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@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Free Documentation License".
* Generated
This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
This file last generated Monday, 15 October 2018 10:27AM UTC
* Glossary
** (
@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ Benevolent Dictator For Life. Guido , considered in his role as the project lead
// Common written abbreviation for Breidbart Index.
*** BLOB
Used by database people to refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file. The essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be interpreted within the database itself. 2. v. To mailbomb someone by sending a BLOB to him/her; esp. used as a mild threat. If that program crashes again, I'm going to BLOB the core dump to you.
Used by database people to refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file. The essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be interpreted within the database itself. 2. v. To mailbomb someone by sending a BLOB to him/her; esp. used as a mild threat. If that program crashes again, I'm going to BLOB the core dump to you. 3. Derogatory term applied to proprietary software, "binary blob", as in "this kernel contains blobs!"
*** BLT
/BLT/ , /bl@t/ , /belt/ , n.,vt. Synonym for blit. This is the original form of blit and the ancestor of bitblt. It referred to any large bit-field copy or move operation (one resource-intensive memory-shuffling operation done on pre-paged versions of ITS, WAITS, and TOPS-10 was sardonically referred to as The Big BLT ). The jargon usage has outlasted the PDP-10 BLock Transfer instruction from which BLT derives; nowadays, the assembler mnemonic BLT almost always means Branch if Less Than zero.
@ -337,7 +337,7 @@ Any of the editions of the Chemical Rubber Company Handbook of Chemistry and Phy
/CTSS/ , n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive timesharing operating systems, ancestral to Multics , Unix , and ITS. The name ITS (Incompatible Time-sharing System) was a hack on CTSS, meant both as a joke and to express some basic differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be presented to user programs.
*** Camel Book
n. Universally recognized nickname for the book Programming Perl , by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and Associates 1991, ISBN 0-937175-64-1 (second edition 1996, ISBN 1-56592-149-6; third edition 2000, 0-596-00027-8, adding as authors Tom Christiansen and Jon Orwant but dropping Randal Schwartz). The definitive reference on Perl.
n. Universally recognized nickname for the book Programming Perl , by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and Associates 1991. The definitive reference on Perl.
*** Cancelmoose[tm]
/kanselmoos/ [Usenet] The archetype and model of all good spam -fighters. Once upon a time, the 'Moose would send out spam-cancels and then post notice anonymously to news.admin.policy , news.admin.misc , and alt.current-events.net-abuse. The 'Moose stepped to the fore on its own initiative, at a time (mid-1994) when spam-cancels were irregular and disorganized, and behaved altogether admirably fair, even-handed, and quick to respond to comments and criticism, all without self-aggrandizement or martyrdom. Cancelmoose[tm] quickly gained near-unanimous support from the readership of all three above-mentioned groups. Nobody knows who Cancelmoose[tm] really is, and there aren't even any good rumors. However, the 'Moose now has an e-mail address ( moose@cm.org ) and a web site ( http://www.cm.org/. ) By early 1995, others had stepped into the spam-cancel business, and appeared to be comporting themselves well, after the 'Moose's manner. The 'Moose has now gotten out of the business, and is more interested in ending spam (and cancels) entirely.
@ -2039,9 +2039,6 @@ n. [portmanteau of back + acronym] A word interpreted as an acronym that was not
*** backward combatability
/bakw@rd k@mbat'@bil'@tee/ , n. [CMU, Tektronix: from backward compatibility ] A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favor of new and improved protocols, formats, and layouts, leaving the previous ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple version mismatch message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme software bloat. See also flag day.
*** bag on the side
n. [prob. originally related to a colostomy bag] An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, to hang a bag on the side [of]. C++? That's just a bag on the side of C. ... They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system.
*** bagbiter
1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!
@ -2305,7 +2302,7 @@ n. [common] A technique that works, though nobody really understands why. More o
In corporate environments this is typically closed source software procured for the purpose of having some external entity to blame when things inevitably go wrong. Software as a strategy for deflecting blame within the organizational structure. The efficiency or usefulness of the software doesn't matter so long as it can be used to absorb blame. "Get the blame out of the building".
*** blammo
v. [Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To forcibly remove someone from any interactive system, especially talker systems. The operators, who may remain hidden, may blammo a user who is misbehaving. Very similar to archaic MIT gun ; in fact, the blammo-gun is a notional device used to blammo someone. While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to stun will temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to maim will stop someone coming back on for a while.
v. [Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To forcibly remove someone from any interactive system, especially talker systems. The operators, who may remain hidden, may blammo a user who is misbehaving. Very similar to archaic MIT gun ; in fact, the blammo-gun is a notional device used to blammo someone. While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to stun will temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to maim will stop someone coming back on for a while. More commonly now this is known as "kick", as in "oh, that troll got kicked from the [chat] room".
*** blargh
/blarg/ , n. [MIT; now common] The opposite of ping , sense 5; an exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a quantum of unhappiness. Less common than ping.
@ -2347,12 +2344,14 @@ Synonymous with nuke (sense 3). Sometimes the message Unable to kill all process
6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared spool space on a multi-user system). This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of frob ). It has also been used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that the parts fit together in an impossible way.
*** bloatware
n. [common] Software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in the Windows/NT world. So is its cause.
n. [common] Software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in relation to Windows operating systems and applications. Also sometimes used in reverse for humerous effect. "Eleven megabytes?! TinyCore Linux is bloatware!"
*** block
1. vi. To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. We're blocking until everyone gets here. Compare busy-wait.
2. block on vt. To block, waiting for (something). Lunch is blocked on Phil's arrival.
2. block on vt. To block, waiting for (something). Lunch is blocked on Phil's arrival.
3. A type of cryptographic cipher, "block cipher".
*** blog
n. [common] Short for weblog , an on-line web-zine or diary (usually with facilities for reader comments and discussion threads) made accessible through the World Wide Web. This term is widespread and readily forms derivatives, of which the best known may be blogosphere.
@ -2381,7 +2380,7 @@ vt. To blow out despite a safeguard. The server blew past the 5K reserve buffer.
2. Syn. blow out.
*** blue box
1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early phreaker s built devices called es that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network. There were other colors of box with more specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes, etc. There were boxes of other colors as well, but the was the original and archetype.
1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early phreakers built devices called es that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network. There were other colors of box with more specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes, etc. There were boxes of other colors as well, but the was the original and archetype.
2. n. An IBM machine, especially a large (non-PC) one.
@ -2471,6 +2470,9 @@ Syn. kludge or hack (sense 1). I'll bodge this in now and fix it later.
3. Var of bonk ; see bonk/oif.
*** bolt-on
An extension to an established system that is supposed to add some new functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. "This module was arbitrarily bolted on to add functionality X"
*** bomb
1. v. General synonym for crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll.
@ -2505,9 +2507,9 @@ Someone who remotely controls one or more botnets (a set of exploited computer s
A network of internet connected systems which have been taken over using security exploits or laughably dreadful password policies. Often older systems which have not received security updates or which are no longer supported by the OEM become easy recruits to one or more botnet. Hackers or government agencies who have remote control over the exploited machines are known as botmasters. Botnets may be used to carry out DDoS attacks or a motley assortment of nefarious activities.
*** bottom feeder
1. An Internet user that leeches off ISPs the sort you can never provide good enough services for, always complains about the price, no matter how low it may be, and will bolt off to another service the moment there is even the slimmest price difference. While most bottom feeders infest free or almost free services such as AOL, MSN, and Hotmail, too many flock to whomever happens to be the cheapest regional ISP at the time. Bottom feeders are often the classic problem user, known for unleashing spam, flamage, and other breaches of netiquette.
1. A lowest common demoninator user of Reddit, Hacker News or comparable news aggregation sites.
2. Syn. for slopsucker , derived from the fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist on the primordial ooze. (This sense is older.
2. Novice coder with reactionary political views. "His patch contained bottom feeder comments". "I kicked them from the [chat] room because they were just a bottom feeder".
*** bottom-post
v. In a news or mail reply, to put the response to a news or email message after the quoted content from the parent message. This is correct form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet that neither the term bottom-post nor its antonym top-post existed. Hackers consider that the best practice is actually to excerpt only the relevent portions of the parent message, then intersperse the poster's response in such a way that each section of response appears directly after the excerpt it applies to. This reduces message bulk, keeps thread content in a logical order, and facilitates reading.
@ -2619,7 +2621,7 @@ Pejorative hackerism for token-ring network , an early and very slow LAN technol
/brohk@t/ , /brohket`/ , n.
*** brown-paper-bag bug
n. A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the author notionally wears a brown paper bag over his head for a while so he won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999 release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in Linus Torvalds's apology posting.
n. A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the author notionally wears a brown paper bag over their head for a while so they won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999 release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in Linus Torvalds's apology posting.
*** browser
n. A program specifically designed to help users view and navigate hypertext, on-line documentation, or a database. While this general sense has been present in jargon for a long time, the proliferation of browsers for the World Wide Web after 1992 has made it much more popular and provided a central or default techspeak meaning of the word previously lacking in hacker usage. Nowadays, if someone mentions using a browser without qualification, one may assume it is a Web browser.
@ -2747,7 +2749,7 @@ adj. [very common; historically, according to religious law ] The usual or stand
/keirweir/ , n. A variety of shareware for which either the author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity or a levy directed to charity is included on top of the distribution charge. Syn.: charityware ; compare crippleware , sense 2.
*** cargo cult programming
n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging , voodoo programming ). The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as cargo cult science in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (W. W. Norton Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).
n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging , voodoo programming ). The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as cargo cult science in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.
*** cascade
1. A huge volume of spurious error-message output produced by a compiler with poor error recovery. Too frequently, one trivial syntax error (such as a missing ) or } ) throws the parser out of synch so that much of the remaining program text is interpreted as garbaged or ill-formed.
@ -2856,10 +2858,12 @@ v. [common] To reject input, often ungracefully. NULs make System V's lpr (1) ch
n. Someone or something that is chomping; a loser. See loser , bagbiter , chomp.
*** chrome
n. [from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are pretty chrome! Distinguished from bells and whistles by the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt.
1. n. [from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are pretty chrome! Distinguished from bells and whistles by the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt.
2. An inferior browser made by Google, containing proprietary codec blobs.
*** chug
vi. To run slowly; to grind or grovel. The disk is chugging like crazy.
vi. To run slowly; to grind or grovel. The download is chugging like crazy.
*** clean
Used of hardware or software designs, implies elegance in the small , that is, a design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the outside. The antonym is grungy or crufty. 2. v. To remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter: I'm cleaning up my account. I cleaned up the garbage and now have 100 Meg free on that partition.
@ -2909,15 +2913,15 @@ The notional stick with which one whacks an aggressively clueless person. This t
/kohloh`/ , n. [very common; first heard c.1995] Short for co-location , used of a machine you own that is physically sited on the premises of an ISP in order to take advantage of the ISP's direct access to lots of network bandwidth. Often in the phrases co-lo box or co-lo machines. Co-lo boxes are typically web and FTP servers remote-administered by their owners, who may seldom or never visit the actual site.
*** coaster
1. Unuseable CD produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD.
1. Unuseable CD-ROM produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD.
2. Useless CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Prodigy, ad nauseam. In the U.K., beermat is often used in these senses.
2. Useless CDs received as junk snailmail in the 1990s from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Compuserve, Prodigy, ad nauseam. In the U.K., beermat is often used in these senses.
*** coaster toaster
A writer for recordable CD-Rs, especially cheap IDE models that tend to produce a high proportion of coaster s.
A writer for recordable CD-ROMs, especially cheap IDE models which tended to produce a high proportion of coasters (i.e. non-functioning CDs).
*** cobweb site
n. A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated so long it has figuratively grown cobwebs.
n. Abandoned website. A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated so long it has figuratively grown cobwebs.
*** code
1. n. The stuff that software writers write, either in source form or after translation by a compiler or assembler. Often used in opposition to data , which is the stuff that operates on. Among hackers this is a mass noun, as in How much does it take to do a bubble sort ? , or The is loaded at the high end of RAM. Among scientific programmers it is sometimes a count noun equilvalent to program ; thus they may speak of codes in the plural. Anyone referring to software as the softwares is probably a newbie or a suit.
@ -2979,10 +2983,13 @@ vt. [Unix] When used without a qualifier, generally refers to crunch ing of a fi
n. Syn. chad. [obs.] Though this term was common at one time, this use of punched-card chad is not a good idea, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes. GLS reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and a few other guests enthusiastically threw chad instead of rice. The groom later grumbled that he and his bride had spent most of the evening trying to get the stuff out of their hair. [2001 update: this term has passed out of use for two reasons; (1) the stuff it describes is now quite rare, and (2) the term chad , which was half-forgotten in 1990, has enjoyed a revival.
*** computron
1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. That machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons! This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box , Get a real computer! , toy , crank.
1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box , Get a real computer! , toy , crank.
2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of computation or information, in much the same way that an electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also bogon ). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts because the molecules have lost their information about where they are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so hot and require air conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it should be possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a computron beam. It is believed that this may also explain why machines that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware. (The popularity of this theory probably owes something to the Warlock stories by Larry Niven, the best known being What Good is a Glass Dagger? , in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural resource called mana.
*** computronium
Theoretical material having maximal computing density. "This CPU is made of pure computronium!"
*** con
n. [from SF fandom] A science-fiction convention. Not used of other sorts of conventions, such as professional meetings. This term, unlike many others imported from SF-fan slang, is widely recognized even by hackers who aren't fan s. We'd been corresponding on the net for months, then we met face-to-face at a con.
@ -3257,7 +3264,9 @@ n. Two binary digits; a quad. Larger than a bit , smaller than a nybble. Conside
3. n. The character #. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other places. See ASCII.
4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the BBC micro that ed BASIC source in order to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of characters mattered). Obfuscated C Contest entries are often ed; see the first example under that entry. 7. Lowest common denominator intensification of labor strategy. A phase of (typically though not exclusively) commercial software development when hackers are threatened by their project managers in order to work additional unpaid hours to meet some arbitrary deadline decided by a suit on a golf course. "I won't be at the hackspace tonight because there's a crunch on at work".
4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the BBC micro that ed BASIC source in order to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of characters mattered). Obfuscated C Contest entries are often ed; see the first example under that entry.
5. Lowest common denominator intensification of labor strategy. A phase of (typically though not exclusively) commercial software development when hackers are threatened by their project managers in order to work additional unpaid hours to meet some arbitrary deadline decided by a suit on a golf course. "I won't be at the hackspace tonight because there's a crunch on at work".
*** cryppie
/kripee/ , n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
@ -4324,9 +4333,6 @@ n. (alt.: frowney face ) See emoticon.
*** fscking
/fus'king/ , /eff'seeking/ , adj. [Usenet; very common] Fucking, in the expletive sense (it refers to the Unix filesystem-repair command fsck (8) , of which it can be said that if you have to use it at all you are having a bad day). Originated on scary devil monastery and the bofh.net newsgroups, but became much more widespread following the passage of CDA.
*** fuck me harder
excl. Sometimes uttered in response to egregious misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of misbehaviors which seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the perverse). Often theatrically elaborated: Aiighhh! Fuck me with a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence and no lubricants ! The phrase is sometimes heard abbreviated FMH in polite company. [This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the most anatomically absurd mental image possible the short forms implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken). Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry ought to be included at all. As it reflects a live usage recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all forms of censorship to record it here.
*** fudge
1. vt. To perform in an incomplete but marginally acceptable way, particularly with respect to the writing of a program. I didn't feel like going through that pain and suffering, so I d it I'll fix it later.

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@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ Free Documentation License".
</p>
<H2>Generated</H2>
<p>
This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
This file last generated Monday, 15 October 2018 10:27AM UTC
</p>
<H2>Glossary</H2>
@ -233,7 +233,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
</p>
<H4>BLOB</H4>
<p>
Used by database people to refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file. The essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be interpreted within the database itself. 2. v. To mailbomb someone by sending a BLOB to him/her; esp. used as a mild threat. If that program crashes again, I'm going to BLOB the core dump to you.
Used by database people to refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file. The essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be interpreted within the database itself. 2. v. To mailbomb someone by sending a BLOB to him/her; esp. used as a mild threat. If that program crashes again, I'm going to BLOB the core dump to you. 3. Derogatory term applied to proprietary software, "binary blob", as in "this kernel contains blobs!"
</p>
<H4>BLT</H4>
<p>
@ -416,7 +416,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
</p>
<H4>Camel Book</H4>
<p>
n. Universally recognized nickname for the book Programming Perl , by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and Associates 1991, ISBN 0-937175-64-1 (second edition 1996, ISBN 1-56592-149-6; third edition 2000, 0-596-00027-8, adding as authors Tom Christiansen and Jon Orwant but dropping Randal Schwartz). The definitive reference on Perl.
n. Universally recognized nickname for the book Programming Perl , by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and Associates 1991. The definitive reference on Perl.
</p>
<H4>Cancelmoose[tm]</H4>
<p>
@ -2478,10 +2478,6 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>
/bakw@rd k@mbat'@bil'@tee/ , n. [CMU, Tektronix: from backward compatibility ] A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favor of new and improved protocols, formats, and layouts, leaving the previous ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple version mismatch message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme software bloat. See also flag day.
</p>
<H4>bag on the side</H4>
<p>
n. [prob. originally related to a colostomy bag] An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, to hang a bag on the side [of]. C++? That's just a bag on the side of C. ... They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system.
</p>
<H4>bagbiter</H4>
<p>1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter! </p>
@ -2768,7 +2764,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
</p>
<H4>blammo</H4>
<p>
v. [Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To forcibly remove someone from any interactive system, especially talker systems. The operators, who may remain hidden, may blammo a user who is misbehaving. Very similar to archaic MIT gun ; in fact, the blammo-gun is a notional device used to blammo someone. While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to stun will temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to maim will stop someone coming back on for a while.
v. [Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To forcibly remove someone from any interactive system, especially talker systems. The operators, who may remain hidden, may blammo a user who is misbehaving. Very similar to archaic MIT gun ; in fact, the blammo-gun is a notional device used to blammo someone. While in actual fact the only incarnation of the blammo-gun is the command used to forcibly eject a user, operators speak of different levels of blammo-gun fire; e.g., a blammo-gun to stun will temporarily remove someone, but a blammo-gun set to maim will stop someone coming back on for a while. More commonly now this is known as "kick", as in "oh, that troll got kicked from the [chat] room".
</p>
<H4>blargh</H4>
<p>
@ -2816,12 +2812,14 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared spool space on a multi-user system). This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of frob ). It has also been used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that the parts fit together in an impossible way.</p>
<H4>bloatware</H4>
<p>
n. [common] Software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in the Windows/NT world. So is its cause.
n. [common] Software that provides minimal functionality while requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in relation to Windows operating systems and applications. Also sometimes used in reverse for humerous effect. "Eleven megabytes?! TinyCore Linux is bloatware!"
</p>
<H4>block</H4>
<p>1. vi. To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. We're blocking until everyone gets here. Compare busy-wait. </p>
<p>2. block on vt. To block, waiting for (something). Lunch is blocked on Phil's arrival.</p>
<p>2. block on vt. To block, waiting for (something). Lunch is blocked on Phil's arrival. </p>
<p>3. A type of cryptographic cipher, "block cipher".</p>
<H4>blog</H4>
<p>
n. [common] Short for weblog , an on-line web-zine or diary (usually with facilities for reader comments and discussion threads) made accessible through the World Wide Web. This term is widespread and readily forms derivatives, of which the best known may be blogosphere.
@ -2855,7 +2853,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>2. Syn. blow out.</p>
<H4>blue box</H4>
<p>1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early phreaker s built devices called es that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network. There were other colors of box with more specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes, etc. There were boxes of other colors as well, but the was the original and archetype. </p>
<p>1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early phreakers built devices called es that could reproduce these tones, which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network. There were other colors of box with more specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes, etc. There were boxes of other colors as well, but the was the original and archetype. </p>
<p>2. n. An IBM machine, especially a large (non-PC) one.</p>
<H4>blue goo</H4>
@ -2948,6 +2946,10 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>2. (This is mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant bonk is more common. 2. n. After the original Peter Korn Boinkon Usenet parties, used for almost any net social gathering, e.g., Miniboink, a small boink held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Compare @-party. </p>
<p>3. Var of bonk ; see bonk/oif.</p>
<H4>bolt-on</H4>
<p>
An extension to an established system that is supposed to add some new functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly, inelegant, or bloated. "This module was arbitrarily bolted on to add functionality X"
</p>
<H4>bomb</H4>
<p>1. v. General synonym for crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll. </p>
@ -2987,9 +2989,9 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
A network of internet connected systems which have been taken over using security exploits or laughably dreadful password policies. Often older systems which have not received security updates or which are no longer supported by the OEM become easy recruits to one or more botnet. Hackers or government agencies who have remote control over the exploited machines are known as botmasters. Botnets may be used to carry out DDoS attacks or a motley assortment of nefarious activities.
</p>
<H4>bottom feeder</H4>
<p>1. An Internet user that leeches off ISPs the sort you can never provide good enough services for, always complains about the price, no matter how low it may be, and will bolt off to another service the moment there is even the slimmest price difference. While most bottom feeders infest free or almost free services such as AOL, MSN, and Hotmail, too many flock to whomever happens to be the cheapest regional ISP at the time. Bottom feeders are often the classic problem user, known for unleashing spam, flamage, and other breaches of netiquette. </p>
<p>1. A lowest common demoninator user of Reddit, Hacker News or comparable news aggregation sites. </p>
<p>2. Syn. for slopsucker , derived from the fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist on the primordial ooze. (This sense is older.</p>
<p>2. Novice coder with reactionary political views. "His patch contained bottom feeder comments". "I kicked them from the [chat] room because they were just a bottom feeder".</p>
<H4>bottom-post</H4>
<p>
v. In a news or mail reply, to put the response to a news or email message after the quoted content from the parent message. This is correct form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet that neither the term bottom-post nor its antonym top-post existed. Hackers consider that the best practice is actually to excerpt only the relevent portions of the parent message, then intersperse the poster's response in such a way that each section of response appears directly after the excerpt it applies to. This reduces message bulk, keeps thread content in a logical order, and facilitates reading.
@ -3122,7 +3124,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
</p>
<H4>brown-paper-bag bug</H4>
<p>
n. A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the author notionally wears a brown paper bag over his head for a while so he won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999 release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in Linus Torvalds's apology posting.
n. A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the author notionally wears a brown paper bag over their head for a while so they won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999 release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in Linus Torvalds's apology posting.
</p>
<H4>browser</H4>
<p>
@ -3277,7 +3279,7 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
</p>
<H4>cargo cult programming</H4>
<p>
n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging , voodoo programming ). The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as cargo cult science in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (W. W. Norton Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).
n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging , voodoo programming ). The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as cargo cult science in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.
</p>
<H4>cascade</H4>
<p>1. A huge volume of spurious error-message output produced by a compiler with poor error recovery. Too frequently, one trivial syntax error (such as a missing ) or } ) throws the parser out of synch so that much of the remaining program text is interpreted as garbaged or ill-formed. </p>
@ -3408,12 +3410,12 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
n. Someone or something that is chomping; a loser. See loser , bagbiter , chomp.
</p>
<H4>chrome</H4>
<p>
n. [from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are pretty chrome! Distinguished from bells and whistles by the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt.
</p>
<p>1. n. [from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are pretty chrome! Distinguished from bells and whistles by the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt. </p>
<p>2. An inferior browser made by Google, containing proprietary codec blobs.</p>
<H4>chug</H4>
<p>
vi. To run slowly; to grind or grovel. The disk is chugging like crazy.
vi. To run slowly; to grind or grovel. The download is chugging like crazy.
</p>
<H4>clean</H4>
<p>
@ -3474,16 +3476,16 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
/kohloh`/ , n. [very common; first heard c.1995] Short for co-location , used of a machine you own that is physically sited on the premises of an ISP in order to take advantage of the ISP's direct access to lots of network bandwidth. Often in the phrases co-lo box or co-lo machines. Co-lo boxes are typically web and FTP servers remote-administered by their owners, who may seldom or never visit the actual site.
</p>
<H4>coaster</H4>
<p>1. Unuseable CD produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD. </p>
<p>1. Unuseable CD-ROM produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD. </p>
<p>2. Useless CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Prodigy, ad nauseam. In the U.K., beermat is often used in these senses.</p>
<p>2. Useless CDs received as junk snailmail in the 1990s from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Compuserve, Prodigy, ad nauseam. In the U.K., beermat is often used in these senses.</p>
<H4>coaster toaster</H4>
<p>
A writer for recordable CD-Rs, especially cheap IDE models that tend to produce a high proportion of coaster s.
A writer for recordable CD-ROMs, especially cheap IDE models which tended to produce a high proportion of coasters (i.e. non-functioning CDs).
</p>
<H4>cobweb site</H4>
<p>
n. A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated so long it has figuratively grown cobwebs.
n. Abandoned website. A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated so long it has figuratively grown cobwebs.
</p>
<H4>code</H4>
<p>1. n. The stuff that software writers write, either in source form or after translation by a compiler or assembler. Often used in opposition to data , which is the stuff that operates on. Among hackers this is a mass noun, as in How much does it take to do a bubble sort ? , or The is loaded at the high end of RAM. Among scientific programmers it is sometimes a count noun equilvalent to program ; thus they may speak of codes in the plural. Anyone referring to software as the softwares is probably a newbie or a suit. </p>
@ -3556,9 +3558,13 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
n. Syn. chad. [obs.] Though this term was common at one time, this use of punched-card chad is not a good idea, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes. GLS reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and a few other guests enthusiastically threw chad instead of rice. The groom later grumbled that he and his bride had spent most of the evening trying to get the stuff out of their hair. [2001 update: this term has passed out of use for two reasons; (1) the stuff it describes is now quite rare, and (2) the term chad , which was half-forgotten in 1990, has enjoyed a revival.
</p>
<H4>computron</H4>
<p>1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. That machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons! This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box , Get a real computer! , toy , crank. </p>
<p>1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box , Get a real computer! , toy , crank. </p>
<p>2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of computation or information, in much the same way that an electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also bogon ). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts because the molecules have lost their information about where they are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so hot and require air conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it should be possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a computron beam. It is believed that this may also explain why machines that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware. (The popularity of this theory probably owes something to the Warlock stories by Larry Niven, the best known being What Good is a Glass Dagger? , in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural resource called mana.</p>
<H4>computronium</H4>
<p>
Theoretical material having maximal computing density. "This CPU is made of pure computronium!"
</p>
<H4>con</H4>
<p>
n. [from SF fandom] A science-fiction convention. Not used of other sorts of conventions, such as professional meetings. This term, unlike many others imported from SF-fan slang, is widely recognized even by hackers who aren't fan s. We'd been corresponding on the net for months, then we met face-to-face at a con.
@ -3874,7 +3880,9 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>3. n. The character #. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other places. See ASCII. </p>
<p>4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the BBC micro that ed BASIC source in order to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of characters mattered). Obfuscated C Contest entries are often ed; see the first example under that entry. 7. Lowest common denominator intensification of labor strategy. A phase of (typically though not exclusively) commercial software development when hackers are threatened by their project managers in order to work additional unpaid hours to meet some arbitrary deadline decided by a suit on a golf course. "I won't be at the hackspace tonight because there's a crunch on at work".</p>
<p>4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the BBC micro that ed BASIC source in order to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of characters mattered). Obfuscated C Contest entries are often ed; see the first example under that entry. </p>
<p>5. Lowest common denominator intensification of labor strategy. A phase of (typically though not exclusively) commercial software development when hackers are threatened by their project managers in order to work additional unpaid hours to meet some arbitrary deadline decided by a suit on a golf course. "I won't be at the hackspace tonight because there's a crunch on at work".</p>
<H4>cryppie</H4>
<p>
/kripee/ , n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
@ -5086,10 +5094,6 @@ This file last generated Thursday, 13 September 2018 06:33PM UTC
<p>
/fus'king/ , /eff'seeking/ , adj. [Usenet; very common] Fucking, in the expletive sense (it refers to the Unix filesystem-repair command fsck (8) , of which it can be said that if you have to use it at all you are having a bad day). Originated on scary devil monastery and the bofh.net newsgroups, but became much more widespread following the passage of CDA.
</p>
<H4>fuck me harder</H4>
<p>
excl. Sometimes uttered in response to egregious misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of misbehaviors which seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the perverse). Often theatrically elaborated: Aiighhh! Fuck me with a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence and no lubricants ! The phrase is sometimes heard abbreviated FMH in polite company. [This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the most anatomically absurd mental image possible the short forms implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken). Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry ought to be included at all. As it reflects a live usage recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all forms of censorship to record it here.
</p>
<H4>fudge</H4>
<p>1. vt. To perform in an incomplete but marginally acceptable way, particularly with respect to the writing of a program. I didn't feel like going through that pain and suffering, so I d it I'll fix it later. </p>

7
entries/considered harmful.txt
View File

@ -1,18 +1,17 @@
considered harmful
adj. [very common] Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968
Communications of the ACM , Goto Statement Considered Harmful , fired the
Communications of the ACM, Goto Statement Considered Harmful, fired the
first salvo in the structured programming wars (text at
http://www.acm.org/classics/ ). As it turns out , the title under which the
http://www.acm.org/classics). As it turns out, the title under which the
letter appeared was actually supplied by CACM's editor, Niklaus Wirth.
Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful
that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking so assertive a
position against a coding practice. (Years afterwards, a contrary view was
uttered in a CACM letter called, inevitably, Goto considered harmful
considered harmful' '. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both
considered harmful. In the ensuing decades, a large number of both
serious papers and parodies have borne titles of the form X considered Y.
The structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the realization
that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has remained as a
persistent minor in-joke (the considered silly found at various places in
this lexicon is related).