Xref: utzoo alt.folklore.computers:8408 comp.unix.internals:1717 comp.misc:11051 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric From: eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.internals,comp.misc Subject: The Jargon File v2.3.1 03 JAN 1991, part 5 of 11 Message-ID: <1Z0vVX#4fNfh10cP8nb9bprKD9pDnw1=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> Date: 3 Jan 91 21:04:27 GMT Lines: 1030 ---- Cut Here and unpack ---- #!/bin/sh # This is a shell archive (shar 3.10) # made 01/03/1991 21:04 UTC by eric@snark.thyrsus.com # Source directory /usr2/eric/jargon # # existing files WILL be overwritten # # This shar contains: # length mode name # ------ ---------- ------------------------------------------ # 55141 -rw-r--r-- jsplit.ae # touch 2>&1 | fgrep '[-amc]' > /tmp/s3_touch$$ if [ -s /tmp/s3_touch$$ ] then TOUCH=can else TOUCH=cannot fi rm -f /tmp/s3_touch$$ # ============= jsplit.ae ============== sed 's/^X//' << 'SHAR_EOF' > jsplit.ae && X Sometimes used as a generic even for file transfers not using X . "Lemme get this copy of Wuthering Heights FTP'd from X uunet." X X excl. Sometimes uttered in response to egregious X misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of those which seem X unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the X perverse). Often theatrically elaborated: "Aiighhh! Fuck me with X a piledriver and sixteen feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence X *and no lubricants!*" The phrase is sometimes heard X abbreviated FMH in polite company. X X /fud worz/ n. [from `Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt'] X Political posturing engaged in by hardware and software vendors X ostensibly committed to standardization but actually willing to X fragment the market to protect their own share. The OSF vs. UNIX X International conflict, for example. X X 1. v. To perform in an incomplete but marginally acceptable X way, particularly with respect to the writing of a program. "I X didn't feel like going through that pain and suffering, so I fudged X it." 2. n. The resulting code. X X n. A value or parameter that is varied in an ad hoc way X to produce the desired result. The terms "tolerance" and X "slop" are also used, though these usually indicate a one-sided X leeway, such as a buffer which is made larger than necessary X because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be, and it is X better to waste a little space than to lose completely for not X having enough. A fudge factor, on the other hand, can often be X tweaked in more than one direction. A good example is the X typically needed in floating-point calculations: two numbers being X compared for equality must be allowed to differ by a small amount; X if that amount is too small, a computation may never terminate, X while if it is too large, results will be needlessly inaccurate. X Fudge factors are frequently adjusted incorrectly by programmers X who don't fully understand their import. X X vi. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back to X hacking. "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a X !". See also . X X /fuhg'lee/ adj. Emphatic form of ; funky + ugly (or X possibly a contraction of "fuckin' ugly"). Unusually for hacker X slang, this may actually derive from black street-jive. To say it X properly, the first syllable should be growled rather than spoken. X Usage: humorous. "Man, the ASCII-to-EBCDIC code in that printer X driver is *fuggly*." See also . X X adj. Said of something which functions, but in a slightly X strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be difficult to X change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone. Often used to X describe interfaces. The more bugs something has that nobody has X bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the funkier it is. X and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's exception handling is X extraordinarily funky. Most standards acquire funkiness as they X age. "The new mailer is installed, but is still somewhat funky; X if it bounces your mail for no reason, try resubmitting it." X "This UART is pretty funky. The data ready line is active-high in X interrupt mode, and active-low in DMA mode." See . X X n. (also `play money') 1. Notional `dollar' units of X computing time and/or storage handed to students at the beginning X of a computer course by professors; also called "purple money" X (in implicit opposition to real or "green" money). When your X funny money ran out, your account froze and you needed to go to a X professor to get more. Formerly a common practice, this has now X been made sufficiently rare by the plunging cost of timesharing X cycles that it has become folklore. The amounts allocated were X almost invariably too small, even for the non-hackers who wanted to X slide by with minimum work. In extreme cases the practice led to X small-scale black markets in bootlegged computer accounts. 2. By X extension, phantom money or quantity tickets of any kind used as a X resource-allocation hack within a system. X X n. In floating-point arithmetic, the maximum difference allowed X between two quantities for them to compare equal. Has to be set X properly relative to the FPU's precision limits. See . X X [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a particular suite X of homebrewed software by Dave Mills and assorted co-conspirators, X used in the early 80's for Internet protocol testbedding and X experimentation. These were used as NSFnet backbone sites in its X early 56KB-line days; a few of these are still active on the X Internet as of early 1990, doing odd jobs such as network time X service. X X {= G =} X X /gay'bree-@l/ [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL volleyball fanatic] X n. An unnecessary (in the opinion of the opponent) stalling X tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or hair repeatedly, asking the X time, etc. Also used to refer to the perpetrator of such tactics. X Also, "pulling a Gabriel", "Gabriel mode". X X vi. Equivalent to , but connotes more disgust. "Hey, X this is Fortran code. No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also X . X X n. The use of large numbers of loosely-coupled programmers X in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a product in a X short time. While there have been memorable gang bangs (ref: that X over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in Steven Levy's X "Hackers"), most are perpetrated by large companies trying to X meet deadlines and produce enormous buggy masses of code entirely X lacking in orthogonality (see ). When market-driven X managers make a list of all the features the competition have and X assign one programmer to implement each, they often miss the X importance of maintaining strong invariants, like relational X integrity. X X vi., (also "garbage collection", n.) See . X X /gar'plee/ n. [Stanford] Another meta-syntactic variable (see X ) popular among SAIL hackers. X X [as in "gas chamber"] interj. 1. A term of disgust and hatred, X implying that gas should be dispensed in generous quantities, X thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some loser just X reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2. A term suggesting X that someone or something ought to be flushed out of mercy. "The X system's wedging every few minutes. Gas!" 3. vt. . X "You should gas that old crufty software." 4. GASEOUS adj. X Deserving of being gassed. Usage: primarily used by Geoff X Goodfellow at SRI, but spreading; became particularly popular after X the Moscone/Milk murders in San Francisco, when it was learned that X Dan White (who supported Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber X under 7 if convicted. He was eventually found not guilty by reason X of insanity. X X /jee-see/ [from LISP terminology; "Garbage Collect"] 1. vt. To X clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll the X top of my desk today." When said of files, this is equivalent to X . 2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use. 3. n. X An instantiation of the garbage collector process. `Garbage X collection' is computer science jargon for a particular class of X strategies for dynamically reallocating computer memory. One such X strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in memory and X determining what is no longer useful; useless data items are then X discarded so that the memory they occupy can be recycled and used X for another purpose. Implementations of the LISP language usually X use garbage collection. In slang, the full phrase is sometimes X heard but the acronym is more frequently used because it's shorter. X Note that there is an ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by X context: "I'm going to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to X clean out the drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or X recycle the desk itself. X X Warning: in X programming, a "GC" may be a graphics context. This X technical term has nothing to do with the jargon ! X X n. A quick and dirty of System/360 DOS that emerged X from GE about 1970; originally called GECOS (the General Electric X Comprehensive Operating System) and later kluged to support X primitive timesharing and transaction processing. After the buyout X of GE's computer division by Honeywell the name was changed to X General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS). Other OS groups at X Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen Operating System', X allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's uninformed and snotty X attitude about the superiority of their product. All this might be X of zero interest, except for two facts: 1) the GCOS people won the X political war, resulting in the orphaning and eventual death of X Honeywell , and 2) GECOS/GCOS left one permanent mark X on UNIX. Some early UNIX systems at Bell Labs were used as front X ends to GCOS machines; the field added to /etc/passwd to carry GCOS X ID information was called `the GECOS field' and survives today as X the pw_gecos member used for the user's full name and other X human-id information. GCOS itself played a major rule in keeping X Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe market, and was itself X ditched for UNIX in the late 1980s when Honeywell retired its aging X designs. X X n. See GCOS X X /g@-dahn'kn/ adj. Wild-eyed; impractical; not X well-thought-out; untried; untested. "Gedanken" is a German word X for "thought". A thought experiment is one you carry out in your X head. In physics, the term "gedanken experiment" is used to X refer to an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful X to consider because you can reason about it theoretically. (A X classic gedanken experiment of relativity theory involves thinking X about a man flying through space in an elevator.) Gedanken X experiments are very useful in physics, but you have to be careful. X It was a gedanken experiment that led Aristotle to conclude that X heavy things always fall faster than light things (he thought about X a rock and a feather); this was accepted until Galileo proved X otherwise. Among hackers, however, the word has a pejorative X connotation. It is said of a project, especially one in artificial X intelligence research, which is written up in grand detail X (typically as a Ph.D. thesis) without ever being implemented to any X great extent. Such a project is usually perpetrated by people who X aren't very good hackers or find programming distasteful or are X just in a hurry. A gedanken thesis is usually marked by an obvious X lack of intuition about what is programmable and what is not, and X about what does and does not constitute a clear specification an X algorithm. X X vi. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a X non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer X equipment. Especially used when you need to do something highly X technical and don't have time to explain: "Pardon me while I geek X out for a moment." X X n. (also "gender bender" and "sex changer") A X cable connector shell with either two male or two female connectors X on it, used to correct the mismatches that result when some X didn't understand the RS232C specification and the distinction X between DTE and DCE. Used esp. for RS-232C parts in either the X original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format. X X n. Pejorative name for some versions of the X project or General Public License, which requires X that any tools or s incorporating copylefted code must be X source-distributed on the same counter-commercial terms as GNU X stuff. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft `infects' software X generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software X that reuses any of its code. FSF's official position as of January X 1991 is that only "programs textually incorporating significant X amounts of GNU code" fall under the GPL and that the infection is X not passed on to third parties unless actual GNU source is X transmitted (as in, for example, use of the Bison parser skeleton). X Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the language is X `boobytrapped' has caused many developers to avoid using GNU tools X and the license. X X vt. To produce something according to an algorithm or X program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side effect X of the execution of an algorithm or program. The opposite of X . This term retains its mechanistic connotations (though X often humorously) when used of human behavior. "The guy is X rational most of the time, but mention nuclear energy around him X and he'll generate flamage." X X imp. Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the person X to whom you are speaking has succumbed to terminal geekdom (see X ). Often heard on . This exhortation was X originally uttered by William Shatner on a Saturday Night Live X episode in a speech which ended "Get a *life*!". X X imp. Typical hacker response to news that X somebody is having trouble getting work done on a system that is a) X single-tasking, b) has no Winchester, or c) has an address space X smaller than 4 megabytes. This is as of 1990; note that the X threshold for `real computer' rises with time, and it may well be X (for example) that machines with character-only displays will be X considered `unreal' in a few years. See and . X X /jee eff ar/ vt. [acronym, ITS] From "Grim File Reaper", an X ITS utility. To remove a file or files according to some X program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially X one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce namespace X clutter. Often generalized to pieces of data below file level. X "I used to have his phone number but I guess I ed it." See X also , . X X /jig/, rarely /gig/ n. Short for "gigabyte" (1024 megabytes); X esp. used in describing amounts of or mass storage. "My X machine just got upgraded to a quarter-gig". See also . X X /ji'ga/ pref. See . X X /gie'goh/ [acronym] 1. Garbage In, Garbage out -- Usually said X in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't complain X about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in X human decision making due to faulty, incomplete or imprecise data. X 2. Garbage In, Gospel Out -- this more recent expansion is a X sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have to put excessive X trust in "computerized" data. X X /jill'yun/ n. 10^9. [From giga, following construction of X mega/million and notional tera/trillion] Same as an American X billion or a British `milliard'. X X /glark/ vt. To figure something out from context. "The System X III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the X meaning from context". Interestingly, the original sentence was X "This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but X the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context." by X David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his `Metamagical X Themas' column in the January 1981 Scientific American. It is X conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to `glark' because X was already an established jargon term. X X [IBM] n. Synonym for . X X /glas tee-tee-wie/ or /glas ti-tee/ n. A terminal which X has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software X limitations, behaves like a teletype or other printing terminal , X thereby combining the disadvantages of both: like a printing X terminal, it can't do fancy display hacks, and like a display X terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy An example is Lear-Siegler X the ADM-3 (without cursor control). See , . See X Appendix A for an interesting true story about glass TTYs. X X /glich/ [from German "glitchen" to slip, via Yiddish X "glitshen", to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in X electric service, sanity,, continuity, or program function. X Sometimes recoverable. An interruption in electric service is X specifically called a "power glitch". This is of grave concern X because it usually crashes all the computers. More common in X slang, though, a hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and X then forgotten how he or she intended to complete it might say, X "Sorry, I just glitched". 2. vi. To commit a glitch. See X . 3. vt. [Stanford] To scroll a display screen several X lines at a time. This derives from some oddities in the terminal X behavior under the mutant TOPS-10 formerly used at SAIL. 4. (obs.) X Same as , sense #2. X X /glob/, *not* /glohb/ [UNIX, from "glob", the name of a X subprogram that translated wildcards in archaic Bourne Shell X versions] v. To expand special characters in a wildcarded name (the X action is "globbing"). The UNIX conventions for filename X wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers X use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on X technical topics. Those commonly encountered include: X X * wildcard for any string (see UN*X). X ? wildcard for any character (generally only read this way X at the beginning or in the middle of a word). X [] wildcard matching one character from a specified set. X {} alternation of comma-separated alternatives. Thus, X `{foo,bar}baz' would be read as `foobar' or `foobaz'. X X Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses X ambiguity). "That got posted to talk.politics.*" (all the X talk.politics subgroups on ). Other examples are given X under the entry for `X'. as a noun refers to the act of X expanding a string using these conventions. It is also used as a X verb. X X /glork/ 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with X outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of two hours of X editing and finds that the system has just crashed. 2. Used as a X name for just about anything. See . 3. vt. Similar to X , but usually used reflexively. "My program just glorked X itself." X X adj. Both and in the sense of complex. X "Yeech --- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really X gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang. X X /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX!"] A X UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation X headed by Richard Stallman (rms@prep.ai.mit.edu). GNU EMACS and X the GNU C compiler, two tools designed for this project, have X become very popular in hackerdom. See , , X . 2. Noted UNIX hacker John Gilmore X (gnu@hoptoad.com), ironically enough one of the best-known and X most vocal opponents of the "information should not be property" X philosophy behind GNU (sense #1). X X /gnoo'maks/ [contraction of "Gnu Emacs"] Often-heard X abbreviated name for the project's flagship tool, . X Used esp. in contrast with . X X [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces X upon brain-death] vi., also adjectival . 1. To die, X terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance this is X used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too X serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about. 2. To go completely X quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You X can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off before X the system has gone flatline." 3. A particular failure mode of X video tubes in which vertical scan is lost, so all one sees is a X bright horizontal line bisecting the screen. X X vt. To consume or to obtain. The phrase tends to X imply "consume", while tends to imply "obtain". X "The output spy gobbles characters out of a output buffer." X "I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow." X See also . X X /gonk/ vt.,n. 1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth X beyond any reasonable recognition. In German the term is X (fictively) "gonken", in spanish the verb becomes "gonkar". X "You're gonking me. That story you just told me is a bunch of X gonk." In German, "Du Gonkst mir" (You're pulling my leg). X See also . 2. [British] To grab some sleep at an odd X time. X X /gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ [from the old "Hogan's Heroes" TV X series] n. A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no X useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite X piece of computer hardware. See . X X /gon'zo/ [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming; X outrageous; over the top; very large, esp. used of collections of X source code, source files or individual functions. Has some of the X connotations of and , q.v. X X adj. Often capitalized; always pronounced as if X capitalized. 1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position X to notice: "The Trailblazer's 19.2Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly X Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good Thing for sites relaying X netnews." 2. Something which can't possibly have any ill side X effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the X self-modifying code from that shared library would be a Good X Thing." 3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "YACC X is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has X drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Oppose . X X n. The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a X mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early X eighties. It seems the designers of all those touch-menu X systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their X arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than X a very few selects the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and X oversized, hence "gorilla arm". This is now considered a classic X Horrible Example and cautionary tale to human-factors designers; X "remember the gorilla arm" is shorthand for "how's this gonna X fly in *real* use?" X X /gorp/ [CMU, perhaps from a brand of dried hiker's food?] X Another metasyntactic variable, like and . X X /goz'maks/ [contraction of "Gosling Emacs"] n. The first X -in-C implementation, predating but now largely eclipsed by X . Originally freeware; a commercial version is now X modestly popular as "UniPress Emacs". X X /goss'p@r'iz'm/ A hack, invention, or saying by X arch-hacker R. William (Bill) Gosper. This notion merits its own X term because there are so many of them. Many of the entries in X are Gosperisms; see also . X X /grawlt/ n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by X Mike Gallaher and propagated by the documentation. See X . X X n. A hypothetical substance composed of of X sub-micron-sized Von Neumann machines (self-replicating robots) X programmed to make copies of themselves out of whatever is X available. The image that goes with the term is one of the entire X biosphere of Earth being eventually converted to robot goo. This X is the simplest of the disaster scenarios and is X easily refuted by arguments from energy requirements and elemental X abundances. X X n. The on which all of the groups on the X had their names changed from the net.* format to the X current multiple-hierarchies scheme. X X [from SF fandom] vi.,n. A mass expedition to an oriental X restaurant, esp. one where food is seved family-style and shared. X There is a common heuristic about the amount of food to order X expressed as "For N people, get N - 1 entrees.". See , , . X X n. 1. One of the three standard PostScript references X (`PostScript Language Program Design', Adobe Systems, X Addison-Wesley 1988 QA76.73.P67P66 ISBN 0-201-14396-8); see also X , ). 2. `Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, X Words of Advice', Glenn Krasner, Addison-Wesley 1983, X QA76.8.S635S58, ISBN 0-201-11669-3 (this is also associated with X blue and red books). 3. The `X/Open Compatibility Guide'. Defines X an international standard environment that is a proper X superset of POSIX/SVID; also includes descriptions of a standard X utility toolkit, systems administrations features, and the like. X This grimoire is taken with particular seriousness in Europe. See X . 4. The IEEE 1003.1 POSIX Operating Systems X Interface standard has been dubbed "The Ugly Green Book". 5. Any X of the 1992 standards which will be issued by the CCIT 10th plenary X assembly. Until now, hese have changed color each review cycle X (1984 was , 1988 ); however, it is rumored X that this convention is going to be dropped befor 1992. These X include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group 1 X through 4 fax standards. See also , , , , , , , X , . X X n. 1. Meta-information imbedded in a file such as the X length of the file or its name; as opposed to keeping such X information in a separate description file or record. Name comes X from an IBM user's group meeting where these two approaches were X being debated and the diagram of the file on the blackboard had the X "green bytes" drawn in green. 2. By extension, the X non-data bits in any self-describing format. "A GIF file X contains, among other things, green bytes describing the packing X method for the image." X X [IBM] n. Apparently random flashing streaks on the X face of 3278-9 terminals while a programmable symbol set is being X loaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some X bright spark suggested that this would let the user know that X `something is happening'. It certainly does. 2. [proposed] Any bug X perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or X marketing. E.g. "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 8800 X architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green X lightning". X X /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p (Global search for X Regular Expression and Print) via `grep(1)'] vt. To rapidly X scan a file or file set looking for a particular string or pattern. X By extension, to look for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin X board for the system backup schedule, would you?" X X vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP X code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. This usage was X associated with the MACLISP community and is now rare; X was and is the generic term for such operations. 2. X [UNIX] To generate the formatted version of a document from the X nroff, troff, TeX or Scribe source. 3. To run seemingly X interminably, performing some tedious and inherently useless task. X Similar to , . 3. excl. Roughly, X "Isn't the machine slow today!" X X n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the X side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and X causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not refer to a X grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriate gesture and X noise. See , and . X X Historical note: At least one real machine actually had a grind X crank --- the R1, a research machine built towards the the end of X the days of the great vacuum tube computers in 1959. R1 (also X known as "The Rice Institute Computer" - TRIC, and later as "The X Rice University Computer" - TRUC) had a single step/free run X switch for use when debugging programs. Since single stepping X through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank X with a cam and gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single X step button. This allowed one to "crank" through a lot of code, X then slow down to single step a bit when you got near the code of X interest, poke at some registers using the "console typewriter", X and then keep on cranking. X X /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a ). 2. X vi. To complain. Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3. A X synonym for (as verb or noun). X X /grok/ [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by X Robert Heinlein, where it is a Martian verb meaning literally "to X drink" and metaphorically "to be one with"] vt. 1. To X understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes intimate and X exhaustive knowledge. Contrast , similar supernal X understanding as a single brief flash. 2. Used of programs, may X connote merely sufficient understanding, e.g., "Almost all C X compilers grok void these days." X X /gronk/ [popularized by the cartoon strip "B.C." by Johnny X Hart, but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To clear the X state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than "to X ". 2. To break. "The teletype scanner was gronked, X so we took the system down." 3. : adj. Of people, the X condition of feeling very tired or sick. Oppose , which X means about the same as used of hardware but connotes X depression or mental/emotional problems in people. 4. : X vi. To cease functioning. Of people, to go home and go to sleep. X "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow." X X vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress. X Often used transitively with "over" or "through". "The file X scavenger has been grovelling through the file directories for ten X minutes now." Compare and . Emphatic form: X . 2. To examine minutely or in complete detail. X "The compiler grovels over the entire source program before X beginning to translate it." "I grovelled through all the X documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted." X X [Cambridge] n. Code which is `dead' (can never be accessed) X due to changes in other parts of the program. The preferred term X in North America is , X X /gruhn'jee/ adj. Incredibly dirty, greasy, or grubby. X Anything which has been washed within the last year is not really X grungy. Also used metaphorically; hence some programs (especially X crocks) can be described as grungy. Now (1990) also common in X mainstream slang. X X /guh'bish/ [a portmanteau of "garbage" and "rubbish"?] X n. Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?" The X opposite portmanteau "rubbage" is also reported. X X n. decorated with a message telling one how X long and hard the author worked on this program and intimating that X one is a no-good freeloader if one does not immediately send the X poor suffering martyr gobs of money. X X /guhm'bee/ [from a class of Monty Python characters, poss. X themselves named after a '60s claymation character] n. An act of X minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in or . X X [from the :GUN command on ITS] vt. To forcibly terminate a X program or job (computer, not career). "Some idiot left a X background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunned X it." Compare . X X /ger'fl/ interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He X said we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week. X Gurfle!" Compare . X X n. 1. [UNIX] An expert. Implies not only skill but a X history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, used X (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems, as in "VMS X guru". 2. Amiga equivalent of "panic" in UNIX. When the system X crashes a cryptic message "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" X appears, indicating what the problem was. An Amiga guru can figure X things out from the numbers. Generally a event must be X followed by a . X X {= H =} X X [from SF fandom] A method of "marking" common words in the X linguist's sense, i.e. calling attention to the fact that they are X being used in a nonstandard, ironic or humorous way. Orig. in the X fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod" from decades X ago. H-infix marking of "Ghod" and other words spread into the X Sixties counterculture via underground comix, and into early X hackerdom either from the counterculture or SF fandom (all three X overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has X become an expected feature of benchmark names, i.e. Whetstone, X Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc; this is prob. patterning on the X original Whetstone name but influenced by the X fannish/counterculture H infix. X X [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK, "Ha X Ha Only Kidding"] A phrase that aptly captures the flavor of much X hacker discourse (often seen abbreviated as HHOS). Applied X especially to parodies, absurdities and ironic jokes that are both X intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of X truth, or truths which are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. X The jargon file contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in X both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is X often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to X take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an X outsider or one in . For further enlightenment on X this subject, consult any Zen master. See also and X . X X 1. n. Originally a quick job that produces what is needed, but X not well. 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very X time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed. X 3. The result of a hack (sense 1 or 2); 3. : A clever X technique. Also, a brilliant practical joke, where neatness is X correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value. X Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display switch circa 1961. 4. X : A crock (occasionally affectionate). vt. 5. With X "together", to throw something together so it will work. 6. To X bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!" 7. To X work on something (typically a program). In specific sense: "What X are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO." In general sense: "What X do you do around here?" "I hack TECO." (The former is X time-immediate, the latter time-extended.) More generally, "I X hack x" is roughly equivalent to "x is my major interest (or X project)". "I hack solid-state physics." 8. To pull a prank X on. See definition 3 and (def #6). 9. v.i. To waste time X (as opposed to ). "Watcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking." X 10. , : To hack, but generally implies that the X result is meanings 1-2. 11. [UNIX] A dungeon game similar to X but more elaborate, distributed in C source over X and very popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines. Recent X versions are called `nethack'. 12. Short for , which see. X X Constructions on this term abound. They include: : A X farewell. : A friendly greeting among hackers. X : A somewhat pointless but friendly comment, often used X as a temporary farewell. For more on the meaning of see X Appendix A. X X [poss by analogy with "Big Mac Attack"] n. Nearly X synonymous with though the latter implies an X all-nighter more strongly. X X n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for X expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being X that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP has X features for reading and printing roman numerals, which was X installed purely for hack value. As a musician once said of jazz, X if you don't understand hack value there is no way it can be X explained. X X [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A X person who enjoys learning the details of programming systems and X how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users who X prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs X enthusiastically (even obsessively), or who enjoys programming X rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable X of appreciating . 4. A person who is good at X programming quickly. Not everything a hacker produces is a hack. X 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does X work using it or on it; example: "A UNIX hacker". (Definitions 1 X to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An X expert of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. X 7. (deprecated) A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to X discover information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", X "network hacker". See . X X n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2. More X specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem which X may be achieved when one is hacking. Ability to enter such X concentration at will correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is X one of the most important skills learned during . X Sometimes amplified as "deep hack mode". Being yanked out of hack X mode (see ) may be experienced as an almost X physical shock, and the sensation of being in it is more than a X little habituating. The intensity of this experience is probably X by itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, and X explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they X can do code. X X [analogy with "bombing run" or "speed run"] n. A X hack session extended long outside normal working times, especially X one longer than 12 hours. May cause you to "change phase the hard X way" (see ). X X /hak'ish/ adj. (also n.) 1. Being or involving X a hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture. X See also . It is better to be described as hackish by X others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider X themselves somewhat of an elite, though one to which new members X are gladly welcome. It is a meritocracy based on ability. There X is a certain self-satisfaction in identifying yourself as a hacker X (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labelled X ). X X n. The quality of being or involving a hack. X (The word is considered silly; the standard term is X .) X X n. The complications which make something hairy. "Decoding X commands requires a certain amount of hair." Often seen in X the phrase , which connotes extreme complexity. X Also in (tending to promote hair growth): "GNU elisp X encourages lusers to write complex editing modes." "Yeah, it's X pretty hairiferous all right." (or just: "Hair squared!") X X adj. 1. Overly complicated. " is incredibly hairy." X 2. Incomprehensible. " is incredibly hairy." 3. Of X people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or X incomprehensible. Hard to explain except in context: "He knows X this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about." X X /hak'mem/ n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972). A legendary X collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed X by many people at MIT and elsewhere. (The title of the memo really X is "HAKMEM", which is an acronym of sorts for "hacks memo".) X Some of them are very useful techniques or powerful theorems, but X most fall into the category of mathematical and computer trivia. A X sampling of the entries (with authors), slightly paraphrased: X X Item 41 (Gene Salamin) There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less X than 2 to the 18th power. X X Item 46 (Rich Schroeppel) The most *probable* suit X distribution in bridge hands is 4-4-3-2, as compared to 4-3-3-3, X which is the most *evenly* distributed. This is because the X world likes to have unequal numbers: a thermodynamic effect saying X things will not be in the state of lowest energy, but in the state X of lowest disordered energy. X X Problem 81 (Rich Schroeppel) Count the magic squares of order 5 X (that is, all the 5-by-5 arrangements of the numbers from 1 to 25 X such that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same X number). There are about 320 million, not counting those that X differ only by rotation and reflection. X X Item 174 (Bill Gosper and Stuart Nelson) 21963283741 is the only X number such that if you represent it on the as both an X integer and a floating-point number, the bit patterns of the two X representations are identical. X X HAKMEM also contains some rather more complicated mathematical and X technical items, but these examples show some of its fun flavor. X X /hak'speek/ n. Generally used term to describe a method of X spelling to be found on many British academic bulletin boards and X talker systems. Syllables and whole words in a sentence are X replaced by single ASCII characters which are phonetically similar X or equivalent, whilst multiple letters are usually dropped. Hence X `for' becomes `4', `two', `too' and `to' become `2', `ck' becomes X `k'. "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c u 2moro". X First appeared in London about 1986, and was probably caused by the X slow speed of available talker systems, which operated on archaic X machines with outdated operating systems, and no standard methods X of commuinication. Has become rarer nowadays. See also . X X n. A particularly slick little piece of code that does one X thing well; a small, self-contained hack. The image is of a X hamster happily spinning its exercise wheel. X X n. 1. The practice of translating s from an X into custom hand-optimized assembler, as opposed to trying to X coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the term and X the practice are becoming uncommon. See , ; syn. with X v. . 2. More generally, manual construction or patching of X data sets that would normally be ground out by a translation X utility and interpreted by another program, and aren't really X designed to be read or modified by humans. X X 1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distract a X listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with X blatantly faulty logic. If someone starts a sentence with X "Clearly..." or "Obviously..." or "It is self-evident X that...", you can be sure he is about to handwave. The theory X behind this term is that if you wave your hands at the right X moment, the listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice X that what you have said is . Alternatively, if a listener X does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of X your hand. 2. n. The act of handwaving. "Boy, what a handwave!" X The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands X up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting X at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the X handwave); alternatively, holding the forearms still while rotating X the hands at the wrist to make them flutter. In context, the X gestures alone can suffice as a remark; if a speaker makes an X outrageous unsupported assumption, you might simply wave your hands X in this way, as an accusation more eloquent than words could X express that his logic is faulty. X X v. 1. To wait for some event to occur; to hang around until X something happens. "The program displays a menu and then hangs X until you type a character." 2. More commonly, to wait for an X event that will never occur. "The system is hanging because it X can't read from the crashed drive". See , . X X n. A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's Razor that X reads "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately X explained by stupidity". The derivation of the common title X Hanlon's Razor is unknown; a similar epigram has been attributed to X William James. Quoted here because it seems to be a particular X favorite of hackers, often showing up in files and X the login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This X probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments X created by the well-intentioned but shortsighted. X X /hard-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to hardware. X "The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective X "hardwary" is *not* used. See . X X adj. 1. Insertion of data directly into a program, where X it cannot be easily modified, as opposed to making provision for a X or hacker to modify the values easily. 2. In C, this is X esp. applied to use of a literal instead of a preprocessor #define X (see also ). 2. By extension, anything that is not X modifiable, especially in the sense of customizable to one's X particular needs or tastes. X X [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the X form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"] adj. Common hacker X construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis. "Anyone X who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it X truly has the nature!" X X [from the technical usage] n. When used of people, X signifies a confusion in associative memory or imagination, X especially a persistent one (see ). True story: one of us X [ESR] was once on the phone with a friend about to move out to X Berkeley. When asked what he expected Berkeley to be like, the X friend replied "Well, I have this mental picture of naked women X throwing Molotov cocktails, but I think that's just a collision in X my hash tables." The variant "hash clash" is also reported. X X /aych-see-eff/ n. Mnemonic for "Halt and Catch Fire", any of X several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with X destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on X several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360. X The MC6800 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcode X became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to X toggle a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it can; in some X configurations this can actually cause lines to burn up. X X [Sun] adj. Concentrating, usually so heavily and for so X long that everything outside the focus area is missed. See also X , although it's not confined to fledgeling hackers. X X n. 1. The master clock signal propagated across an X Ethernet; by extension, the time-baseline synchronization signal at X the physical level of any network. 2. The `natural' oscillation X frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division X down to the machine's clock rate. 3. A signal emitted at regular X intervals by software to demonstrate that it's still alive. Oppose X . X X [Cambridge] n. Syn. . X X n. Code or designs which trade on a particularly X intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system X or language or complex application interface. Distinguished from X , which trades more on arcane *theoretical* X knowledge. Writing device drivers is heavy wizardry; so is X interfacing to X (sense #2) without a toolkit. Esp. found in X comments of the form "Heavy wizardry begins here...". Compare X . X X /hie'sen-buhg/ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in X quantum physics] n. A bug which disappears or alters its behavior X when one attempts to probe or isolate it. Antonym of . X In C, 9 out of 10 heisenbugs result from either X phenomena (esp. lossage related to corruption of the malloc X ) or errors which . X X n. State of a hardware or software system which is X deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e. accepting no input and generating no X output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion X into . (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose success X at learning speech was triumphant.) See also . X X! interj. Occasional West Coast equivalent of ; seems to have originated at SAIL, later associated with X the game (which also included "hello aviator" and "hello X implementor"). X X excl. See . X X interj. 1. The canonical minimal test message in the X C/UNIX universe. In folklore, the first program a C coder is X supposed to write in a new environment is one that just prints X "hello, world!" to standard output. Environments that generate X an unreasonably large executable for this trivial test or which X require a compiler-linker invocation to generate it are X considered to . 2. Greeting uttered by a hacker making an X entrance or requesting information from anyone present. "Hello, X world! Is the back up yet?" X X [scientific computation] n. A extra option added to a X routine without changing the calling sequence. For example, X instead of adding an explicit input variable to instruct a routine X to give extra diagnostic output, the programmer might just add a X test for some otherwise meaningless feature of the existing inputs, X such as a negative mass. Liberal use of hidden flags can make a X program very hard to debug and understand. X X n. 1. See . Also meaning most significant part of X something other than a data byte, e.g. "Spare me the whole saga, X just give me the high bit." X X /hie mohb'ee/ n. The high half of a stock 's X address space; the other half was of course the low moby. This X usage has been generalized in a way that has outlasted the X ; for example, at the 1990 Washington D.C Area Science X Fiction Conclave (DISCLAVE) when a miscommunication resulted in two X separate wakes being held in commemoration of the shutdown of MIT's X last machines, the one on the upper floor was dubbed the high X moby and the other the low moby. All parties involved grokked this X instantly. See . X X [scientific computation] adv. The preferred modifier for X overstating an understatement. As in: , the X worst possible way to do something; , either X impossible or requiring a major research project; , completely erratic and unpredictable; , drivel written for s, oversimplified to the X point of being misleading or incorrect (compare ). In other computing cultures, postfixing of might be preferred. X X adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for . X X /aych-el-el/ n. [High-Level Language (as opposed to assembler)] X Found primarily in email and news rather than speech. Rarely, the X variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found. VHLL = `Very-High-Level X Language' and is used to describe a that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FP X are often called VHLLs. `MLL' = `Medium-Level Language' and is X sometimes used half-jokingly to describe C, alluding to its X `structured-assembler' image. See also . X X n.,vt. Favored term to describe programs or hardware which seem X to eat far more than their share of a system's resources, esp. X those which noticeably degrade general timesharing response. X *Not* used of programs which are simply extremely large or X complex or which are merely painfully slow themselves (see ). More often than not encountered in qualified forms, X e.g. "memory hog", "core hog", "hog the processor", "hog the X disk". Example: "A controller that never gives up the I/O bus X gets killed after the bus hog timer expires." X X [from , but may predate it] n. s over X . The 1980 paper by Danny Cohen that popularized X the terms and in connection with the X LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled `On Holy Wars and X a Plea for Peace'. Other perennial Holy Wars have included: X vs. , my personal computer vs. everyone else's personal X computer, vs. , vs. , UNIX vs. X UNIX, C vs. Pascal, etc. etc. etc. The characteristic that X distinguishes from normal technical disputes is that X (regardless of the technical merits of the case on either side) X most participants spend their time trying to pass off personal X value choices and cultural attachments as objective technical X evaluations. X X n. An extraneous piece of software or hardware included in X order to simplify later additions or changes by a user. For X instance, a PDP-10 program might execute a location that is X normally a JFCL, but by changing the JFCL to a PUSHJ one can insert X a debugging routine at that point. As another example, a simple X program that prints numbers might always print them in base ten, X but a more flexible version would let a variable determine what X base to use; setting the variable to 5 would make the program print X numbers in base five. The variable is a simple hook. An even more X flexible program might examine the variable, and treat a value of X 16 or less as the base to use, but treat any other number as the X address of a user-supplied routine for printing a number. This is X a very powerful hook; one can then write a routine to print numbers X as roman numerals, say, or as Hebrew characters, and plug it into X the program through the hook. Often the difference between a good X program and a superb one is that the latter has useful hooks in X judiciously chosen places. Both may do the original job about SHAR_EOF chmod 0644 jsplit.ae || echo "restore of jsplit.ae fails" if [ $TOUCH = can ] then touch -am 0103154591 jsplit.ae fi exit 0