confuser n.
Common soundalike slang for `computer'. Usually encountered in
compounds such as `confuser room', `personal confuser', `confuser
guru'. Usage: silly.
Node:connector conspiracy,
Next:cons, Previous:confuser, Up:= C =
connector conspiracy n.
[probably came into prominence with the appearance of the
KL-10 (one model of the PDP-10),
none of whose connectors matched anything else] The tendency of
manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of
anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together
with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff
or expensive interface devices. The KL-10 Massbus connector was
actually patented by DEC,
which reputedly refused to license the design and thus
effectively locked third parties out of competition for the
lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy is a source of
never-ending frustration for the diehards who maintain older
PDP-10 or VAX systems. Their CPUs work fine, but they are stuck
with dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives with low capacity
and high power requirements.
(A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different
intent, is the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw
heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic
screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install
options. A good 1990s example is the use of Torx screws for
cable-TV set-top boxes. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one
step further, requiring not only a long Torx screwdriver but a
specialized case-cracking tool to open the box.)
In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has
fallen somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation
that "Standards are great! There are so many of them to choose
from!" Compare backward
combatability.
Node:cons, Next:considered harmful, Previous:connector
conspiracy, Up:= C =
cons /konz/ or /kons/
[from LISP] 1. vt. To add a new element to a specified list,
esp. at the top. "OK, cons picking a replacement for the console
TTY onto the agenda." 2. `cons up': vt. To synthesize from
smaller pieces: "to cons up an example".
In LISP itself, cons is the most fundamental
operation for building structures. It takes any two objects and
returns a `dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging
from each branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it
can be used to build binary trees of any shape and complexity.
Hackers think of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that
is where the jargon meanings spring from.
Node:considered harmful,
Next:console, Previous:cons, Up:= C =
considered harmful adj.
[very common] Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968
"Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement Considered Harmful",
fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars (text at
http://www.acm.org/classics).
Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently
harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article
taking so assertive a position against a coding practice. (Years
afterwards, a contrary view was uttered in a CACM letter called,
inevitably, "`Goto considered harmful' considered harmful'"'. In
the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious papers and
parodies have borne titles of the form "X considered Y". The
structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the
realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles
has remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the `considered
silly' found at various places in this lexicon is related).
Node:console, Next:console jockey, Previous:considered harmful,
Up:= C =
console n.
1. The operator's station of a mainframe. In times past, this was a
privileged location that conveyed godlike powers to anyone with
fingers on its keys. Under Unix and other modern timesharing
OSes, such privileges are guarded by passwords instead, and the
console is just the tty the system was
booted from. Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is
traditional for sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users
from the console (on Unix, /dev/console). 2. On microcomputer
Unix boxes, the main screen and keyboard (as opposed to
character-only terminals talking to a serial port). Typically
only the console can do real graphics or run X.