Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!axion!fulcrum!igb
From: igb@Fulcrum.BT.CO.UK (Ian G Batten)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <112@cat.Fulcrum.BT.CO.UK>
Date: 20 Feb 89 11:01:32 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <4575@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> <20373@coherent.com> <1051@vsi.COM>
Reply-To: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten)
Organization: BT Fulcrum, Birmingham, England
Lines: 24

In article <20373@coherent.com>, dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes:
> Another subclass of computer folklore is the occasional barbed comment
> that one can find when reading through source code.

Multics Emacs was written and initially maintained by Bernie Greenberg.
Most of the source and comments were in Latin (dog and otherwise) and
various other foreign, obsolete and sometimes near-Lovecraftian tounges.
Not easy hacking.  Then Barry Margolin took over.  The comments in the
history file was along the lines of:

;;; The glorious dawn on a new rosy age!  Comments in English!

But some of the older function names were superb: "buffer-est-delenda-p",
"fenestra-est-delenda-p" and the great "jetez-les-gazongas" (which involed
"les-petit-gazongas" and "les-grandes-gazongas").  This last was reputedly
equivalent to an outermost catch handler, because Greenberg felt that a
throw slamming up against the system "throw can't find catch" handler made
a noise like...GA---ZONG!!

Perhaps Barmar could confirm/deny...

ian
-- 
Ian G Batten, BT Fulcrum - igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk - ...!uunet!ukc!fulcrum!igb