Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!decwrl!decvax!ima!cfisun!lakart!dg
From: dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: what is 'frobbed'?
Message-ID: <682@lakart.UUCP>
Date: 12 Sep 89 00:17:36 GMT
References: <925@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lakart Corporation, Newton, MA
Lines: 32

From article <925@manta.NOSC.MIL>, by psm@manta.NOSC.MIL (Scot Mcintosh):
> In looking at some unix source code, I've encountered several uses of
> the word 'frobbed'.  From the context, it appears that it means
> 'manipulated in some unspecified way'.  Is this an accurate
> interpretation, or is there another meaning?  Is this even a
> unix-domain word, or just some neologism generated by a bored
> programmer?

Sorry, but I can't resist this one :-)

Taken (without permission :-P ) from the fortunes.dat database as provided
with BSD 4.3

+--------------------------------------------------------
| Frobnicate, v.:
|	To manipulate or adjust, to tweak.  Derived from FROBNITZ.
| Usually abbreviated to FROB.  Thus one has the saying "to frob a
| frob".  See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.  Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK
| sometimes connote points along a continuum.  FROB connotes aimless
| manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse
| search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning.  If someone is
| turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it
| he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the
| screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because
| turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
+--------------------------------------------------------

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