2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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grok
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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/grok/ , /grohk/ , vt. [common; from the novel Stranger in a Strange Land ,
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by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally to drink
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and metaphorically to be one with ] The emphatic form is grok in fullness.
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1. To understand. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. When you claim
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to grok some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not
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merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part
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of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you know LISP is
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simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary but to say you grok
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LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of
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the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of
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programming. Contrast zen , which is similar supernal understanding
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experienced as a single brief flash. See also glark. 2. Used of programs,
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may connote merely sufficient understanding. Almost all C compilers grok the
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void type these days.
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