The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996

:(TM): // [Usenet] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for posterity, perhaps in future editions of...

:leak: /n./ With qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations on them are finished, so they effectivel...

See the discussions of speech and writing styles near the beginning of this File. Though hackers often have poor person-to-person communication skills, they are as a rule quite...

:system: /n./ 1. The supervisor program or OS on a computer. 2. The entire computer system, including input/output devices, the supervisor program or OS, and possibly other soft...

:gubbish: /guhb'*sh/ /n./ [a portmanteau of `garbage' and `rubbish'; may have originated with SF author Philip K. Dick] Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?" The...

:bubble sort: /n./ Techspeak for a particular sorting technique in which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are compared and interchanged if they are out of order...

:pico-: /pref./ [SI: a quantifier meaning * 10^-12] Smaller than {nano-}; used in the same rather loose connotative way as {nano-} and {micro-}. This usage is not yet common in...

:trap door: /n./ (alt. `trapdoor') 1. Syn. {back door} -- a {Bad Thing}. 2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the...

All contributions and suggestions about this file sent to a volunteer editor are gratefully received and will be regarded, unless otherwise labelled, as freely given donations f...

:canonical: /adj./ [historically, `according to religious law'] The usual or standard state or manner of something. This word has a somewhat more technical meaning in mathematic...

The effect of the above code is to `do_green()' when color is `GREEN', `do_red()' when color is `RED', `do_blue()' on any other color other than `PINK', and (and this is the imp...

The Motorola 6809, used in the U.K.'s `Dragon 32' personal computer, actually had an official `SEX' instruction; the 6502 in the Apple II with which it competed did not. British...

[This term is included because it is a good example of hackish linguistic innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers. The word `retcon' will probably spread through...

:write-only memory: /n./ The obvious antonym to `read-only memory'. Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless chain of approvals required of component specification...

It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the major contributions of Mark Brader <[email protected]> and Steve Summit <[email protected]> to the File and Dictionary; they have read and r...

Daemon and {demon} are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced to computing by {CTSS} people (who pronounced it /dee...

:hakspek: /hak'speek/ /n./ A shorthand method of spelling found on many British academic bulletin boards and {talker system}s. Syllables and whole words in a sentence are replac...

:random: /adj./ 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the confere...

:juggling eggs: /vi./ Keeping a lot of {state} in your head while modifying a program. "Don't bother me now, I'm juggling eggs", means that an interrupt is likely to result in t...

:GNU: /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym: `GNU's Not Unix!', see {{recursive acronym}}] A Unix-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallm...

:That's not a bug, that's a feature!: The {canonical} first parry in a debate about a purported bug. The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at...

:bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from X-Men comics; originally "bampf"] /interj./ Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in {virtu...

:Parkinson's Law of Data: /prov./ "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of more memory-intensive techniques. It has been...

These are some of the funniest examples of a genre of jokes told at the MIT AI Lab about various noted hackers. The original koans were composed by Danny Hillis. In reading thes...

:spod: /n./ [UK] A lower form of life found on {talker system}s and {MUD}s. The spod has few friends in {RL} and uses talkers instead, finding communication easier and preferabl...

:netlag: /n./ [IRC, MUD] A condition that occurs when the delays in the {IRC} network or on a {MUD} become severe enough that servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact,...

:Foonly: /n./ 1. The {PDP-10} successor that was to have been built by the Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory along with a new operating sys...

:depeditate: /dee-ped'*-tayt/ /n./ [by (faulty) analogy with `decapitate'] Humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless...

:mumble: /interj./ 1. Said when the correct response is too complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out. Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a gener...

:down: 1. /adj./ Not operating. "The up escalator is down" is considered a humorous thing to say (unless of course you were expecting to use it), and "The elevator is down" alwa...

:Infinite-Monkey Theorem: /n./ "If you put an {infinite} number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the script for Hamlet." (One may also hypothesize a small...

This silliness dates back at least as far as 1959 at Stanford University and had already gone international by the early 1960s, when it was reported at London University's ATLAS...

The preface has gotten so long an intertwined that we moved it to the end for the Project Gutenberg Etext of the Jargon file. You can find it by a search for the following line:

(A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different intent, is the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the mag...

:unixism: /n./ A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-me...

:virtual Friday: /n./ (also `logical Friday') The last day before an extended weekend, if that day is not a `real' Friday. For example, the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving is always o...

:crayon: /n./ 1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk, probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie...

At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL said, "Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on...

:holy wars: /n./ [from {Usenet}, but may predate it] /n./ {flame war}s over {religious issues}. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularized the terms {big-endian} and {little-endi...

:bondage-and-discipline language: /n./ A language (such as {{Pascal}}, {{Ada}}, APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's...

When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, Systems Concepts should have made a bundle selling their machine into shops with a lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in...

:elder days: /n./ The heroic age of hackerdom (roughly, pre-1980); the era of the {PDP-10}, {TECO}, {{ITS}}, and the ARPANET. This term has been rather consciously adopted from...

:funky: /adj./ Said of something that functions, but in a slightly strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be difficult to change, so its obvious non-optimality is left a...

:propeller head: /n./ Used by hackers, this is syn. with {computer geek}. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies. Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (origina...

:Church of the SubGenius: /n./ A mutant offshoot of {Discordianism} launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist...

Following `bit', `byte' and `nybble' there have been quite a few analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks of other sizes. All of these are strictly jarg...

Hackers also mix letters and numbers more freely than in mainstream usage. In particular, it is good hackish style to write a digit sequence where you intend the reader to under...

:firefighting: /n./ 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed th...

:loose bytes: /n./ Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes or {shim}s many compilers insert between members of a record or structure to cope with alignment requirements...

:wedged: /adj./ 1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help. This is different from having crashed. If the system has crashed, it has become totally non-functioning. If...

:SNAFU principle: /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ /n./ [from a WWII Army acronym for `Situation Normal, All Fucked Up'] "True communication is possible only between equals, because inferio...

:miswart: /mis-wort/ /n./ [from {wart} by analogy with {misbug}] A {feature} that superficially appears to be a {wart} but has been determined to be the {Right Thing}. For examp...

:Big Red Switch: /n./ [IBM] The power switch on a computer, esp. the `Emergency Pull' switch on an IBM {mainframe} or the power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and...

This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order; character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each...

We are looking to expand the File's range of technical specialties covered. There are doubtless rich veins of jargon yet untapped in the scientific computing, graphics, and netw...