[Unix] 1. imp. Abbreviation 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.
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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.
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