JargonFile/entries/random.txt

random

adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. The
system's been behaving pretty randomly. 2. Assorted; undistinguished. Who
was at the conference? Just a bunch of random business types. 3.
(pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. He's just a random loser.
4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organized. The program
has a random set of misfeatures. That's a random name for that function.
Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly. 5. In no particular order,
though deterministic. The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is
opened one is chosen randomly. 6. Arbitrary. It generates a random name for
the scratch file. 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for no good
apparent reason. For example, a program that handles file name defaulting in
a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have
been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values
with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it without
first saving four extra registers. What randomness ! 8. n. A random hacker;
used particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and
generally get in the way. 9. n. Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes,
anyone not known to the hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. I went
to the talk, but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions.
10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See also J.
Random , some random X. 11. [UK] Conversationally, a non sequitur or
something similarly out-of-the-blue. As in: Stop being so random! This sense
equates to hatstand , taken from the Viz comic character Roger Irrelevant -
He's completely Hatstand.