[acronym, `Do What I Mean'] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes
even correctly, the result intended when bogus input was
provided. 2. n. obs. The BBNLISP/INTERLISP function that
attempted to accomplish this feat by correcting many of the more
common errors. See hairy. 3.
Occasionally, an interjection hurled at a balky computer, esp.
when one senses one might be tripping over legalisms (see legalese). 4. Of a person, someone whose
directions are incomprehensible and vague, but who nevertheless
has the expectation that you will solve the problem using the
specific method he/she has in mind.
Warren Teitelman originally wrote DWIM to fix his typos and
spelling errors, so it was somewhat idiosyncratic to his style,
and would often make hash of anyone else's typos if they were
stylistically different. Some victims of DWIM thus claimed that
the acronym stood for `Damn Warren's Infernal Machine!'.
In one notorious incident, Warren added a DWIM feature to the
command interpreter used at Xerox PARC. One day another hacker
there typed delete *$ to free up some disk space.
(The editor there named backup files by appending $
to the original file name, so he was trying to delete any backup
files left over from old editing sessions.) It happened that
there weren't any editor backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported
*$ not found, assuming you meant 'delete *'. It then
started to delete all the files on the disk! The hacker managed
to stop it with a Vulcan
nerve pinch after only a half dozen or so files were
lost.
The disgruntled victim later said he had been sorely tempted
to go to Warren's office, tie Warren down in his chair in front
of his workstation, and then type delete *$
twice.
DWIM is often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a
complex program; it is also occasionally described as the single
instruction the ideal computer would have. Back when proofs of
program correctness were in vogue, there were also jokes about
`DWIMC' (Do What I Mean, Correctly). A related term, more often
seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right Thing); see Right Thing.