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.
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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.
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reality-distortion field n.
An expression used to describe the persuasive ability of
managers like Steve Jobs (the term originated at Apple in the
1980s to describe his peculiar charisma). Those close to these
managers become passionately committed to possibly insane
projects, without regard to the practicality of their
implementation or competitive forces in the marketpace.
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reaper n.
A prowler that GFRs files. A file removed in this way is said to
have been `reaped'.
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recompile the world
The surprisingly large amount of work that needs to be done as
the result of any small but globally visible program change. "The
world" may mean the entirety of some huge program, or may in
theory refer to every program of a certain class in the entire
known universe. For instance, "Add one #define to stdio.h, and
you have to recompile the world." This means that any minor
change to the standard-I/O header file theoretically mandates
recompiling every C program in existence, even if only to verify
that the change didn't screw something else up. In practice, you
may not actually have to recompile the world, but the implication
is that some human cleverness is required to figure out what
parts can be safely left out.
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rectangle slinger n.
See polygon pusher.
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recursion n.
See recursion. See also tail recursion.