28 lines
3.4 KiB
HTML
28 lines
3.4 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>RTFS</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../R.html" title="R"/><link rel="previous" href="RTFM.html" title="RTFM"/><link rel="next" href="RTI.html" title="RTI"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">RTFS</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="RTFM.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">R</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="RTI.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="RTFS"/><dt xmlns="" id="RTFS"><b>RTFS</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/R·T·F·S/</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [Unix] </p></dd><dd><p> 1. <span class="grammar">imp.</span> Abbreviation for
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‘Read The Fucking Source’. Variant form of
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<a href="RTFM.html"><i class="glossterm">RTFM</i></a>, used when the problem at hand is not
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necessarily obvious and not answerable from the manuals — or the
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manuals are not yet written and maybe never will be. For even trickier
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situations, see <a href="RTFB.html"><i class="glossterm">RTFB</i></a>. Unlike RTFM, the anger
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inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking the question,
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but rather at the people who failed to provide adequate documentation.
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</p></dd><dd><p> 2. <span class="grammar">imp.</span> ‘Read The Fucking
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Standard’; this oath can only be used when the problem area (e.g., a
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language or operating system interface) has actually been codified in a
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ratified standards document. The existence of these standards documents
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(and the technically inappropriate but politically mandated compromises
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that they inevitably contain, and the impenetrable
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<a href="../L/legalese.html"><i class="glossterm">legalese</i></a> in which they are invariably written, and
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the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are produced)
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can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain amount of ambiguity
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in the specifications of the systems they use. (Hackers feel that such
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ambiguities are acceptable as long as the <a href="Right-Thing.html"><i class="glossterm">Right
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Thing</i></a> to do is obvious to any thinking observer; sadly, this
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casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable when a system
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becomes popular in the <a href="Real-World.html"><i class="glossterm">Real World</i></a>.) Since a hacker
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is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and
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technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be
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directed as much against the standard as against the person who ought to
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read it.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="RTFM.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../R.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="RTI.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">RTFM </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> RTI</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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