Basic Terminology
| Term |
Meaning |
| Design Feature |
Bug |
| Debugged |
Software that contains fewer design features |
| Technical Support Number |
Fancy name for a phone mail system in an
endless loop |
| Technical Support Supervisor |
Secretary trained to lie |
| JCL |
A way of controlling how a program will
abend |
| Abendaide |
Double Scotch, straight up, no chaser |
| Syntax Error |
Edit, compile, link, run, edit, compile,
link, run... |
| Domain |
Chinese noodle dish |
| Hard Drive |
Getting to work on Monday |
| Extended Attribute |
If you have to ask, don't |
| Users |
An unfortunate class of individuals whose
life is dominated by destructive repetitive patterns of behavior |
| Expert |
Those who only think they know what they
are talking about |
| Sales Associate |
He who promises jelly will always stick
to a tree |
| Programmer |
Specialist in nailing jelly to a tree |
| Consultant |
Specialist in explaining why jelly won't
stick to a tree |
| Tech Support |
On whom jelly falls |
Advanced Terminology
| Term |
Meaning |
| Spam |
From the verb, to spam, or more definitely
'to find spam' or spamming : usually characterized as a herculean effort
directed at something completely useless and unwanted. Possibly derived
from Monty Python where in a movie a character gives you much more Spam
then you could ever want. Otherwise, excessive junk email, network broadcast
storms, denial of service attacks, etc. To crash a program by overrunning
a fixed size buffer with excessively large input data. To cause a news
group to be flooded with irrelevant or inappropriate messages |
| Router Flapping |
A behavior known to plaque large, central
corridor Internet routers (MAEs) resulting in vast segments on the Internet
becoming a black hole for data and email |
| Holy Wars |
The characteristic that distinguishes holy
wars from normal technical disputes is that in holy wars most of the participants
spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and cultural
attachments as objective technical evaluations. Programmers are particularly
inclined to participating in holy wars due to their religious attachment
to a particular language or technique. The language is the symbolic medium
in which they think and directly influences the construction of programs
and thought processes. The religious conflicts in programming are similar
to those seen in popular cultures with different languages and customs.
Often the result of such conflicts is 'racial cleansing' where one system
seeks to completely annihilate all other belief systems in a blind allegiance
to their own |
| KIBO |
Acronym for 'Knowledge In, Bullshit Out'
- A summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an organization
or person that deliberately disregards or is incapable of grasping its
significance. Also, James Parry (kibo@world.std.com) a USENETter infamous
for various surrealist net pranks and an uncanny, machine assisted knack
for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is mentioned. |
| GIGO |
Acronym for `Garbage In, Garbage Out' -
usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't "do
the right thing" when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in
some way. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making
due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. |
| RTFM |
Acronym for `Read The Bleepin' Manual'.
Used by system gurus to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying.
Can be used defensively when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't
just asking out of randomness. i.e. "No, I can't figure out how to interface
UNIX to my toaster, and yes, I did RTFM." A related term: RTSL an
acronym for `Read The Source Luke'. Here the system guru is acknowledging
the novice's rare ability to think for himself and is not dismissed as
a complete idiot. A subtle hint in communicated to the novice alluding
to core of the system guru's power. Taken from the movie Star Wars where
venerable Gedi Knight suggests, "Use the force, Luke" when instructing
main character, Luke Skywalker, to divine knowledge and ability directly
from the collective unconscious and not rely on technical training. |
| FUBARB |
An acronym, that quite appropriately originated
in the military, representing 'Bleeped Up Beyond All Reasonable Belief'
which is actually an advanced stage arising from a situation decaying from
normal chaos. Normal chaos is a state referred to as SNAFU, 'Situation
Normal, All Bleeped Up.' The UNIX community adopted the term, however misspelling
it 'foobar' where it is commonly and used as a Metasyntactic Variable in
manuals and technical documents. |
| Metasyntactic Variable |
A name used in examples and understood to
stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a
class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example.
To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use `foo' or other
words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention
is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic variable name is a
scratch file that may be deleted at any time. Another excelleant example
employing the most famous metasyntactic variable, the "F" word, used in
the phrase: The bleeping bleep won't bleeping bleep! |
| Shotgun |
Referring to the practice of trying everything
conceivable in the hope it will move you closer to a poorly defined goal.
Taken from an odd practice in the sport of hunting where the hunter desperately
shoots (with a shotgun) at virtually every Squirrel nest in every tree
in the forest hoping to see something come flying out. Also, as in Shotgun
Debugging: the software development practice of making random changes
to various sections of code in the desperate attempt that a particular
bug will be perturbed out of existence. |