare
{clobber}, {roach}, {smash the stack}.
:walking drives: /n./ An occasional failure mode of
magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky
{washing machine}s. Those old {dinosaur} parts carried
terrific angular momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle
or worn bearings and stick-slip interactions with the floor could
cause them to `walk' across a room, lurching alternate corners
forward a couple of millimeters at a time. There is a legend about
a drive that walked over to the only door to the computer room and
jammed it shut; the staff had to cut a hole in the wall in order to
get at it! Walking could also be induced by certain patterns of
drive access (a fast seek across the whole width of the disk,
followed by a slow seek in the other direction). Some bands of
old-time hackers figured out how to induce disk-accessing patterns
that would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive
races.
:wall: /interj./ [WPI] 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken
with a quizzical tone: "Wall??" 2. A request for further
explication. Compare {octal forty}. 3. [Unix, from `write
all'] /v./ To send a message to everyone currently logged in,
esp. with the wall(8) utility.
It is said that sense 1 came from the idiom `like talking to a
blank wall'. It was originally used in situations where, after you
had carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you
blankly, clearly having understood nothing that was explained. You
would then throw out a "Hello, wall?" to elicit some sort of
response from the questioner. Later, confused questioners began
voicing "Wall?" themselves.
:wall follower: /n./ A person or algorithm that compensates for
lack of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following
some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past.
Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily pejorative; it
recalls `Harvey Wallbanger', the winning robot in an early AI
contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey
successfully solved mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and
running till it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it
was mathematically guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes ---
and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that
tried to `learn' each maze by building an internal
representation of it. Used of humans, the term *is*
pejorative and implies an uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book
mentality. See also {code grinder}; compare {droid}.
:wall time: /n./ (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world'
time (what the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system
clock's idea of time. 2. The real running time of a program, as
opposed to the number of {tick}s required to execute it (on a
timesharing system these always differ, as no one program gets all
the ticks, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support
one may get more processor time than real time).
:wallpaper: /n./ 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly
listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of
all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for
such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced
at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.) Now rare, esp.
since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO
on TWENEX). However, the Unix world doesn't have an equivalent
term, so perhaps {wallpaper} will take hold there. The term
probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end
transcript files were `:WALBEG' and `:WALEND', with
default file `WALL PAPER' (the space was a path delimiter).
2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations (this is
techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user interface to
MS-DOS). 3. `wallpaper file' /n./ The file that contains the
wallpaper information before it is actually printed on paper.
(Even if you don't intend ever to produce a real paper copy of the
file, it is still called a wallpaper file.)
:wango: /wang'goh/ /n./ Random bit-level {grovel}ling
going on in a system during some unspecified operation. Often used
in combination with {mumble}. For example: "You start with the
`.o' file, run it through this postprocessor that does mumble-wango
-- and it comes out a snazzy object-oriented executable."
:wank: /wangk/ /n.,v.,adj./ [Columbia University: prob. by
mutation from Commonwealth slang /v./ `wank', to masturbate] Used
much as {hack} is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever
technique or person or the result of such cleverness. May describe
(negatively) the act of hacking for hacking's sake ("Quit wanking,
let's go get supper!") or (more positively) a {wizard}. Adj.
`wanky' describes something particularly clever (a person,
program, or algorithm). Conversations can also get wanky when
there are too many wanks involved. This excess wankiness is
signalled by an overload of the `wankometer' (compare
{bogometer}). When the wankometer overloads, the conversation's
subject must be changed, or all non-wanks will leave. Compare
`neep-neeping' (under {neep-neep}). Usage: U.S. only. In
Britain and the Commonwealth this word is *extremely* rude and
is best avoided unless one intends to give offense.
:wannabee: /won'*-bee/ /n./ (also, more plausibly, spelled
`wannabe') [from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans
who dress, talk, and act like their idol; prob. originally from
biker slang] A would-be {hacker}. The connotations of this term
differ sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject.
Used of a person who is in or might be entering {larval stage},
it is semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most
hackers remember that they, too, were once such creatures. When
used of any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or
{suit}, it is derogatory, implying that said person is trying to
cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a
prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of terms
from this lexicon is often an indication of the {wannabee}
nature. Compare {newbie}.
Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different
flavor now (1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the
people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in {larval
stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious
and unaffected by models known in popular culture -- communities
formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt
irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees
experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become
similarly wizardly. Those days of innocence are gone forever;
society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980
included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero,
and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to
*be hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the
popular image of hackers. Fortunately, to do this really well, one
has to actually become a wizard. Nevertheless, old-time hackers
tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change; among
other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of
public compendia of lore like this one.
:war dialer: /n./ A cracking tool, a program that calls a given
list or range of phone numbers and records those which answer with
handshake tones (and so might be entry points to computer or
telecommunications systems). Some of these programs have become
quite sophisticated, and can now detect modem, fax, or PBX tones
and log each one separately. The war dialer is one of the most
important tools in the {phreaker}'s kit. These programs evolved
from early {demon dialer}s.
:warez: /weirz/ /n./ Widely used in {cracker} subcultures
to denote cracked version of commercial software, that is versions
from which copy-protection has been stripped. Hackers recognize
this term but don't use it themselves. See {warez d00dz}.
:warez d00dz: /weirz doodz/ /n./ A substantial subculture of
{cracker}s refer to themselves as `warez d00dz'; there is
evidently some connection with {B1FF} here. As `Ozone Pilot',
one former warez d00d, wrote:
Warez d00dz get illegal copies of copyrighted software. If it
has copy protection on it, they break the protection so the
software can be copied. Then they distribute it around the world
via several gateways. Warez d00dz form badass group names like
RAZOR and the like. They put up boards that distribute the
latest ware, or pirate program. The whole point of the Warez
sub-culture is to get the pirate program released and distributed
before any other group. I know, I know. But don't ask, and it
won't hurt as much. This is how they prove their poweress [sic].
It gives them the right to say, "I released King's Quest IVXIX
before you so obviously my testicles are larger." Again don't
ask...
The studly thing to do if one is a warez d00d, it appears, is emit
`0-day warez', that is copies of commercial software copied and
cracked on the same day as its retail release. Warez d00ds also
hoard software in a big way, collecting untold megabytes of
arcade-style games, pornographic GIFs, and applications they'll
never use onto their hard disks. As Ozone Pilot acutely observes:
[BELONG] is the only word you will need to know. Warez d00dz
want to belong. They have been shunned by everyone, and thus
turn to cyberspace for acceptance. That is why they always start
groups like TGW, FLT, USA and the like. Structure makes them
happy. [...] Warez d00dz will never have a handle like "Pink
Daisy" because warez d00dz are insecure. Only someone who is
very secure with a good dose of self-esteem can stand up to the
cries of fag and girlie-man. More likely you will find warez
d00dz with handles like: Doctor Death, Deranged Lunatic,
Hellraiser, Mad Prince, Dreamdevil, The Unknown, Renegade
Chemist, Terminator, and Twin Turbo. They like to sound badass
when they can hide behind their terminals. More likely, if you
were given a sample of 100 people, the person whose handle is
Hellraiser is the last person you'd associate with the name.
The contrast with Internet hackers is stark and instructive. See
{cracker}, {wannabee}, {handle}, {elite}; compare
{weenie}, {spod}.
:warlording: /v./ [from the Usenet group alt.fan.warlord]
The act of excoriating a bloated, ugly, or derivative {sig
block}. Common grounds for warlording include the presence of a
signature rendered in a {BUAF}, over-used or cliched {sig
quote}s, ugly {ASCII art}, or simply excessive size. The
original `Warlord' was a {B1FF}-like {newbie} c.1991 who
featured in his sig a particularly large and obnoxious ASCII
graphic resembling the sword of Conan the Barbarian in the 1981
John Milius movie; the group name alt.fan.warlord was sarcasm,
and the characteristic mode of warlording is devastatingly
sarcastic praise.
:warm boot: /n./ See {boot}.
:wart: /n./ A small, {crock}y {feature} that sticks out
of an otherwise {clean} design. Something conspicuous for
localized ugliness, especially a special-case exception to a
general rule. For example, in some versions of `csh(1)',
single quotes literalize every character inside them except
`!'. In ANSI C, the `??' syntax used for obtaining ASCII
characters in a foreign environment is a wart. See also
{miswart}.
:washing machine: /n./ 1. Old-style 14-inch hard disks in
floor-standing cabinets. So called because of the size of the
cabinet and the `top-loading' access to the media packs -- and, of
course, they were always set on `spin cycle'. The
washing-machine idiom transcends language barriers; it is even used
in Russian hacker jargon. See also {walking drives}. The thick
channel cables connecting these were called `bit hoses' (see
{hose}, sense 3). 2. [CMU] A machine used exclusively for
{washing software}. CMU has clusters of these.
:washing software: /n./ The process of recompiling a software
distribution (used more often when the recompilation is occuring
from scratch) to pick up and merge together all of the various
changes that have been made to the source.
:water MIPS: /n./ (see {MIPS}, sense 2) Large, water-cooled
machines of either today's ECL-supercomputer flavor or yesterday's
traditional {mainframe} type.
:wave a dead chicken: /v./ To perform a ritual in the direction
of crashed software or hardware that one believes to be futile but
is nevertheless necessary so that others are satisfied that an
appropriate degree of effort has been expended. "I'll wave a dead
chicken over the source code, but I really think we've run into an
OS bug." Compare {voodoo programming}, {rain dance}.
:weasel: /n./ [Cambridge] A naive user, one who deliberately or
accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised. Roughly
synonymous with {loser}.
:web pointer: /n./ A World Wide Web {URL}. See also
{hotlink}, which has slightly different connotations.
:webmaster: /n./ [WWW: from {postmaster}] The person at a
site providing World Wide Web information who is responsible for
maintaining the public pages and keeping the Web server running and
properly configured.
:wedged: /adj./ 1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without
help. This is different from having crashed. If the system has
crashed, it has become totally non-functioning. If the system is
wedged, it is trying to do something but cannot make progress; it
may be capable of doing a few things, but not be fully operational.
For example, a process may become wedged if it {deadlock}s with
another (but not all instances of wedging are deadlocks). See also
{gronk}, {locked up}, {hosed}. 2. Often refers to humans
suffering misconceptions. "He's totally wedged -- he's convinced
that he can levitate through meditation." 3. [Unix] Specifically
used to describe the state of a TTY left in a losing state by abort
of a screen-oriented program or one that has messed with the line
discipline in some obscure way.
There is some dispute over the origin of this term. It is usually
thought to derive from a common description of recto-cranial
inversion; however, it may actually have originated with older
`hot-press' printing technology in which physical type elements
were locked into type frames with wedges driven in by mallets.
Once this had been done, no changes in the typesetting for that
page could be made.
:wedgie: /n./ [Fairchild] A bug. Prob. related to {wedged}.
:wedgitude: /wedj'i-t[y]ood/ /n./ The quality or state of
being {wedged}.
:weeble: /weeb'l/ /interj./ [Cambridge] Used to denote
frustration, usually at amazing stupidity. "I stuck the disk in
upside down." "Weeble...." Compare {gurfle}.
:weeds: /n./ 1. Refers to development projects or algorithms
that have no possible relevance or practical application. Comes
from `off in the weeds'. Used in phrases like "lexical analysis
for microcode is serious weeds...." 2. At CDC/ETA before its
demise, the phrase `go off in the weeds' was equivalent to IBM's
{branch to Fishkill} and mainstream hackerdom's {jump off
into never-never land}.
:weenie: /n./ 1. [on BBSes] Any of a species of luser
resembling a less amusing version of {B1FF} that infests many
{BBS} systems. The typical weenie is a teenage boy with poor
social skills travelling under a grandiose {handle} derived from
fantasy or heavy-metal rock lyrics. Among sysops, `the weenie
problem' refers to the marginally literate and profanity-laden
{flamage} weenies tend to spew all over a newly-discovered BBS.
Compare {spod}, {computer geek}, {terminal junkie},
{warez d00dz}. 2. [Among hackers] When used with a qualifier
(for example, as in {Unix weenie}, VMS weenie, IBM weenie) this
can be either an insult or a term of praise, depending on context,
tone of voice, and whether or not it is applied by a person who
considers him or herself to be the same sort of weenie. Implies
that the weenie has put a major investment of time, effort, and
concentration into the area indicated; whether this is good or bad
depends on the hearer's judgment of how the speaker feels about
that area. See also {bigot}. 3. The semicolon character,
`;' (ASCII 0111011).
:Weenix: /wee'niks/ /n./ [ITS] A derogatory term for
{{Unix}}, derived from {Unix weenie}. According to one noted
ex-ITSer, it is "the operating system preferred by Unix Weenies:
typified by poor modularity, poor reliability, hard file deletion,
no file version numbers, case sensitivity everywhere, and users who
believe that these are all advantages". (Some ITS fans behave as
though they believe Unix stole a future that rightfully belonged to
them. See {{ITS}}, sense 2.)
:well-behaved: /adj./ 1. [primarily {{MS-DOS}}] Said of
software conforming to system interface guidelines and standards.
Well-behaved software uses the operating system to do chores such
as keyboard input, allocating memory and drawing graphics. Oppose
{ill-behaved}. 2. Software that does its job quietly and
without counterintuitive effects. Esp. said of software having
an interface spec sufficiently simple and well-defined that it can
be used as a {tool} by other software. See {cat}.
:well-connected: /adj./ Said of a computer installation,
asserts that it has reliable email links with the network and/or
that it relays a large fraction of available {Usenet}
newsgroups. `Well-known' can be almost synonymous, but also
implies that the site's name is familiar to many (due perhaps to an
archive service or active Usenet users).
:wetware: /wet'weir/ /n./ [prob. from the novels of Rudy
Rucker] 1. The human nervous system, as opposed to computer
hardware or software. "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary
registers." 2. Human beings (programmers, operators,
administrators) attached to a computer system, as opposed to the
system's hardware or software. See {liveware}, {meatware}.
:whack: /v./ According to arch-hacker James Gosling (designer of
{NeWS}, {GOSMACS} and Java), to "...modify a program with no
idea whatsoever how it works." (See {whacker}.) It is actually
possible to do this in nontrivial circumstances if the change is
small and well-defined and you are very good at {glark}ing
things from context. As a trivial example, it is relatively easy
to change all `stderr' writes to `stdout' writes in a
piece of C filter code which remains otherwise mysterious.
:whacker: /n./ [University of Maryland: from {hacker}] 1. A
person, similar to a {hacker}, who enjoys exploring the details
of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities.
Whereas a hacker tends to produce great hacks, a whacker only ends
up whacking the system or program in question. Whackers are often
quite egotistical and eager to claim {wizard} status, regardless
of the views of their peers. 2. A person who is good at
programming quickly, though rather poorly and ineptly.
:whales: /n./ See {like kicking dead whales down the beach}.
:whalesong: /n./ The peculiar clicking and whooshing sounds
made by a PEP modem such as the Telebit Trailblazer as it tries to
synchronize with another PEP modem for their special high-speed
mode. This sound isn't anything like the normal two-tone handshake
between conventional V-series modems and is instantly recognizable
to anyone who has heard it more than once. It sounds, in fact,
very much like whale songs. This noise is also called "the moose
call" or "moose tones".
:What's a spline?: [XEROX PARC] This phrase expands to: "You
have just used a term that I've heard for a year and a half, and I
feel I should know, but don't. My curiosity has finally overcome
my guilt." The PARC lexicon adds "Moral: don't hesitate to ask
questions, even if they seem obvious."
:wheel: /n./ [from slang `big wheel' for a powerful person] A
person who has an active {wheel bit}. "We need to find a wheel
to unwedge the hung tape drives." (See {wedged}, sense 1.)
The traditional name of security group zero in {BSD} (to which
the major system-internal users like {root} belong) is
`wheel'. Some vendors have expanded on this usage, modifying
Unix so that only members of group `wheel' can {go root}.
:wheel bit: /n./ A privilege bit that allows the possessor to
perform some restricted operation on a timesharing system, such as
read or write any file on the system regardless of protections,
change or look at any address in the running monitor, crash or
reload the system, and kill or create jobs and user accounts. The
term was invented on the TENEX operating system, and carried over
to TOPS-20, XEROX-IFS, and others. The state of being in a
privileged logon is sometimes called `wheel mode'. This term
entered the Unix culture from TWENEX in the mid-1980s and has been
gaining popularity there (esp. at university sites). See also
{root}.
:wheel wars: /n./ [Stanford University] A period in {larval
stage} during which student hackers hassle each other by attempting
to log each other out of the system, delete each other's files, and
otherwise wreak havoc, usually at the expense of the lesser users.
:White Book: /n./ 1. Syn. {K&R}. 2. Adobe's fourth book in
the PostScript series, describing the previously-secret format of
Type 1 fonts; "Adobe Type 1 Font Format, version 1.1",
(Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-57044-0). See also {Red Book},
{Green Book}, {Blue Book}.
:whizzy: /adj./ (alt. `wizzy') [Sun] Describes a {cuspy}
program; one that is feature-rich and well presented.
:wibble: [UK] 1. /n.,v./ Commonly used to describe chatter,
content-free remarks or other essentially meaningless contributions
to threads in newsgroups. "Oh, rspence is wibbling again".
Compare {humma}. 2. One of the preferred {metasyntactic
variable}s in the UK, forming a series with `wobble',
`wubble', and `flob' (attributed to the hilarious
historical comedy "Blackadder").
:WIBNI: // /n./ [Bell Labs: Wouldn't It Be Nice If] What most
requirements documents and specifications consist entirely of.
Compare {IWBNI}.
:widget: /n./ 1. A meta-thing. Used to stand for a real object
in didactic examples (especially database tutorials). Legend has
it that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips. "But
suppose the parts list for a widget has 52 entries...."
2. [poss. evoking `window gadget'] A user interface object in
{X} graphical user interfaces.
:wiggles: /n./ [scientific computation] In solving partial
differential equations by finite difference and similar methods,
wiggles are sawtooth (up-down-up-down) oscillations at the shortest
wavelength representable on the grid. If an algorithm is unstable,
this is often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate
the solution. Alternatively, stable (though inaccurate) wiggles
can be generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon.
:WIMP environment: /n./ [acronym: `Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing
device (or Pull-down menu)'] A graphical-user-interface environment
such as {X} or the Macintosh interface, esp. as described by a
hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior
flexibility and extensibility. However, it is also used without
negative connotations; one must pay attention to voice tone and
other signals to interpret correctly. See {menuitis},
{user-obsequious}.
:win: [MIT] 1. /vi./ To succeed. A program wins if no
unexpected conditions arise, or (especially) if it sufficiently
{robust} to take exceptions in stride. 2. /n./ Success, or a
specific instance thereof. A pleasing outcome. "So it turned out
I could use a {lexer} generator instead of hand-coding my own
pattern recognizer. What a win!" Emphatic forms: `moby win',
`super win', `hyper-win' (often used interjectively as a
reply). For some reason `suitable win' is also common at MIT,
usually in reference to a satisfactory solution to a problem.
Oppose {lose}; see also {big win}, which isn't quite just an
intensification of `win'.
:win big: /vi./ To experience serendipity. "I went shopping
and won big; there was a 2-for-1 sale." See {big win}.
:win win: /excl./ Expresses pleasure at a {win}.
:Winchester:: /n./ Informal generic term for sealed-enclosure
magnetic-disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the
disk surface on an air cushion. There is a legend that the name
arose because the original 1973 engineering prototype for what
later became the IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30
became `Winchester' when somebody noticed the similarity to the
common term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the latter, the first
30 referred to caliber and the second to the grain weight of the
charge). Others claim, however, that Winchester was simply the
laboratory in which the technology was developed.
:windoid: /n./ In the Macintosh world, a style of window with
much less adornment (smaller or missing title bar, zoom box, etc,
etc) than a standard window.
:window shopping: /n./ [US Geological Survey] Among users of
{WIMP environment}s like {X} or the Macintosh, extended
experimentation with new window colors, fonts, and icon shapes.
This activity can take up hours of what might otherwise have been
productive working time. "I spent the afternoon window shopping
until I found the coolest shade of green for my active window
borders -- now they perfectly match my medium slate blue
background." Serious window shoppers will spend their days with
bitmap editors, creating new and different icons and background
patterns for all to see. Also: `window dressing', the act of
applying new fonts, colors, etc. See {fritterware}, compare
{macdink}.
:Windoze: /win'dohz/ /n./ See {Microsloth Windows}.
:winged comments: /n./ Comments set on the same line as code,
as opposed to {boxed comments}. In C, for example:
d = sqrt(x*x + y*y); /* distance from origin */
Generally these refer only to the action(s) taken on that line.
:winkey: /n./ (alt. `winkey face') See {emoticon}.
:winnage: /win'*j/ /n./ The situation when a lossage is
corrected, or when something is winning.
:winner: 1. /n./ An unexpectedly good situation, program,
programmer, or person. 2. `real winner': Often sarcastic, but
also used as high praise (see also the note under {user}).
"He's a real winner -- never reports a bug till he can duplicate
it and send in an example."
:winnitude: /win'*-t[y]ood/ /n./ The quality of winning (as
opposed to {winnage}, which is the result of winning). "Guess
what? They tweaked the microcode and now the LISP interpreter runs
twice as fast as it used to." "That's really great! Boy, what
winnitude!" "Yup. I'll probably get a half-hour's winnage on the
next run of my program." Perhaps curiously, the obvious antonym
`lossitude' is rare.
:wired: /n./ See {hardwired}.
:wirehead: /wi:r'hed/ /n./ [prob. from SF slang for an
electrical-brain-stimulation addict] 1. A hardware hacker,
especially one who concentrates on communications hardware. 2. An
expert in local-area networks. A wirehead can be a network
software wizard too, but will always have the ability to deal with
network hardware, down to the smallest component. Wireheads are
known for their ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from
spare resistors, for example.
:wirewater: /n./ Syn. {programming fluid}. This melds the
mainstream slang adjective `wired' (stimulated, up, hyperactive)
with `firewater'; however, it refers to caffeinacious rather than
alcoholic beverages.
:wish list: /n./ A list of desired features or bug fixes that
probably won't get done for a long time, usually because the person
responsible for the code is too busy or can't think of a clean way
to do it. "OK, I'll add automatic filename completion to the wish
list for the new interface." Compare {tick-list features}.
:within delta of: /adj./ See {delta}.
:within epsilon of: /adj./ See {epsilon}.
:wizard: /n./ 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of
software or hardware works (that is, who {grok}s it); esp.
someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency. Someone
is a {hacker} if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a
wizard with respect to something only if he or she has specific
detailed knowledge of that thing. A good hacker could become a
wizard for something given the time to study it. 2. A person who
is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary people; one who has
{wheel} privileges on a system. 3. A Unix expert, esp. a Unix
systems programmer. This usage is well enough established that
`Unix Wizard' is a recognized job title at some corporations and to
most headhunters. See {guru}, {lord high fixer}. See also
{deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}, {incantation}, {magic},
{mutter}, {rain dance}, {voodoo programming}, {wave a
dead chicken}.
:Wizard Book: /n./ "Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs" (Hal Abelson, Jerry Sussman and Julie Sussman;
MIT Press, 1984, 1996; ISBN 0-262-01153-0), an excellent computer
science
text used in introductory courses at MIT. So called because of
the wizard on the jacket. One of the {bible}s of the
LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the {Purple
Book}.
:wizard mode: /n./ [from {rogue}] A special access mode of a
program or system, usually passworded, that permits some users
godlike privileges. Generally not used for operating systems
themselves (`root mode' or `wheel mode' would be used instead).
This term is often used with respect to games that have editable
state.
:wizardly: /adj./ Pertaining to wizards. A wizardly
{feature} is one that only a wizard could understand or use
properly.
:wok-on-the-wall: /n./ A small microwave dish antenna used for
cross-campus private network circuits, from the obvious resemblance
between a microwave dish and the Chinese culinary utensil.
:womb box: /n./ 1. [TMRC] Storage space for equipment.
2. [proposed] A variety of hard-shell equipment case with heavy
interior padding and/or shaped carrier cutouts in a foam-rubber
matrix; mundanely called a `flight case'. Used for delicate test
equipment, electronics, and musical instruments.
:WOMBAT: /wom'bat/ /adj./ [acronym: Waste Of Money,
Brains, And Time] Applied to problems which are both profoundly
{uninteresting} in themselves and unlikely to benefit anyone
interesting even if solved. Often used in fanciful constructions
such as `wrestling with a wombat'. See also {crawling
horror}, {SMOP}. Also note the rather different usage as a
metasyntactic variable in {{Commonwealth Hackish}}.
Users of the PDP-11 database program DATATRIEVE adopted the wombat
as their notional mascot; the program's help file responded to
"HELP WOMBAT" with factual information about Real World
wombats.
:wonky: /wong'kee/ /adj./ [from Australian slang] Yet another
approximate synonym for {broken}. Specifically connotes a
malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or
amusingly perverse. "That was the day the printer's font logic
went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar." Also in
`wonked out'. See {funky}, {demented}, {bozotic}.
:woofer: /n./ [University of Waterloo] Some varieties of wide
paper for printers have a perforation 8.5 inches from the left
margin that allows the excess on the right-hand side to be torn off
when the print format is 80 columns or less wide. The right-hand
excess may be called `woofer'. This term (like {tweeter}) has
been in use at Waterloo since 1972, but is elsewhere unknown. In
audio jargon, the word refers to the bass speaker(s) on a hi-fi.
:workaround: /n./ 1. A temporary {kluge} used to bypass,
mask, or otherwise avoid a {bug} or {misfeature} in some
system. Theoretically, workarounds are always replaced by
{fix}es; in practice, customers often find themselves living
with workarounds for long periods of time. "The code died on NUL
characters in the input, so I fixed it to interpret them as
spaces." "That's not a fix, that's a workaround!" 2. A
procedure to be employed by the user in order to do what some
currently non-working feature should do. Hypothetical example:
"Using META-F7 {crash}es the 4.43 build of Weemax, but as a
workaround you can type CTRL-R, then SHIFT-F5, and delete the
remaining {cruft} by hand."
:working as designed: /adj./ [IBM] 1. In conformance to a wrong
or inappropriate specification; useful, but misdesigned.
2. Frequently used as a sardonic comment on a program's utility.
3. Unfortunately also used as a bogus reason for not accepting a
criticism or suggestion. At {IBM}, this sense is used in
official documents! See {BAD}.
:worm: /n./ [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel
"The Shockwave Rider", via XEROX PARC] A program that
propagates itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes.
Compare {virus}. Nowadays the term has negative connotations,
as it is assumed that only {cracker}s write worms. Perhaps the
best-known example was Robert T. Morris's `Internet Worm' of 1988,
a `benign' one that got out of control and hogged hundreds of
Suns and VAXen across the U.S. See also {cracker}, {RTM},
{Trojan horse}, {ice}, and {Great Worm, the}.
:wormhole: /werm'hohl/ /n./ [from the `wormhole'
singularities hypothesized in some versions of General Relativity
theory] 1. obs. A location in a monitor which contains the
address of a routine, with the specific intent of making it easy to
substitute a different routine. This term is now obsolescent;
modern operating systems use clusters of wormholes extensively (for
modularization of I/O handling in particular, as in the Unix
device-driver organization) but the preferred techspeak for these
clusters is `device tables', `jump tables' or `capability
tables'. 2. [Amateur Packet Radio] A network path using a
commercial satellite link to join two or more amateur VHF networks.
So called because traffic routed through a wormhole leaves and
re-enters the amateur network over great distances with usually
little clue in the message routing header as to how it got from one
relay to the other. Compare {gopher hole} (sense 2).
:wound around the axle: /adj./ In an infinite loop. Often used
by older computer types.
:wrap around: /vi./ (also /n./ `wraparound' and /v./ shorthand
`wrap') 1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over
at zero or at `minus infinity' (see {infinity}) after its
maximum value has been reached, and continues incrementing, either
because it is programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as
when a car's odometer starts over at 0). 2. To change {phase}
gradually and continuously by maintaining a steady wake-sleep cycle
somewhat longer than 24 hours, e.g., living six long (28-hour) days
in a week (or, equivalently, sleeping at the rate of 10
microhertz). This sense is also called {phase-wrapping}.
:write-only code: /n./ [a play on `read-only memory'] Code
so arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be modified or
even comprehended by anyone but its author, and possibly not even
by him/her. A {Bad Thing}.
:write-only language: /n./ A language with syntax (or
semantics) sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of
significant size is automatically {write-only code}. A
sobriquet applied occasionally to C and often to APL, though
{INTERCAL} and {TECO} certainly deserve it more.
:write-only memory: /n./ The obvious antonym to `read-only
memory'. Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless
chain of approvals required of component specifications, during
which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at Signetics
once created a specification for a write-only memory and included
it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved. This
inclusion came to the attention of Signetics {management} only
when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing
information. Signetics published a corrected edition of the data
book and requested the return of the `erroneous' ones. Later,
around 1974, Signetics bought a double-page spread in
"Electronics" magazine's April issue and used the spec as an
April Fools' Day joke. Instead of the more conventional
characteristic curves, the 25120 "fully encoded, 9046 x N, Random
Access, write-only-memory" data sheet included diagrams of "bit
capacity vs. Temp.", "Iff vs. Vff", "Number of pins remaining
vs. number of socket insertions", and "AQL vs. selling
price". The 25120 required a 6.3 VAC VFF supply, a +10V VCC, and
VDD of 0V, +/- 2%.
:Wrong Thing: /n./ A design, action, or decision that is
clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized; always
emphasized in speech as if capitalized. The opposite of the
{Right Thing}; more generally, anything that is not the Right
Thing. In cases where `the good is the enemy of the best', the
merely good -- although good -- is nevertheless the Wrong
Thing. "In C, the default is for module-level declarations to be
visible everywhere, rather than just within the module. This is
clearly the Wrong Thing."
:wugga wugga: /wuh'g* wuh'g*/ /n./ Imaginary sound that a
computer program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult
task. Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, {grind} (sense 4).
:wumpus: /wuhm'p*s/ /n./ The central monster (and, in many
versions, the name) of a famous family of very early computer games
called "Hunt The Wumpus", dating back at least to 1972 (several
years before {ADVENT}) on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System.
The wumpus lived somewhere in a cave with the topology of an
dodecahedron's edge/vertex graph (later versions supported other
topologies, including an icosahedron and M"obius strip). The
player started somewhere at random in the cave with five `crooked
arrows'; these could be shot through up to three connected rooms,
and would kill the wumpus on a hit (later versions introduced the
wounded wumpus, which got very angry). Unfortunately for players,
the movement necessary to map the maze was made hazardous not
merely by the wumpus (which would eat you if you stepped on him)
but also by bottomless pits and colonies of super bats that would
pick you up and drop you at a random location (later versions added
`anaerobic termites' that ate arrows, bat migrations, and
earthquakes that randomly changed pit locations).
This game appears to have been the first to use a non-random
graph-structured map (as opposed to a rectangular grid like the
even older Star Trek games). In this respect, as in the
dungeon-like setting and its terse, amusing messages, it prefigured
{ADVENT} and {Zork} and was directly ancestral to the latter
(Zork acknowledged this heritage by including a super-bat colony).
Today, a port is distributed with SunOS and as freeware for the
Mac. A C emulation of the original Basic game is available at the
Retrocomputing Museum, http://www.ccil.org/retro.
:WYSIAYG: /wiz'ee-ayg/ /adj./ Describes a user interface
under which "What You See Is *All* You Get"; an unhappy
variant of {WYSIWYG}. Visual, `point-and-shoot'-style
interfaces tend to have easy initial learning curves, but also to
lack depth; they often frustrate advanced users who would be better
served by a command-style interface. When this happens, the
frustrated user has a WYSIAYG problem. This term is most often
used of editors, word processors, and document formatting programs.
WYSIWYG `desktop publishing' programs, for example, are a clear
win for creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in
them, especially things like newsletters and presentation slides.
When typesetting book-length manuscripts, on the other hand, scale
changes the nature of the task; one quickly runs into WYSIAYG
limitations, and the increased power and flexibility of a
command-driven formatter like {{TeX}} or Unix's {{troff}}
becomes not just desirable but a necessity. Compare {YAFIYGI}.
:WYSIWYG: /wiz'ee-wig/ /adj./ Describes a user interface
under which "What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one
that uses more-or-less obscure commands that do not result in
immediate visual feedback. True WYSIWYG in environments supporting
multiple fonts or graphics is a a rarely-attained ideal; there are
variants of this term to express real-world manifestations
including WYSIAWYG (What You See Is *Almost* What You Get) and
WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get). All these
can be mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to
dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted at
non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands (compare
{WYSIAYG}). On the other hand, {EMACS} was one of the very
first WYSIWYG editors, replacing (actually, at first overlaying)
the extremely obscure, command-based {TECO}. See also {WIMP
environment}. [Oddly enough, WYSIWYG has already made it into the
OED, in lower case yet. --ESR]
= X =
=====
:X: /X/ /n./ 1. Used in various speech and writing contexts
(also in lowercase) in roughly its algebraic sense of `unknown
within a set defined by context' (compare {N}). Thus, the
abbreviation 680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, or 68040,
and 80x86 stands for 80186, 80286 80386 or 80486 (note that a Unix
hacker might write these as 680[0-4]0 and 80[1-4]86 or 680?0 and
80?86 respectively; see {glob}). 2. [after the name of an
earlier window system called `W'] An over-sized, over-featured,
over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated window system
developed at MIT and widely used on Unix systems.
:XEROX PARC: /zee'roks park'/ /n./ The famed Palo Alto
Research Center. For more than a decade, from the early 1970s into
the mid-1980s, PARC yielded an astonishing volume of groundbreaking
hardware and software innovations. The modern mice, windows, and
icons style of software interface was invented there. So was the
laser printer and the local-area network; and PARC's series of D
machines anticipated the powerful personal computers of the 1980s
by a decade. Sadly, the prophets at PARC were without honor in
their own company, so much so that it became a standard joke to
describe PARC as a place that specialized in developing brilliant
ideas for everyone else.
The stunning shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level
{suit}s has been well anatomized in "Fumbling The Future:
How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer" by
Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William Morrow & Co.,
1988, ISBN 0-688-09511-9).
:XOFF: /X-of/ /n./ Syn. {control-S}.
:XON: /X-on/ /n./ Syn. {control-Q}.
:xor: /X'or/, /kzor/ /conj./ Exclusive or. `A xor B' means
`A or B, but not both'. "I want to get cherry pie xor a banana
split." This derives from the technical use of the term as a
function on truth-values that is true if exactly one of its two
arguments is true.
:xref: /X'ref/ /v.,n./ Hackish standard abbreviation for
`cross-reference'.
:XXX: /X-X-X/ /n./ A marker that attention is needed.
Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged
up or need to be. Some hackers liken `XXX' to the notional
heavy-porn movie rating. Compare {FIXME}.
:xyzzy: /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/
/adj./ [from the ADVENT game] The {canonical} `magic
word'. This comes from {ADVENT}, in which the idea is to
explore an underground cave with many rooms and to collect the
treasures you find there. If you type `xyzzy' at the appropriate
time, you can move instantly between two otherwise distant points.
If, therefore, you encounter some bit of {magic}, you might
remark on this quite succinctly by saying simply "Xyzzy!"
"Ordinarily you can't look at someone else's screen if he has
protected it, but if you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will
let you do it anyway." "Xyzzy!"
Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an undocumented no-op
command on several OSes; in Data General's AOS/VS, for example, it
would typically respond "Nothing happens", just as {ADVENT}
did if the magic was invoked at the wrong spot or before a player
had performed the action that enabled the word. In more recent
32-bit versions, by the way, AOS/VS responds "Twice as much
happens".
The popular `minesweeper' game under Microsoft Windows has a
cheat mode triggered by the command `xyzzy<enter><right-shift>'
that turns the top-left pixel of the screen different colors
depending on whether or not the cursor is over a bomb.
= Y =
=====
:YA-: /abbrev./ [Yet Another] In hackish acronyms this almost
invariably expands to {Yet Another}, following the precedent set
by Unix `yacc(1)' (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler). See
{YABA}.
:YABA: /ya'b*/ /n./ [Cambridge] Yet Another Bloody Acronym.
Whenever some program is being named, someone invariably suggests
that it be given a name that is acronymic. The response from those
with a trace of originality is to remark ironically that the
proposed name would then be `YABA-compatible'. Also used in
response to questions like "What is WYSIWYG?" See also
{TLA}.
:YAFIYGI: /yaf'ee-y*-gee/ /adj./ [coined in response to
WYSIWYG] Describes the command-oriented ed/vi/nroff/TeX style of
word processing or other user interface, the opposite of
{WYSIWYG}. Stands for "You asked for it, you got it", because
what you actually asked for is often not apparent until long after
it is too late to do anything about it. Used to denote perversity
("Real Programmers use YAFIYGI tools...and *like* it!")
or, less often, a necessary tradeoff ("Only a YAFIYGI tool can
have full programmable flexibility in its interface.").
This precise sense of "You asked for it, you got it" seems to
have first appeared in Ed Post's classic parody "Real
Programmers don't use Pascal" (see {Real Programmer}s); the
acronym is a more recent invention.
:YAUN: /yawn/ /n./ [Acronym for `Yet Another Unix Nerd']
Reported from the San Diego Computer Society (predominantly a
microcomputer users' group) as a good-natured punning insult aimed
at Unix zealots.
:Yellow Book: /n./
The print version of this Jargon
File; "The New Hacker's Dictionary" from MIT Press; The book
includes essentially all the material the File, plus a Foreword by
Guy L. Steele Jr. and a Preface by Eric S. Raymond. Most
importantly, the book version is nicely typeset and includes almost
all of the infamous Crunchly cartoons by the Great Quux, each
attached to an appropriate entry. The first edition (1991, ISBN
0-262-68069-6) corresponded to the Jargon File version 2.9.6. The
second edition (1993, ISBN 0-262-68079-3) corresponded to the
Jargon
File 3.0.0. The third (1996, ISBN 0-262-68092-0) will correspond
to 4.0.0.
:yellow wire: /n./ [IBM] Repair wires used when connectors
(especially ribbon connectors) got broken due to some schlemiel
pinching them, or to reconnect cut traces after the FE mistakenly
cut one. Compare {blue wire}, {purple wire}, {red wire}.
:Yet Another: /adj./ [From Unix's `yacc(1)', `Yet
Another Compiler-Compiler', a LALR parser generator] 1. Of your own
work: A humorous allusion often used in titles to acknowledge that
the topic is not original, though the content is. As in `Yet
Another AI Group' or `Yet Another Simulated Annealing Algorithm'.
2. Of others' work: Describes something of which there are already
far too many. See also {YA-}, {YABA}, {YAUN}.
:YKYBHTLW: // /abbrev./ Abbreviation of `You know you've been
hacking too long when...', which became established on the Usenet
group alt.folklore.computers during extended discussion of the
indicated entry in the Jargon File.
:YMMV: // /cav./ Abbreviation for {Your mileage
may vary} common on Usenet.
:You are not expected to understand this: [Unix] /cav./ The
canonical comment describing something {magic} or too
complicated to bother explaining properly. From an infamous
comment in the context-switching code of the V6 Unix kernel.
:You know you've been hacking too long when...: The
set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about
themselves. These include the following:
* not only do you check your email more often than your paper
mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your
postal one.
* your {SO} kisses you on the neck and the first thing you
think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}."
* you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're
doing it in octal.
* your computers have a higher street value than your car.
* in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
* more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in
some programming language.
* you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.
[An early version of this entry said "All but one of these
have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite
often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The
ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out
of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one
out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple
independent reports of its actually happening, most famously
to Grace Hopper while she was working with BINAC in 1949. --ESR]
:Your mileage may vary: /cav./ [from the standard disclaimer
attached to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1. A
ritual warning often found in Unix freeware distributions.
Translates roughly as "Hey, I tried to write this portably, but
who *knows* what'll happen on your system?" 2. More
generally, a qualifier attached to advice. "I find that sending
flowers works well, but your mileage may vary."
:Yow!: /yow/ /interj./ [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] A
favored hacker expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. "Yow!
Check out what happens when you twiddle the foo option on this
display hack!" Compare {gurfle}.
:yoyo mode: /n./ The state in which the system is said to be
when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being
down. Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many
hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits.
Sun Microsystems gave out logoized yoyos at SIGPLAN '88. Tourists
staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were
subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top
computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.
:Yu-Shiang Whole Fish: /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ /n. obs./ The
character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in
its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term
is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked
whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang)
sauce. Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which
could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit
incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.
= Z =
=====
:zap: 1. /n./ Spiciness. 2. /vt./ To make food spicy. 3. /vt./ To
make someone `suffer' by making his food spicy. (Most hackers
love spicy food. Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it
makes you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.) See
{zapped}. 4. /vt./ To modify, usually to correct; esp. used
when the action is performed with a debugger or binary patching
tool. Also implies surgical precision. "Zap the debug level to 6
and run it again." In the IBM mainframe world, binary patches are
applied to programs or to the OS with a program called
`superzap', whose file name is `IMASPZAP' (possibly contrived
from I M A SuPerZAP). 5. /vt./ To erase or reset. 6. To {fry} a
chip with static electricity. "Uh oh -- I think that lightning
strike may have zapped the disk controller."
:zapped: /adj./ Spicy. This term is used to distinguish
between food that is hot (in temperature) and food that is
*spicy*-hot. For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon
Chicken is a kind of chicken salad that is cold but zapped; by
contrast, {vanilla} wonton soup is hot but not zapped. See also
{{oriental food}}, {laser chicken}. See {zap}, senses 1 and
2.
:zen: /vt./ To figure out something by meditation or by a
sudden flash of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but
occasionally applied to problems of life in general. "How'd you
figure out the buffer allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned it."
Contrast {grok}, which connotes a time-extended version of
zenning a system. Compare {hack mode}. See also {guru}.
:zero: /vt./ 1. To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of
data, such as bits or words (esp. in the construction `zero
out'). 2. To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and
directories, where `zeroing' need not involve actually writing
zeroes throughout the area being zeroed. One may speak of
something being `logically zeroed' rather than being
`physically zeroed'. See {scribble}.
:zero-content: /adj./ Syn. {content-free}.
:Zero-One-Infinity Rule: /prov./ "Allow none of {foo},
one of {foo}, or any number of {foo}." A rule of thumb for
software design, which instructs one to not place {random}
limits on the number of instances of a given entity (such as:
windows in a window system, letters in an OS's filenames, etc.).
Specifically, one should either disallow the entity entirely, allow
exactly one instance (an "exception"), or allow as many as the
user wants -- address space and memory permitting.
The logic behind this rule is that there are often situations where
it makes clear sense to allow one of something instead of none.
However, if one decides to go further and allow N (for N > 1), then
why not N+1? And if N+1, then why not N+2, and so on? Once above
1, there's no excuse not to allow any N; hence, {infinity}.
Many hackers recall in this connection Isaac Asimov's SF novel
"The Gods Themselves" in which a character announces that the
number 2 is impossible -- if you're going to believe in more than
one universe, you might as well believe in an infinite number of
them.
:zeroth: /zee'rohth/ /adj./ First. Among software designers,
comes from C's and LISP's 0-based indexing of arrays. Hardware
people also tend to start counting at 0 instead of 1; this is
natural since, e.g., the 256 states of 8 bits correspond to the
binary numbers 0, 1, ..., 255 and the digital devices known as
`counters' count in this way.
Hackers and computer scientists often like to call the first
chapter of a publication `Chapter 0', especially if it is of an
introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First
Edition of {K&R}). In recent years this trait has also been
observed among many pure mathematicians (who have an independent
tradition of numbering from 0). Zero-based numbering tends to
reduce {fencepost error}s, though it cannot eliminate them
entirely.
:zigamorph: /zig'*-morf/ /n./ 1. Hex FF (11111111) when used
as a delimiter or {fence} character. Usage: primarily at IBM
shops. 2. [proposed] /n./ The Unicode non-character U+FFFF
(1111111111111111), a character code which is not assigned to any
character, and so is usable as end-of-string. (Unicode (a subset
of ISO 10646) is a 16-bit character code intended to cover all of
the world's writing systems, including Roman, Greek, Cyrillic,
Chinese, hiragana, katakana, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Thai, Laotian
and many other languages (support for {elvish} is planned for a
future release).
:zip: /vt./ [primarily MS-DOS] To create a compressed archive
from a group of files using PKWare's PKZIP or a compatible
archiver. Its use is spreading now that portable implementations
of the algorithm have been written. Commonly used as follows:
"I'll zip it up and send it to you." See {tar and feather}.
:zipperhead: /n./ [IBM] A person with a closed mind.
:zombie: /n./ [Unix] A process that has died but has not yet
relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process
hasn't executed a `wait(2)' for it yet). These can be seen in
`ps(1)' listings occasionally. Compare {orphan}.
:zorch: /zorch/ 1. [TMRC] /v./ To attack with an inverse heat
sink. 2. [TMRC] /v./ To travel, with v approaching c
[that is, with velocity approaching lightspeed --ESR]. 3. [MIT]
/v./ To propel something very quickly. "The new comm software is
very fast; it really zorches files through the network." 4. [MIT]
/n./ Influence. Brownie points. Good karma. The intangible and
fuzzy currency in which favors are measured. "I'd rather not ask
him for that just yet; I think I've used up my quota of zorch with
him for the week." 5. [MIT] /n./ Energy, drive, or ability. "I
think I'll {punt} that change for now; I've been up for 30 hours
and I've run out of zorch." 6. [MIT] /v./ To flunk an exam or
course.
:Zork: /zork/ /n./ The second of the great early experiments
in computer fantasy gaming; see {ADVENT}. Originally written
on MIT-DM during 1977-1979, later distributed with BSD Unix (as a
patched, sourceless RT-11 FORTRAN binary; see {retrocomputing})
and commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by {Infocom}. The
FORTRAN source was later rewritten for portability and released to
Usenet under the name "Dungeon". Both FORTRAN "Dungeon" and
translated C versions are available at many FTP sites.
:zorkmid: /zork'mid/ /n./ The canonical unit of currency in
hacker-written games. This originated in {Zork} but has spread
to {nethack} and is referred to in several other games.
= [^A-Za-z] =
=============
:<bobbit>: /n./ [Usenet: alt.folklore.urban and
elsewhere] Commonly used as a placeholder for omitted text in a
followup message (not copying the whole parent message is
considered good form). Refers, of course, to the celebrated
mutilation of John Bobbitt.
:4.2: /for' poynt too'/ /n./ Without a prefix, this almost
invariably refers to {BSD} Unix release 4.2. Note that it is an
indication of cluelessness to say "version 4.2", and "release
4.2" is rare; the number stands on its own, or is used in the more
explicit forms 4.2BSD or (less commonly) BSD 4.2. Similar remarks
apply to "4.3", "4.4" and to earlier, less-widespread releases
4.1 and 2.9.
:'Snooze: /snooz/ [FidoNet] /n./ Fidonews, the weekly
official on-line newsletter of FidoNet. As the editorial policy of
Fidonews is "anything that arrives, we print", there are often
large articles completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend
to elicit {flamage} in subsequent issues.
:(TM): // [Usenet] ASCII rendition of the
trademark-superscript symbol
appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for
posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes
used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of
software and algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See
also {UN*X}.
:-oid: /suff./ [from `android'] 1. Used as in mainstream
English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some
otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily use it
with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wouldn't keep
company with it in mainstream English. For example, "He's a
nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't
make the grade; a `modemoid' might be a 300-baud box (Real Modems
run at 9600 or up); a `computeroid' might be any {bitty box}.
The word `keyboid' could be used to describe a {chiclet
keyboard}, but would have to be written; spoken, it would confuse
the listener as to the speaker's city of origin. 2. More
specifically, an indicator for `resembling an android' which in
the past has been confined to science-fiction fans and hackers. It
too has recently (in 1991) started to go mainstream (most notably
in the term `trendoid' for victims of terminal hipness). This is
probably traceable to the popularization of the term {droid} in
"Star Wars" and its sequels. (See also {windoid}.)
Coinages in both forms have been common in science fiction for at
least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have
probably been making `-oid' jargon for almost that long
[though GLS and I can personally confirm only that they were
already common in the mid-1970s --ESR].