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{"AAC":"Advanced Audio Coding", "AADL":"Axiomatic Architecture Description Language", "AAL":"ATM Adaptation Layer", "AAP":"Association of American Publishers", "aard":"programming, tool Dutch for earth A tool to check memory use for C++ programs, written by Steve Reiss spr@cs.brown.edu who names his programs after living systems.", "AARP":"Apple Address Resolution Protocol", "AAUI":"Apple Attachment Unit Interface", "abbrev":"jargon /*-breev'/, /*-brev'/ Common abbreviation for abbreviation.", "ABC":"1. computer Atanasoff-Berry Computer.", "abduction":"logic The process of inference to the best explanation.", "ABEND":"jargon /o'bend/, /*-bend'/ ABnormal END. Abnormal termination of software; crash; lossage. Derives from an error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but seriously mainly by code grinders. Usually capitalised, but may appear as abend. Hackers will try to persuade you that ABEND is called abend because it is what system operators do to the computer late on Friday wahen they want to call it a day, and hence is from the German Abend = Evening.", "AberMUD":"games The first popular open source MUD. The first version of AberMUD, named after Aberystwyth, UK, was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane, at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in 1987. The gameplay was heavily influenced by MUD1, written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle, which Alan Cox had played at the University of Essex. In late 1988, Alan Cox ported AberMUD to C so it could run under UNIX on Southampton University's Maths machines. This version was named AberMUD2. Various other versions followed.", "ABI":"Application Binary Interface", "ABLE":"language A simple language for accountants.", "ABM":"Asynchronous Balanced Mode", "ABNF":"Augmented Backus-Naur Form", "abort":"programming To terminate a program or process abnormally and usually suddenly, with or without diagnostic information. My program aborted, I aborted the transmission. The noun form in computing is abort, not abortion, e.g. We've had three aborts over the last two days.", "ABP":"1. networking Alternating bit protocol.", "ABR":"automatic baud rate detection", "abscissa":"mathematics The horizontal or x coordinate on an x, y graph; the input of a function against which the output is plotted.", "ABSET":"language An early declarative language from the University of Aberdeen.", "abstract":"philosophy A description of a concept that leaves out some information or details in order to simplify it in some useful way.", "abstraction":"1. Generalisation; ignoring or hiding details to capture some kind of commonality between different instances. Examples are abstract data types the representation details are hidden, abstract syntax the details of the concrete syntax are ignored, abstract interpretation details are ignored to analyse specific properties.", "ABSYS":"language An early declarative language from the University of Aberdeen which anticipated a number of features of Prolog.", "ACA":"Application Control Architecture", "ACAP":"Application Configuration Access Protocol", "accelerator":"hardware Additional hardware to perform some function faster than is possible in software running on the normal CPU.", "Accent":"language A very high level interpreted language from CaseWare, Inc. with strings and tables. It is strongly typed and has remote function calls.", "accept":"library, networking Berkeley Unix networking socket library routine to satisfy a connection request from a remote host. A specified socket on the local host which must be capable of accepting the connection is connected to the requesting socket on the remote host. The remote socket's socket address is returned.", "acceptor":"Finite State Machine", "Access":"1. language An English-like query language used in the Pick operating system.", "ACCLAIM":"project A European Union ESPRIT Basic Research Action.", "ACCU":"Association of C and C++ Users", "accumulator":"processor In a central processing unit, a register in which intermediate results are stored. Without an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation addition, multiplication, shift, etc. to main memory and read them back. Access to main memory is slower than access to the accumulator which usually has direct paths to and from the arithmetic and logic unit ALU.", "accuracy":"mathematics How close to the real value a measurement is.", "ACE":"1. Advanced Computing Environment.", "ACF":"Advanced Communications Function", "ACIA":"Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter", "ACID":"programming A mnemonic for the properties a transaction should have to satisfy the Object Management Group Transaction Service specifications. A transaction should be Atomic, its result should be Consistent, Isolated independent of other transactions and Durable its effect should be permanent.", "ACIS":"graphics Andy, Charles, Ian's System.", "ACK":"1. character /ak/ The mnemonic for the ACKnowledge character, ASCII code 6.", "ACL":"1. Access Control List.", "ACM":"1. body The Association for Computing.", "ACME":"company, jargon /ak'mee/ 1. A Company that Makes Everything.", "ACOM":"language An early system on the IBM 705.", "acorn":"Acorn Computers Ltd.", "ACOS":"language A BBS language for PRODOS 8 on Apple II.", "ACP":"Algebra of Communicating Processes", "ACPI":"Advanced Configuration and Power Interface", "Acrobat":"text, product A product from Adobe Systems, Inc., for manipulating documents stored in Portable Document Format.", "acronym":"jargon An identifier formed from some of the letters often the initials of a phrase and used as an abbreviation.", "ACSE":"Association Control Service Element", "ACT":"1. software Annual Change Traffic.", "Actalk":"language A Smalltalk-based actor language developed by J-P Briot in 1989.", "Actis":"programming An approach to integrated CASE by Apollo.", "ActiveX":"programming A type of COM component that can self-register, also known as an ActiveX control. All COM objects implement the IUnknown interface but an ActiveX control usually also implements some of the standard interfaces for embedding, user interface, methods, properties, events, and persistence.", "Actor":"language An object-oriented language for Microsoft Windows written by Charles Duff of the Whitewater Group ca.", "actor":"1. programming In object-oriented programming, an object which exists as a concurrent process.", "Actors":"theory A model for concurrency by Carl Hewitt. Actors are autonomous and concurrent objects which execute asynchronously. The Actor model provides flexible mechanisms for building parallel and distributed software systems.", "Actra":"language A multi-processor exemplar-based Smalltalk.", "Actus":"language Pascal with parallel extensions, similar to the earlier Glypnir. It has parallel constants and index sets. Descendants include Parallel Pascal, Vector C and CMU's language PIE.", "AD":"Administrative Domain", "ad":"networking The country code for Andorra.", "Ada":"language After Ada Lovelace A Pascal-descended language, designed by Jean Ichbiah's team at CII Honeywell in 1979, made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. The original language was standardised as Ada 83, the latest is Ada 95.", "ADABAS":"database A relational database system by Software AG.", "Adaline":"architecture Name given by Widrow to adaptive linear neurons, that is neurons see McCulloch-Pitts which learn using the Widrow-Huff Delta Rule. See also Madaline.", "ADAM":"A Data Management system", "Adamakegen":"tool A program that generates makefiles for Ada programs. Adamakegen was written by Owen O'Malley owen@schwartz-omalley.com. It requires Icon and runs under Verdix and SunAda.", "ADAMO":"database A data management system written at CERN, based on the Entity-Relationship model.", "Adaplan":"language A functional database language based upon Backus' FP language.", "Adaplex":"language, database An extension of Ada for functional databases.", "ADAPT":"language A subset of APT.", "Adaptec":"company A company specialising in the aera of movement of data between computers. Adaptec designs hardware and software products to transfer data from a computer to a peripheral device or network.", "Adaptor":"tool Automatic DAta Parallelism TranslatOR A source to source transformation tool that transforms data parallel programs written in Fortran 77 with array extensions, parallel loops, and layout directives to parallel programs with explicit message passing. ADAPTOR generates Fortran 77 host and node programs with message passing. The new generated source codes have to be compiled by the compiler of the parallel computer.", "ADC":"Analog to Digital Converter", "ADCCP":"Advanced Data Communications Control Protocol", "ADCU":"application developer customer unit", "ADDD":"tool A Depository of Development Documents.", "additive":"mathematics A function f : X - Y is additive if", "address":"1. networking e-mail address.", "addressee":"communications One to whom something is addressed.", "ADELE":"language A language for specification of attribute grammars, used by the MUG2 compiler compiler.", "ADES":"language An early system on the IBM 704.", "Aditi":"database, project The Aditi Deductive Database System. A multi-user deductive database system from the Machine Intelligence Project at the University of Melbourne. It supports base relations defined by facts relations in the sense of relational databases and derived relations defined by rules that specify how to compute new information from old information.", "adjacency":"networking A relationship between two network devices, e.g. routers, which are connected by one media segment so that a packet sent by one can reach the other without going through another network device. The concept of adjacency is important in the exchange of routing information.", "adjacent":"adjacency", "ADL":"1. games Adventure Definition Language.", "AdLog":"language A language which adds a Prolog layer to Ada.", "ADM":"language A picture query language, extension of Sequel2.", "ADMD":"Administration Management Domain", "admin":"system administrator", "admissible":"algorithm A description of a search algorithm that is guaranteed to find a minimal solution path before any other solution paths, if a solution exists. An example of an admissible search algorithm is A* search.", "ADO":"ActiveX Data Objects", "ADPCM":"Adaptive Digital Pulse Code Modulation", "ADR":"Astra Digital Radio", "ADS":"Aion Development System", "ADSL":"Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line", "ADSP":"AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol", "ADSU":"ATM Data Service Unit", "ADT":"abstract data type", "ADVENT":"games /ad'vent/ The prototypical computer adventure game, first implemented by Will Crowther for a CDC computer probably the CDC 6600? as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming.", "ADVSYS":"language, games An adventure game language designed by David Betz in 1986. ADVSYS is object-oriented and Lisp-like.", "adware":"software Any kind of software that displays advertisements while it is running. The display of adverts is sometimes incidental to the software's main purpose e.g. a game. In the case of a piece of malware, the adverts may be its only purpose, possibly hidden behind a pretence of providing some desired function like a security scanner. The adware's distributors may get paid for every machine infected.", "AE":"Application Executive", "ae":"networking The country code for the United Arab Emirates.", "AED":"Automated Engineering Design", "AEGIS":"operating system A Unix variant that was used on Apollo workstations before Apollo was bought by Hewlett Packard.", "Aegis":"programming, tool A CASE tool for project change management written by Peter Miller, with minor contributions by a few others. Aegis is licensed using the GNU GPL but is not a GNU project.", "Aeolus":"language A concurrent language with atomic transactions.", "AEP":"Application Environment Profile", "AES":"1. programming Application environment specification.", "AESOP":"An Evolutionary System for On-line Programming", "af":"networking The country code for Afghanistan.", "AFAC":"language An early system on the IBM 704.", "AFAIK":"chat as far as I know.", "affordance":"graphics A visual clue to the function of an object.", "AFIPS":"American Federation of Information Processing Societies", "AFJ":"April Fool's Joke", "AFK":"chat away from keyboard.", "aflex":"tool A Lex-like scanner generator that produce Ada output from IRUS Irvine Research Unit in Software. aflex comes with ayacc.", "AFNOR":"body, standard Association Francaise pour la Normalisation.", "AFP":"1. protocol Appletalk Filing Protocol.", "AFS":"Andrew File System", "AFUU":"Association Française des Utilisateurs d'Unix", "ag":"networking The country code for Antigua and Barbuda.", "agent":"networking In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server. Especially in the phrase intelligent agent it implies some kind of automatic process which can communicate with other agents to perform some collective task on behalf of one or more humans.", "aggregation":"programming A composition technique for building a new object from one or more existing objects that support some or all of the new object's required interfaces.", "aggregator":"networking A program for watching for new content at user-specified RSS feeds.", "AGL":"programming Atelier de Genie Logiciel French for IPSE.", "AGORA":"language A distributed object-oriented language.", "AGP":"Accelerated Graphics Port", "AHDL":"Analog Hardware Design Language", "AHPL":"A Hardware Programming Language", "AI":"artificial intelligence", "ai":"networking The country code for Anguilla.", "AIA":"Application Integration Architecture", "AID":"Algebraic Interpretive Dialogue", "AIDA":"language 1. A functional dialect of Dictionary APL by M. Gfeller.", "AIDS":"jargon /aydz/ A* Infected Disk Syndrome A* is a glob pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple Computer, this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe SEX.", "AIDX":"abuse, operating system /aydkz/ A derogatory term for IBM's perverted version of Unix, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM RS/6000 series some hackers think it is funnier just to pronounce AIX as aches. A victim of the dreaded hybridism disease, this attempt to combine the two main currents of the Unix stream BSD and USG Unix became a monstrosity to haunt system administrators' dreams. For example, if new accounts are created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases.", "AIFF":"Audio IFF", "AIMACO":"AIr MAterial COmmand compiler", "Aimnet":"networking, company An Internet access provider for individuals and corporations. They provide dial-up, SLIP, PPP and shell accounts as well as ISDN.", "AIR":"standard A future infrared standard from IrDA. AIR will provide in-room multipoint to multipoint connectivity. AIR supports a data rate of 4 Mbps at a distance of 4 metres, and 250 Kbps at up to 8 metres. It is designed for cordless connections to multiple peripherals and meeting room collaboration applications.", "AIT":"Advanced Intelligent Tape", "AIX":"Advanced Interactive eXecutive", "Ajax":"programming Asynchronous JavaScript And XML A collection of techniques for creating interactive web applications without having to reload the complete web page in response to each user input, thus making the interaction faster. AJAX typically uses the XMLHttpRequest browser object to exchange data asynchronously with the web server. Alternatively, an IFrame object or dynamically added script tags may be used instead of XMLHttpRequest.", "AKC":"Ascending Kleene Chain", "AKCL":"Austin Kyoto Common Lisp", "AKL":"Andorra Kernel Language", "AL":"1. Assembly Language.", "al":"networking The country code for Albania.", "ALADIN":"1. language A Language for Attributed Definitions.", "ALAM":"language A language for symbolic mathematics, especially General Relativity.", "ALARP":"As Low As Reasonably Practicable", "ALC":"1. Assembly Language Compiler.", "ALCOR":"language A subset of ALGOL.", "Aldat":"language A database language, based on extended algebra.", "ALDES":"ALgorithm DEScription", "ALDiSP":"Applicative Language for Digital Signal Processing", "ALEC":"A Language with an Extensible Compiler", "ALEF":"language A programming language from Bell Labs. ALEF boasts few new ideas but is instead a careful synthesis of ideas from other languages. The result is a practical general purpose programming language which was once displacing C as their main implementation language. Both shared variables and message passing are supported through language constructs.", "ALEPH":"1. language A Language Encouraging Program Hierarchy.", "Aleph":"text, language [Aleph: A language for typesetting, Luigi Semenzato luigi@cs.berkeley.edu and Edward Wang edward@cs.berkeley.edu in Proceedings of Electronic Publishing, 1992 Ed. Vanoirbeek & Coray Cambridge University Press 1992].", "alert":"operating system /*'l*rt/ An audible and/or visual message intended to inform a system's users or administrators about a change in the operating conditions of that system or about some kind of error condition. In a graphical user interface, an alert would typically be displayed as a small window containing the message and a button to click to dismiss the window.", "Alex":"language 1. A polymorphic language being developed by Stephen Crawley sxc@itd.dtso.oz.au of Defence Science & Tech Org, Australia. Alex has abstract data types, type inference and inheritance.", "Alexis":"language Alex Input Specification.", "ALF":"Algebraic Logic Functional language", "Alfl":"language A lazy function language. A weakly typed, lazy functional language developed by Paul Hudak hudak-paul@cs.yale.edu of Yale in 1983. Alfl is implemented as a Scheme preprocessor for the Orbit compiler, by transforming laziness into force-and-delay.", "algebra":"mathematics, logic 1. A loose term for an algebraic structure.", "ALGEBRAIC":"language An early system on MIT's Whirlwind.", "algebraic":"theory In domain theory, a complete partial order is algebraic if every element is the least upper bound of some chain of compact elements. If the set of compact elements is countable it is called omega-algebraic.", "ALGOL":"ALGOL 60", "algorithim":"spelling It's spelled algorithm.", "algorithm":"algorithm, programming A detailed sequence of actions to perform to accomplish some task. Named after the Iranian, Islamic mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and geographer, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi.", "ALGY":"language An early language for symbolic mathematics.", "ALIAS":"ALgorIthmic ASsembly language", "alias":"1. operating system A name, usually short and easy to remember and type, that is translated into another name or string, usually long and difficult to remember or type. Most command interpreters e.g. Unix's csh allow the user to define aliases for commands, e.g. alias l ls -al. These are loaded into memory when the interpreter starts and are expanded without needing to refer to any file.", "aliasing":"1. jargon When several different identifiers refer to the same object. The term is very general and is used in many contexts.", "Alice":"computer, parallel A parallel graph rewriting computer developed by Imperial College, University of Edinburgh and ICL.", "alife":"artificial life", "ALJABR":"tool An implementation of MACSYMA for the Macintosh by Fort Pond Research.", "Allegro":"operating system The code name for the major Mac OS release due in mid-1998.", "ALLIANCE":"tool A complete set of CAD tools for teaching Digital CMOS VLSI Design in Universities. It includes a VHDL compiler and simulator, logic synthesis tools, and automatic place and route tools. ALLIANCE is the result of a ten years effort at University Pierre et Marie Curie PARIS VI, France.", "ALLOY":"language A language by Thanasis Mitsolides mitsolid@cs.nyu.edu which combines functional programming, object-oriented programming and logic programming ideas, and is suitable for massively parallel systems.", "ALM":"1. programming application lifecycle management.", "Aloha":"networking From the Hawaiian greeting A system of contention resolution devised at The University of Hawaii.", "ALP":"language A list processing extension of Mercury Autocode.", "ALPAK":"library A subroutine package used by ALTRAN.", "ALPHA":"language Or Input An extension of ALGOL 60 for the M-20 computer developed by A.P. Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1961. ALPHA includes matrix operations, slices, and complex arithmetic.", "Alpha":"1. tool A compiler generator written by Andreas Koschinsky koschins@cs.tu-berlin.de and described in his thesis at the Technische Universitaet Berlin. Alpha takes an attribute grammar and uses Bison and Flex to generate a parser, a scanner and an ASE evaluator Jazayeri and Walter.", "alphanumeric":"character A decimal digit or a letter upper or lower case.", "Alphard":"language Named after the brightest star in Hydra A Pascal-like language developed by Wulf, Shaw and London of CMU in 1974. Alphard supports data abstraction using the 'form', which combines a specification and an implementation.", "ALPS":"language 1. An interpreted algebraic language for the Bendix G15 developed by Dr. Richard V. Andree ? - 1987, Joel C. Ewing and others of the University of Oklahoma from Spring 1966 possibly 1965.", "alt":"character /awlt/ 1. The alt modifier key on many keyboards, including the IBM PC. On some keyboards and operating systems, but not the IBM PC the alt key sets bit 7 of the character generated.", "ALTAC":"language An extended Fortran II for the Philco 2000, built on TAC.", "ALTER":"database An SQL Data Definition Language command that adds or removes columns or indexes to/from a table or modifies the table definition in some other way. This differs from the INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE Data Modification Language commands in that those change the data stored in the table but not its definition.", "altmode":"alt", "ALTRAN":"language A Fortran extension for rational algebra developed by W.S. Brown of Bell Labs ca. 1968.", "ALU":"1. processor Arithmetic and Logic Unit.", "Alvey":"project, body A funding programme for collaborative research in the UK.", "AM":"1. communications Amplitude Modulation.", "am":"networking The country code for Armenia.", "Amanda":"language A functional programming language derived mostly from Miranda with some small changes. Amanda was written by Dick Bruin and implemented on MS-DOS and NeXT. It is available as an interperator only.", "Amber":"language 1. A functional programming language which adds CSP-like concurrency, multiple inheritance and persistence to ML and generalises its type system. It is similar to Galileo. Programs must be written in two type faces, roman and italics! It has both static types and dynamic types.", "AMBIT":"language Algebraic Manipulation by Identity Translation also claimed: Acronym May Be Ignored Totally.", "AMBUSH":"language A language for linear programming problems in a materials processing and transportation network.", "AMD":"1. company Advanced Micro Devices.", "Amdahl":"1. company Amdahl Corporation.", "AMI":"Alternate Mark Inversion", "Amiga":"computer A range of home computers first released by Commodore Business Machines in early 1985 though they did not design the original - see below. Amigas were popular for games, video processing, and multimedia. One notable feature is a hardware blitter for speeding up graphics operations on whole areas of the screen.", "Aminet":"networking Amiga network A collection of FTP mirrors that contain several gigabytes of freely distributable software for the Amiga range of computers.", "AML":"A Manufacturing Language", "AMO":"America's Multimedia Online", "Amoeba":"1. operating system A distributed operating system developed by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and others of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Amoeba is only available under licence from the VUA, but is free of charge and includes all source, binaries and documentation.", "AMP":"1. mathematics, tool Algebraic Manipulation Package.", "amper":"ampersand", "Ampere":"unit, electronics Amp, A The unit of electrical current flow. One Amp is the current that will flow through a one-ohm resistance when one Volt DC is applied across it.", "ampersand":"character & ASCII character 38.", "AMPL":"language Along with mpl, the intrinsic parallel languages for MasPar's computers. AMPL and mpl are parallel variants of C. Ampl is actually now a gcc port.", "AMPLE":"language, music A FORTH-like language for programming the 500/5000 series of add-on music synthesisers for the BBC Microcomputer. AMPLE was produced by Hybrid Technologies, Cambridge, England in the mid 1980s. Many AMPLE programs were published in Acorn User magazine.", "AMPS":"Advanced Mobile Phone Service", "AMS":"Andrew Message System", "AMTRAN":"Automatic Mathematical TRANslation", "Amulet":"processor An implementation or the Advanced RISC Machine microprocessor architecture using the micropipeline design style. In April 1994 the Amulet group in the Computer Science department of Manchester University took delivery of the AMULET1 microprocessor. This was their first large scale asynchronous circuit and the world's first implementation of a commercial microprocessor architecture ARM in asynchronous logic.", "an":"networking The country code for the Netherlands Antilles Dutch Antilles.", "analog":"spelling American spelling of analogue.", "analogue":"electronics US: analog A description of a continuously variable signal or a circuit or device designed to handle such signals. The opposite is discrete or digital.", "anchor":"hypertext link", "ANCP":"language An early system on the Datatron 200 series.", "AND":"logic Or conjunction The Boolean function which is true only if all its arguments are true. The truth table for the two argument AND function is:", "ANDF":"Architecture Neutral Distribution Format", "Angel":"operating system A single address space, micro-kernel operating system for multiprocessor computers, developed at Imperial College and City University, London, UK.", "ANI":"Automatic Number Identification", "animation":"graphics The creation of artificial moving images.", "Animus":"graphics A system described by Robert Adamy Duisberg of the University of Washington for creating animations by specifying constraints that describe the appearance and structure of pictures as well as how those pictures evolve in time.", "ANL":"Argonne National Laboratory", "Anna":"ANNotated Ada", "annealing":"simulated annealing", "annotate":"annotation", "annotation":"1. programming, compiler Extra information associated with a particular point in a document or program. Annotations may be added either by a compiler or by the programmer. They are not usually essential to the correct function of the program but give hints to improve performance.", "annoybot":"messaging /*-noy-bot/ An irksome IRC robot.", "annoyware":"software Shareware that reminds you frequently that you are using an unregistered copy.", "ANR":"Automatic Network Routing", "ANS":"American National Standard", "ANSA":"Advanced Network Systems Architecture", "ANSI":"American National Standards Institute", "antichain":"mathematics A subset S of a partially ordered set P is an antichain if,", "antisymmetric":"mathematics A relation R is antisymmetric if,", "antivirus":"antivirus software", "ANTLR":"ANother Tool for Language Recognition", "ANU":"Australian National University", "ao":"networking The country code for Angola.", "AOCE":"Apple Open Collaboration Environment", "AOL":"America On-Line", "AOP":"aspect-oriented programming", "AOS":"1. programming /aws/ East Coast, /ay-os/ West Coast A PDP-10 instruction that took any memory location and added 1 to it. AOS meant Add One and do not Skip. Why, you may ask, does the S stand for do not Skip rather than for Skip? Ah, here was a beloved piece of PDP-10 folklore. There were eight such instructions: AOSE added 1 and then skipped the next instruction if the result was Equal to zero; AOSG added 1 and then skipped if the result was Greater than 0; AOSN added 1 and then skipped if the result was Not 0; AOSA added 1 and then skipped Always; and so on. Just plain AOS didn't say when to skip, so it never skipped.", "APA":"Application Portability Architecture", "Apache":"web, project A open source HTTP server for Unix, Windows NT, and other platforms. Apache was developed in early 1995, based on code and ideas found in the most popular HTTP server of the time, NCSA httpd 1.3. It has since evolved to rival and probably surpass almost any other Unix based HTTP server in terms of functionality, and speed. Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server on the Internet, in May 1999 it was running on 57% of all web servers.", "APAL":"Array Processor Assembly Language", "APAREL":"A PArse REquest Language", "APC":"Association for Progressive Communications", "APDL":"Algorithmic Processor Description Language", "APE":"audio, compression A lossless audio compression algorithm from MonkeysAudio.", "apE":"graphics A graphics package from the Ohio Supercomputer Centre.", "API":"Application Program Interface", "APIC":"Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller", "APL":"A Programming Language", "APLGOL":"language An APL variant with ALGOL-like control structure, from Hewlett-Packard?.", "APLWEB":"text, tool A Web to APL and Web to TeX translator by Dr. Christoph von Basum of The University of Bielefeld, Germany.", "APM":"Advanced Power Management", "apostrophe":"single quote", "app":"application program", "APPC":"Advanced Program-to-Program Communications", "AppKit":"tool A set of objects used by the application builder for the NEXTSTEP environment.", "APPLE":"language A revision of APL for the Illiac IV.", "Apple":"Apple Computer, Inc.", "AppleScript":"language An object-oriented shell language for the Macintosh, approximately a superset of HyperTalk.", "applet":"web A Java program which can be distributed as an attachment in a web document and executed by a Java-enabled web browser such as Sun's HotJava, Netscape Navigator version 2.0, or Internet Explorer.", "Appletalk":"networking, protocol A proprietary local area network protocol developed by Apple Computer, Inc. for communication between Apple products e.g. Macintosh and other computers. This protocol is independent of the network layer on which it runs. Current implementations exist for Localtalk, a 235 kilobyte per second local area network and Ethertalk, a 10 megabyte per second local area network.", "appletviewer":"web, testing A simplified web browser used for testing applets. You can't browse HTML with it but you can run applets to test them before embedding them in a web page.", "application":"1. application program.", "APPLOG":"language A language which unifies logic programming and functional programming.", "APPN":"Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking", "APSE":"Ada Programming Support Environment", "APT":"1. language Automatically Programmed Tools.", "aq":"networking The country code for Antarctica.", "AQL":"language A picture query language, extension of APL.", "ar":"networking The country code for Argentina.", "ARC":"Advanced RISC Computing Specification", "arc":"1. file format, tool An old archive format for IBM PC.", "Arcade":"networking A UK BBS for the Acorn Archimedes. Also has links with Demon Internet.", "ArchBSD":"operating system 4.4 BSD-Lite for the Acorn Archimedes.", "archie":"tool, networking A system to automatically gather, index and serve information on the Internet. The initial implementation of archie by McGill University School of Computer Science provided an indexed directory of filenames from all anonymous FTP archives on the Internet. Later versions provide other collections of information.", "Archimedes":"computer A family of microcomputers produced by Acorn Computers, Cambridge, UK. The Archimedes, launched in June 1987, was the first RISC based personal computer predating Apple Computer's Power Mac by some seven years. It uses the Advanced RISC Machine ARM processor and includes Acorn's multitasking operating system and graphical user interface, RISC OS on ROM, along with an interpreter for Acorn's enhanced BASIC, BASIC V.", "architecture":"architecture Design, the way components fit together. The term is used particularly of processors, both individual and in general. The ARM has a really clean architecture. It may also be used of any complex system, e.g. software architecture, network architecture.", "archive":"1. file format A single file containing one or usually more separate files plus information to allow them to be extracted separated by a suitable program.", "ARCnet":"networking A network developed by DataPoint. ARCnet was proprietary until the late 1980s and had about as large a marketshare as Ethernet among small businesses. It was almost as fast and was considerably cheaper at the time.", "ARCS":"ARC", "Arctic":"language, music A real-time functional language, used for music synthesis.", "arena":"programming The area of memory attached to a Unix process by the brk and sbrk system calls and used by malloc as dynamic storage. So named from a malloc: corrupt arena message emitted when some early versions detected an impossible value in the free block list.", "ARES":"language A pictorial query language.", "AREV":"Advanced Revelation", "AREXX":"language REXX for the Amiga.", "arg":"argument", "argument":"programming Or arg A value or reference passed to a function, procedure, subroutine, command or program, by the caller. For example, in the function definition", "Argus":"language A successor to CLU, from LCS at MIT. Argus supports distributed programming through guardians like monitors, but can be created dynamically and atomic actions indivisible activity. It also has cobegin and coend.", "Ariel":"language An array-oriented language for the CDC 6400.", "arity":"programming The number of arguments a function or operator takes. In some languages functions may have variable arity which sometimes means their last or only argument is actually a list of arguments.", "arj":"tool, file format An archive format for the IBM PC. ARJ files are handled by the ARJ program, created by the American programmer Robert Jung.", "Arjuna":"language An object-oriented programming system developed by a team led by Professor Santosh Shrivastava at the University of Newcastle, implemented entirely in C++.", "ARL":"ASSET Reuse Library", "ARM":"1. processor Advanced RISC Machine.", "ARMM":"Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation", "ARP":"Address Resolution Protocol", "ARPA":"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency", "ARPANET":"Advanced Research Projects Agency Network", "ARQ":"Automatic Repeat Request", "array":"1. programming A collection of identically typed data items distinguished by their indices or subscripts. The number of dimensions an array can have depends on the language but is usually unlimited.", "ART":"language A real-time functional language. It timestamps each data value when it was created.", "Artifex":"programming, tool A CASE environment from ARTIS of Turin for the development of large event-driven distributed systems. It has code-generation and rapid prototyping features.", "ARTSPEAK":"language An early simple language for plotter graphics.", "AS":"1. networking Autonomous System.", "as":"networking The country code for American Samoa.", "ASA":"Adaptive Simulated Annealing", "asap":"chat As soon as possible.", "asbestos":"jargon Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect one from flames; also in other highly flame-suggestive usages. E.g., asbestos longjohns, asbestos cork award.", "ascender":"text A lowercase letter that extends above the x-height the height of the letter x, such as d, t, or h.", "ASCI":"spelling Did you mean ASCII?", "ASCII":"American Standard Code for Information Interchange", "ASCIIbonics":"chat From ASCII and Ebonics A style of text communication in English which is most common on talk systems such as irc. Its notable characteristics are:", "ASDIMPL":"ASDO IMPlementation Language", "ASDL":"Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language", "ASE":"1. programming Advanced Software Environment.", "ASF":"1. language Algebraic Specification Language.", "ash":"tool A Bourne Shell clone by Kenneth Almquist. It works pretty well. For running scripts, it is sometimes better and sometimes worse than Bash.", "Ashmedai":"tool A symbolic mathematics package by Michael Levine levine@cpwsca.psc.edu that influenced SMP and FORM.", "ASIC":"Application-Specific Integrated Circuit", "ASIS":"1. Application Software Installation Server.", "ASK":"Amplitude Shift Keying", "ASL":"1. language Algebraic Specification Language.", "ASM":"assembly language", "ASME":"American Society of Mechanical Engineers", "ASN":"Autonomous System Number", "ASP":"1. web Active Server Pages.", "ASPECT":"tool, programming An IPSE developed by an Alvey project, using Z to specify the object-management system and tool interface.", "ASpecT":"language Algebraic specification of abstract data types.", "aspect":"programming In aspect-oriented programming, a modular unit of control over emergent entities.", "ASPEN":"language A toy language for teaching compiler construction.", "ASPI":"Advanced SCSI Peripheral Interface", "ASPIK":"language, specification A multiple-style specification language.", "Aspirin":"language, tool A freeware language from MITRE Corporation for the description of neural networks. A compiler, bpmake, is included. Aspirin is designed for use with the MIGRAINES interface.", "ASPLE":"language A toy language.", "ASPOL":"A Simulation Process-Oriented Language", "ASQC":"American Society for Quality Control", "ASR":"Automatic Send Receive", "assembler":"programming A program which converts assembly language into machine code.", "ASSEMBLY":"language An early system on the IBM 702.", "assertion":"programming 1. An expression which, if false, indicates an error. Assertions are used for debugging by catching can't happen errors.", "ASSET":"Asset Source for Software Engineering Technology", "assignment":"programming Storing the value of an expression in a variable. This is commonly written in the form v = e. In Algol the assignment operator was := pronounced becomes to avoid mathematicians qualms about writing statements like x = x+1.", "associativity":"programming The property of an operator that says whether a sequence of three or more expressions combined by the operator will be evaluated from left to right left associative or right to left right associative. For example, in Perl, the lazy and operator && is left associative so in the expression:", "AST":"company 1. ARI Service.", "ASTAP":"Advanced STatistical Analysis Program", "asterisk":"character * ASCII code 42. Common names include: star; INTERCAL: splat; ITU-T: asterisk. Rare: wild card; gear; dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob; Nathan Hale.", "asterix":"spelling Do you mean asterisk the star-shaped character, or Asterix the Gaul http://webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=asterixwebring&index, the popular French cartoon by Goscinny and Uderzo?", "Astral":"language A programming language based on Pascal, never implemented.", "asynchronous":"architecture Not synchronised by a shared signal such as clock or semaphore, proceeding independently.", "asyncronous":"spelling It's spelled asynchronous.", "AT":"IBM PC AT", "at":"1. character commercial at.", "ATA":"Advanced Technology Attachment", "ATAPI":"AT Attachment Packet Interface", "Atari":"company, computer A maker of arcade games, home video game systems, and home computers, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Atari are best known for their range of 16- and 32-bit microcomputers, notable for having a built-in MIDI interface. As of February 1994 the range included the Atari 520ST, 1040ST, Mega ST, STe, STacy, Mega STe, TT, and Falcon.", "AtFS":"Attributed File System", "Athena":"Project Athena", "Athlon":"hardware K7 AMD's 7th generation x86 processor, released in June 1999.", "ATIS":"A Tools Integration Standard", "ATK":"Andrew Toolkit", "ATLAS":"Abbreviated Test Language for Avionics Systems", "ATM":"1. communications Asynchronous Transfer Mode.", "ATMP":"Asynchronous Transfer Mode", "atob":"tool /A too B/ Utility software that converts ASCII to binary. The reverse process is btoa.", "ATOLL":"Acceptance, Test Or Launch Language", "atomic":"jargon From Greek atomos, indivisible Indivisible; cannot be split up.", "ATRAC":"Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding", "ATS":"Attribute Translation System", "attenuation":"communications The progressive reduction in amplitude of a signal as it travels farther from the point of origin.", "attoparsec":"unit, humour About 31 mm one inch. atto- is the standard SI prefix for multiplication by 10^-18. A parsec parallax-second is 3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus 3.26 * 10^-18 light years. Thus, one attoparsec per microfortnight is about one inch per second.", "attribute":"data A named value or relationship that exists for some or all instances of some entity and is directly associated with that instance.", "ATX":"hardware, standard An open PC motherboard specification by Intel.", "au":"1. networking The two character country code for Australia used in Internet domain names.", "aubergine":"jargon A secret term used to refer to computers in the presence of computerphobic third parties.", "audio":"file format Sound, one component of multimedia. Computers and audio compact discs and digital audio tape work with digital audio, in contrast to vinyl disks or analogue tape.", "audiographics":"Audiographic Teleconferencing", "AudioOne":"tool, music Digital recording and editing software developed by BizTrack Software Development for the dance, music, and audio industries. AudioOne includes a waveform recorder that allows signal manipulation, editing, and recording.", "AUI":"1. tool, product Adaptable User Interface.", "AUP":"acceptable use policy", "Aurora":"language A Prolog implementation with or-parallelism.", "authentication":"security The verification of the identity of a person or process. In a communication system, authentication verifies that messages really come from their stated source, like the signature on a paper letter. The most common form of authentication is typing a user name which may be widely known or easily guessable and a corresponding password that is presumed to be known only to the individual being authenticated. Another form of authentication is biometrics.", "authoring":"hypertext Creating a hypertext or hypermedia document.", "autobaud":"automatic baud rate detection", "autobogotiphobia":"bogotify", "AutoCAD":"product, tool A CAD software package for mechanical engineering, marketed by Autodesk, Inc.", "Autocode":"language 1. The assembly language accepted by AUTOCODER.", "AUTOCODER":"language Possibly the first primitive compiler. AUTOCODER was written by Alick E. Glennie in 1952. It translated symbolic statements into machine language for the Manchester Mark I computer.", "autoconf":"software, tool The GNU project's tool that configures a source code distribution to compile and run on a different platform.", "autoconfiscate":"software, jargon A term coined by Noah Friedman meaning to set up or modify a source-code distribution so that it configures and builds using the GNU project's autoconf/automake/libtools suite.", "AUTOGRAF":"tool A system for describing bar charts.", "AUTOGRP":"AUTOmated GRouPing system", "Autolisp":"language A dialect of Lisp used by the Autocad CAD package from Autodesk.", "autoloader":"stack loader", "automagically":"jargon /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ or /aw-toh-maj'i-k*l-ee/ Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial, the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you.", "automata":"automaton", "AUTOMATH":"language, mathematics A very high level language for writing proofs, from Eindhoven, Netherlands.", "automation":"systems, robotics Control of processes, equipment or systems by computer or simpler electronics, typically replacing human control. Often used for control of a manufacturing process where the term may or may not imply the use of some kind of general purpose robot.", "automaton":"robotics, mathematics, algorithm Plural automata A machine, robot, or formal system designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions.", "Autopass":"programming", "autoprojector":"theory A self-applicable partial evaluator.", "Autostat":"language A language for statistical programming.", "autostereogram":"SIRDS", "av":"avatar", "availability":"systems The degree to which a system suffers degradation or interruption in its service to the customer as a consequence of failures of one or more of its parts.", "avatar":"1. chat, virtual reality An image representing a user in a multi-user virtual reality or VR-like, in the case of Palace space.", "AVC":"H.264", "AverStar":"company The US software engineering company that developed Hal, under their former name, Intermetrics. Other products include CS-4, Red, Mwave Developers Toolkit multimedia for IBM PC, cross-compilers for C and C++; Ada '83, Ada 95, and SAMeDL. AverStar also supply client/server systems; custom software applications and turnkey systems; independent verification and validation; CAE integration technology; languages and compilers: Ada, C, C++, HDLs MHDL, Modula, SPL/1.", "AVI":"Audio Video Interleave", "Avon":"language A dataflow language.", "AVS":"Application Visualisation System", "aw":"networking The country code for Aruba.", "AWE":"Advanced WavEffect", "AWG":"American Wire Gauge", "awk":"1. tool, language Named from the authors' initials An interpreted language included with many versions of Unix for massaging text data, developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan in 1978. It is characterised by C-like syntax, declaration-free variables, associative arrays, and field-oriented text processing.", "AWT":"Abstract Window Toolkit", "aXe":"tool A text editor for the X Window System. No longer maintained.", "AXIOM":"language A commercially available subset of the Scratchpad, symbolic mathematics system from IBM.", "axiom":"logic A well-formed formula which is taken to be true without proof in the construction of a theory.", "AXLE":"language An early string processing language in which a program consists of an assertion table specifying patterns and an imperative table specifying replacements.", "ayacc":"language, tool A Yacc-like parser generator developed at the Irvine Research Unit in Software around 1994. ayacc was written in Ada and produces Ada output. aflex was the associated lexical analyser.", "AYT":"chat Are you there?", "az":"networking The country code for Azerbaijan.", "AZERTY":"QWERTY", "B":"1. byte.", "b":"unit bit or maybe byte B.", "ba":"networking The country code for Bosnia and Herzegowina.", "Baan":"company A provider of enterprise resource planning and manufacturer resource planning software.", "Babbage":"language The structured assembly language for the General Electric Company 4xxx range of computers and their OS4000 operating system. It is strictly an assembler in that the generated code is relatively predictable but it can be written in a sufficiently structured manner, with indentation, control statements, function and procedure calls, to make the resultant source easy to read and manage. Even with this visible structure however, it is important to remember that the assembly of the statement is done left to right.", "BABEL":"language", "BABT":"British Approval Boards for Telecommunications", "BABYLON":"A development environment for expert systems. It includes frames, constraints, a prolog-like logic formalism, and a description language for diagnostic applications. It requires Common Lisp.", "BACAIC":"Boeing Airplane Company Algebraic Interpreter Coding system.", "Bachman":"A proposed a style of Entity-Relationship model which differs from Chen's.", "backbone":"backbone network", "backgammon":"See bignum, moby, pseudoprime.", "background":"1. operating system A task running in the background a background task is detached from the terminal where it was started and often running at a lower priority; opposite of foreground. This means that the task's input and output must be from/to files or other processes.", "backoff":"networking A host which has experienced a collision on a network waits for a amount of time before attempting to retransmit. A random backoff minimises the probability that the same nodes will collide again, even if they are using the same backoff algorithm. Increasing the backoff period after each collision also helps to prevent repeated collisions, especially when the network is heavily loaded.", "BackOffice":"software A suite of network server software from Microsoft that includes Windows NT Server, BackOffice Server for the integrated development, deployment, and management of BackOffice applications in departments, branch offices, and medium sized businesses; Exchange Server; Proxy Server; Site Server for intranet publishing, management, and search; Site Server Commerce Edition For comprehensive Internet commerce transactions; Small Business Server for business operations, resource management, and customer relations; SNA Server for the integration of existing and new systems and data; SQL Server for scalable, reliable database and data-warehousing; Systems Management Server SMS for centralised change- and configuration-management.", "backplane":"hardware, electronics A printed circuit board with slots into which other cards are plugged.", "backport":"software To make a feature from a later version of a piece of software available in an earlier version. Backporting of features enables users of the older version to benefit from a feature without upgrading fully.", "backronym":"jargon Backward acronym A word which has been turned into an acronym by inventing an expansion, rather than the other way around. E.g. ping.", "backslash":"character \\ ASCII code 92. Common names: escape from C/Unix; reverse slash; slosh; backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; ITU-T: reverse slant; reversed virgule; INTERCAL: backslat.", "backspace":"character BS ASCII code 8, Control-H. The control character that should cause most output devices to move their current output position back to the previous character so that the next character output will replace or overprint it. Inputting a backspace typically by pressing the backspace key causes many systems to delete the character before the input cursor, though others use delete for this.", "backtick":"back quote", "backtracking":"algorithm A scheme for solving a series of sub-problems each of which may have multiple possible solutions and where the solution chosen for one sub-problem may affect the possible solutions of later sub-problems.", "backup":"operating system back up when used as a verb A spare copy of a file, file system, or other resource for use in the event of failure or loss of the original.", "BAD":"/B-A-D/ Broken As Designed, a play on working as designed, from IBM. Failing because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugs.", "BAL":"Basic Assembly Language", "BALGOL":"language ALGOL on Burroughs 220.", "BALITAC":"Early system on IBM 650. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "BALM":"language Block And List Manipulation An extensible language, developed by Malcolm Harrison in 1970, with LISP-like features and ALGOL-like syntax, for CDC 6600.", "balun":"electronics A transformer connected between a balanced source or load and an unbalanced source or load. A balanced line has two conductors, with equal currents in opposite directions. The unbalanced line has just one conductor; the current in it returns via a common ground or earth path.", "bamf":"/bamf/ 1. [Old X-Men comics] Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity.", "bandwidth":"communications The difference between the highest and lowest frequencies of a transmission channel the width of its allocated band of frequencies.", "bang":"1. A common spoken name for ! ASCII 33, especially when used in pronouncing a bang path in spoken hackish. In elder days this was considered a CMUish usage, with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring excl or shriek; but the spread of Unix has carried bang with it especially via the term bang path and it is now certainly the most common spoken name for !. Note that it is used exclusively for non-emphatic written !; one would not say Congratulations bang except possibly for humorous purposes, but if one wanted to specify the exact characters foo! one would speak Eff oh oh bang.", "banner":"1. The title page added to printouts by most print spoolers.", "Banyan":"company A personal computer networking company, best known for its Vines products for local area networks.", "BAP":"1. language An early system used on the IBM 701.", "BAPI":"Business Application Programming Interface", "bar":"1. programming, convention /bar/ The second metasyntactic variable, after foo and before baz. E.g. Suppose function FOO calls functions BAR...", "barf":"/barf/ [mainstream slang for vomit] 1. Term of disgust.", "barfmail":"messaging Multiple bounce messages accumulating to the level of serious annoyance, or worse. The sort of thing that happens when an inter-network mail gateway goes down or misbehaves.", "barfulation":"/bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ Variation of barf used around the Stanford area. An exclamation, expressing disgust. On seeing some particularly bad code one might exclaim, Barfulation! Who wrote this, Quux?", "barfulous":"/bar'fyoo-l*s/ Or barfucious, /bar-fyoo-sh*s/ Said of something that would make anyone barf, if only for aesthetic reasons.", "barney":"In Commonwealth hackish, barney is to fred as bar is to foo. That is, people who commonly use fred as their first metasyntactic variable will often use barney second. The reference is, of course, to Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the Flintstones cartoons.", "Baroque":"An early logic programming language written by Boyer and Moore in 1972.", "baroque":"Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on excessive. Said of hardware or especially software designs, this has many of the connotations of elephantine or monstrosity but is less extreme and not pejorative in itself. Metafont even has features to introduce random variations to its letterform output. Now *that* is baroque!", "barycentric":"mathematics Centre of gravity, mean.", "base":"mathematics radix.", "baseband":"A transmission medium through which digital signals are sent without frequency shifting. In general, only one communication channel is available at any given time.", "baseline":"released version", "basename":"file system The name of a file which, in contrast to a pathname, does not mention any of the directories containing the file. Examples:", "bash":"Bourne Again SHell. GNU's command interpreter for Unix.", "BASIC":"language Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.", "batch":"batch processing", "baud":"communications, unit /bawd/ plural baud The unit in which the information carrying capacity or signalling rate of a communication channel is measured. One baud is one symbol state-transition or level-transition per second.", "Baudot":"Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot", "bawk":"language An Awk-like string pattern matching language by Bob Brodt, distributed with MINIX.", "bay":"hardware As in an aeroplane cargo bay A space in a cabinet into which a device of a certain size can be physically mounted and connected to power and data.", "baz":"/baz/ The third metasyntactic variable Suppose we have three functions: FOO, BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ... See also fum. Occasionally appended to foo to produce foobaz.", "bb":"networking The country code for Barbados.", "BBC":"British Broadcasting Corporation", "BBL":"chat I will be back later.", "bboard":"bulletin board system", "BBS":"bulletin board system", "BC":"An arbitrary precision numeric processing language with C-like syntax. Traditionally implemented as a front-end to DC. There is a GNU version called GNU BC.", "BCBF":"Branch on Chip Box Full", "BCC":"1. Blind Carbon Copy.", "BCD":"binary coded decimal", "BCL":"The successor to Atlas Commercial Language.", "BCNU":"Be seein' you.", "BCPL":"language Basic CPL A British systems language developed by Richards in 1969 and descended from CPL Combined Programming Language. BCPL is low-level, typeless and block-structured, and provides only one-dimensional arrays.", "BCS":"1. British Computer Society.", "bd":"networking The country code for Bangladesh.", "BDC":"Backup Domain Controller", "BDL":"Block Diagram Compiler", "BDPA":"Black Data Processing Associates", "be":"networking The country code for Belgium.", "BEA":"Basic programming Environment for interactive-graphical Applications, from Siemens-Nixdorf.", "beam":"jargon From Star Trek Classic's Beam me up, Scotty! To transfer softcopy of a file electronically; most often in combining forms such as beam me a copy or beam that over to his site. Compare blast, snarf, BLT.", "beamer":"video, hardware, communications A personal video station PVS that adds video to standard telephone lines at no additional cost.", "bean":"JavaBeans", "Bebo":"web A social networking website based in California, USA.", "BeBOP":"language A language combining sequential and parallel logic programming, object-oriented and meta-level programming.", "BeBox":"computer A microcomputer produced by Be Inc, containing between two and eight PowerPCs the initial model has two PPC 603s. The BeBox can take standard IBM PC peripherals, such as ISA and PCI cards, IDE and SCSI disks, and a standard PS/2 keyboard.", "BEDO":"Burst Extended Data Out DRAM", "Bedrock":"A C++ class library for Macintosh user interface portability.", "beep":"bell", "beeper":"pager", "BEG":"Back End Generator", "BEGL":"Back End Generator", "BEL":"bell", "BELL":"An early system on the IBM 650 and Datatron 200 series.", "Bell":"Bell Telephone", "bell":"character ASCII 7, ASCII mnemonic BEL, the character code which prodces a standard audibile warning from the computer or terminal. In the teletype days it really was a bell, since the advent of the VDU it is more likely to be a sound sample e.g. the sound of a bell played through a loudspeaker.", "Bellcore":"Bell Communications Research, Inc.", "benchmark":"benchmark A standard program or set of programs which can be run on different computers to give an inaccurate measure of their performance.", "BeOS":"operating system The operating system originally designed to run on the BeBox microcomputer. BeOS is good at both multitasking and real-time operation. It has a bash command shell, with ports of many GNU programs by Be, Inc.", "BER":"1. protocol, standard Basic Encoding Rules.", "Berkeley":"University of California at Berkeley", "berklix":"/berk'liks/ From Berkeley Unix Berkeley Software Distribution. Not used at Berkeley itself. May be more common among suits attempting to sound like cognoscenti than among hackers, who usually just say BSD.", "BERR":"bus error", "Bertrand":"Named after the British mathematician Bertrand Russell 1872-1970. Wm. Leler. Rule-based specification language based on augmented term rewriting. Used to implement constraint languages. The user must explicitly specify the tree-search and the constraint propagation.", "Berzerkeley":"humour /b*r-zer'klee/ From berserk, via the name of a now-deceased record label A humorous distortion of Berkeley used especially to refer to the practices or products of the BSD Unix hackers.", "Berzerkley":"Berzerkeley", "bespoke":"custom", "BETA":"Kristensen, Madsen olmadsen@daimi.aau.dk, Moller-Pedersen & Nygaard, 1983. Object-oriented language with block structure, coroutines, concurrency, strong typing, part objects, separate objects and classless objects. Central feature is a single abstraction mechanism called patterns, a generalisation of classes, providing instantiation and hierarchical inheritance for all objects including procedures and processes.", "beta":"/bay't*/, /be't*/ or Commonwealth /bee't*/", "Betamaxed":"jargon When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition. E.g. Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market. The Betamex videotape standard lost to VHS.", "Bezier":"graphics After Frenchman Pierre Bézier from Regie Renault A collection of formulae for describing curved lines Bezier curve and surfaces Bezier surface, first used in 1972 to model automobile surfaces.", "bf":"networking The country code for Burkina Faso.", "BFI":"brute force and ignorance", "bg":"networking The country code for Bulgaria.", "BGA":"Ball Grid Array", "bgh":"chat Be Good Humans.", "BGP":"Border Gateway Protocol", "bh":"networking The country code for Bahrain.", "bi":"networking The country code for Burundi.", "bib":"BibTeX", "bible":"publication The most detailed and authoritative reference for a particular language, operating system or other complex software system. It is also used to denote one of a small number of such books such as Knuth and K&R.", "BIBOP":"Big bag of pages", "BibTeX":"text, tool A Tex extension package for bibliographic citations, distributed with LaTeX. BibTeX uses a style-independent bibliography database .bib file to produce a list of sources, in a customisable style, from citations in a Latex document. It also supports some other formats.", "BiCapitalisation":"The act said to have been performed on trademarks such as PostScript, NeXT, NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many marketroid types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it.", "BiCMOS":"hardware A manufacturing process for semiconductor devices that combines bipolar and CMOS to give the best balance between available output current and power consumption.", "BIFF":"/bif/ Or B1FF, from Usenet The most famous pseudo, and the prototypical newbie. Articles from BIFF are characterised by all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos, cute misspellings EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE'S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE THIS!!!, use and often misuse of fragments of chat abbreviations, a long sig block sometimes even a doubled sig, and unbounded naivete. BIFF posts articles using his elder brother's VIC-20. BIFF's location is a mystery, as his articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However, BITNET seems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that BIFF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by BIFF's unfortunately invalid electronic mail address: BIFF@BIT.NET.", "biff":"/bif/ To notify someone of incoming mail. From the BSD utility biff1, which was in turn named after a friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls at UCB while 4.2BSD was in development it had a well-known habit of barking whenever the mailman came. No relation to BIFF.", "Bigloo":"language A Scheme interpreter, compiler and run-time system by Manuel Serrano Manuel.Serrano@inria.fr which aims to deliver small, fast stand-alone applications. It supports modules and optimisation. Bigloo's features enable Scheme programs to be used where C or C++ might usually be required.", "bignum":"programming /big'nuhm/ Originally from MIT MacLISP A multiple-precision computer representation for very large integers.", "bigot":"A person who is religiously attached to a particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool see religious issues. Usually found with a specifier; thus, Cray bigot, ITS bigot, APL bigot, VMS bigot, Berkeley bigot. Real bigots can be distinguished from mere partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is threatening to obsolete the favoured tool. It is truly said You can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much. Compare weenie.", "bijection":"mathematics A function is bijective or a bijection or a one-to-one correspondence if it is both injective no two values map to the same value and surjective for every element of the codomain there is some element of the domain which maps to it. I.e. there is exactly one element of the domain which maps to each element of the codomain.", "binaries":"binary file", "binary":"1. mathematics Base two. A number representation consisting of zeros and ones used by practically all computers because of its ease of implementation using digital electronics and Boolean algebra.", "BIND":"Berkeley Internet Name Domain", "bindery":"networking A Novell Netware database that contains definitions for entities such as users, groups, and workgroups. The bindery allows the network supervisor to design an organised and secure operating environment based on the individual requirements of each of these entities.", "BinHex":"file format A Macintosh format for representing a binary file using only printable characters. The file is converted to lines of letters, numbers and punctuation.", "BinProlog":"language Probably the fastest freely available C-emulated Prolog. BinProlog features:", "bioinformatics":"application The field of science concerning the application of computer science and information technology to biology; using computers to handle biological information, especially computational molecular biology.", "biometrics":"security, hardware The use of special input devices to analyse some physical parameter assumed to be unique to an individual, in order to confirm their identity as part of an authentication procedure.", "BIOR":"An early system on UNIVAC I or II.", "BIOS":"Basic Input/Output System", "BIP":"An incorrect singular of BIPS. One billion instructions per second is 1 BIPS, not 1 BIP.", "BIPM":"Bureau International des Poids et Mesures", "bipolar":"1. electronics See bipolar transistor.", "BIPS":"Billion 10^9 instructions per second. Same as GIPS.", "BISDN":"Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network.", "Bison":"tool GNU's replacement for the yacc parser generator.", "BIST":"Built-in Self Test", "bisync":"Binary Synchronous Transmission", "bit":"unit b binary digit.", "bitblt":"/bit'blit/ [BLT] 1. Any of a family of closely related algorithms for moving and copying rectangles of bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped device, or between two areas of either main or display memory the requirement to do the Right Thing in the case of overlapping source and destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky.", "bite":"byte", "bitmap":"graphics, file format A data file or structure which corresponds bit for bit with an image displayed on a screen, probably in the same format as it would be stored in the display's video memory or maybe as a device independent bitmap. A bitmap is characterised by the width and height of the image in pixels and the number of bits per pixel which determines the number of shades of grey or colours it can represent. A bitmap representing a coloured image a pixmap will usually have pixels with between one and eight bits for each of the red, green, and blue components, though other colour encodings are also used. The green component sometimes has more bits that the other two to cater for the human eye's greater discrimination in this component.", "BITNET":"networking /bit'net/ Because It's Time NETwork An academic and research computer network connecting approximately 2500 computers. BITNET provides interactive, electronic mail and file transfer services, using a store and forward protocol, based on IBM Network Job Entry protocols.", "BitTorrent":"networking A popular, distributed form of peer-to-peer file sharing that enables a client program to fetch different parts of a file a torrent from different sources in parallel. The system is designed to encourage users to make downloaded data available for others to upload. This is aided by a scheme for exchanging unique identifiers, commonly stored in .torrent files. A downloader who does not serve data to others is called a leech. A seed is a computer that has a complete copy of a file, possibly the original.", "bitwise":"programming A bitwise operator treats its operands as a vector of bits rather than a single number. Boolean bitwise operators combine bit N of each operand using a Boolean function NOT, AND, OR, XOR to produce bit N of the result.", "bixie":"/bik'see/ Variant emoticons used on Byte Information eXchange. The smiley bixie is @_@, apparently intending to represent two cartoon eyes and a mouth. A few others have been reported.", "bj":"networking The country code for Benin.", "BlackIce":"software, security A commercial firewall and intrusion detection system.", "blargh":"/blarg/ [MIT] The opposite of ping. An exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a quantum of unhappiness. Less common than ping.", "blast":"1. BLT, used especially for large data sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of snarf. Usage: uncommon. The variant blat has been reported.", "blat":"1. blast.", "BLAZE":"A single assignment language for parallel processing.", "bleam":"jargon To transmit or send data.", "bleeper":"pager", "bletcherous":"/blech'*-r*s/ Disgusting in design or function; aesthetically unappealing. This word is seldom used of people. This keyboard is bletcherous! Perhaps the keys don't work very well, or are misplaced. The term bletcherous applies to the esthetics of the thing so described; similarly for cretinous. By contrast, something that is losing or bagbiting may be failing to meet objective criteria.", "blinkenlights":"/blink'*n-li:tz/ Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, especially a dinosaur. Derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the English-speaking world. One version ran in its entirety as follows:", "BLISS":"Basic Language for Implementation of System Software", "blit":"/blit/ 1. To copy a large array of bits from one part of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display screen. The storage allocator picks through the table and copies the good parts up into high memory, and then blits it all back down again. See bitblt, BLT, dd, cat, blast, snarf. More generally, to perform some operation such as toggling on a large array of bits while moving them.", "blitter":"hardware, graphics /blit'r/ Or raster blaster. A special-purpose integrated circuit or hardware system built to perform blit or bit bang operations, especially used for fast implementation of bit-mapped graphics.", "blivet":"/bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag] 1. An intractable problem.", "bloat":"software bloat", "bloatware":"jargon, abuse Software suffering from software bloat.", "BLOB":"1. binary large object.", "block":"1. unit A unit of data or memory, often, but not exclusively, on a magnetic disk or magnetic tape.", "blog":"web From web log Any kind of diary published on the web, usually written by an individual a blogger but also by corporate bodies.", "Bloombug":"humour A bug that accidentally generates money.", "Blosim":"Block-Diagram Simulator. A block-diagram simulator. A Tool for Structured Functional Simulation, D.G. Messerschmitt, IEEE J on Selected Areas in Comm, SAC-21:137-147, 1984.", "BLOX":"A visual language.", "BLT":"1. /B-L-T/, /bl*t/ or rarely /belt/ Synonym for blit.", "Blue":"A language proposed by Softech to meet the DoD Ironman requirements which led to Ada. [On the BLUE Language Submitted to the DoD, E.W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices 1310:10-15 Oct 1978].", "Bluetooth":"protocol, standard A specification for short-range radio links between mobile computers, mobile phones, digital cameras, and other portable devices.", "blurgle":"/bler'gl/ [Great Britain] Spoken metasyntactic variable, to indicate some text that is obvious from context, or which is already known. If several words are to be replaced, blurgle may well be doubled or trebled. To look for something in several files use grep string blurgle blurgle. In each case, blurgle blurgle would be understood to be replaced by the file you wished to search. Compare mumble.", "bm":"networking The country code for Bermuda.", "BMAN":"Broadband Metropolitan Area Network", "BMASF":"Basic Module Algebra Specification Language? Design of a Specification Language by Abstract Syntax Engineering, J.C.M. Baeten et al, in LNCS 490, pp.363-394.", "BMDP":"BioMeDical Package", "BMF":"Bird-Meertens Formalism", "BMP":"Basic Multilingual Plane", "bmp":"file format, graphics Microsoft Windows bitmap format.", "BMWF":"body The Austrian, German and Swiss? Ministries of Science.", "bn":"networking The country code for Brunei Darussalam.", "BNC":"hardware A connector for coaxial cable such as that used for some video connections and RG58 cheapernet connections. A BNC connector has a bayonet-type shell with two small knobs on the female connector which lock into spiral slots in the male connector when it is twisted on.", "BNF":"Backus-Naur Form. Originally Backus Normal Form.", "bo":"networking The country code for Bolivia.", "BOA":"Basic Object Adapter", "boa":"[IBM] Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a dinosaur pen. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous --- and it is worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the trademark Anaconda.", "board":"1. In-context synonym for bboard; sometimes used even for Usenet newsgroups.", "Bob":"David Betz. A tiny object-oriented language.", "BOCS":"Berard Object and Class Specifier", "BOEING":"language An early system on the IBM 1130.", "BOF":"/B-O-F/ or /bof/ 1. Birds Of a Feather.", "BOFH":"Bastard Operator From Hell", "bogometer":"humour /boh-gom'-*t-er/ A notional instrument for measuring bogosity.", "BogoMips":"unit From bogus, MIPS The timing unit of the Linux kernel.", "bogon":"/boh'gon/ By analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adams's Vogons", "bogosity":"/boh-go's*-tee/ The degree to which something is bogus in the hackish sense of bad. At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say My bogometer just triggered. More extremely, You just pinned my bogometer means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading one might also say You just redlined my bogometer. The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat.", "bogotify":"jargon /boh-go't*-fi:/ To make or become bad. A program that has been changed so many times as to become completely disorganised has become bogotified. If you tighten a nut too hard and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has become bogotified.", "BOHICA":"humour /bo-hee-ka/ Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.", "boink":"/boynk/ [Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV series Cheers Moonlighting, and Soap] 1. To have sex with; compare bounce. This is mainstream slang. In Commonwealth hackish the variant bonk is more common.", "BOLERO":"programming Software AG's object-oriented development environment and application server for Electronic Business applications.", "bomb":"1. software General synonym for crash except that it is not used as a noun. Especially used of software or OS failures. Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb.", "bon":"language From Bonnie, Ken Thompson's wife A language designed by Ken Thompson and later revised by him to produce B.", "book":"1. text e-book.", "bookmark":"web A user's reference to a document on the web or other hypermedia system, usually in the form of a URL and a title or comment string.", "Bookreader":"DEC's CD-ROM-based on-line documentation browser.", "Bookviewer":"A hypertext documentation system from Oracle based on Oracle Toolkit. It allows the user to create private links and bookmarks, and to make multimedia annotations.", "bool":"Boolean", "Boolean":"logic 1. Boolean algebra.", "Booster":"A data-parallel language.", "boot":"bootstrap", "booting":"bootstrap", "BOOTP":"The Bootstrap Protocol.", "bootstrap":"operating system, compiler To load and initialise the operating system on a computer. Normally abbreviated to boot. From the curious expression to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps, one of the legendary feats of Baron von Munchhausen. The bootstrap loader is the program that runs on the computer before any normal program can run. Derived terms include reboot, cold boot, warm boot, soft boot and hard boot.", "borf":"jargon To uncerimoniously disconnect someone from a system without prior warning. BBS Sysops routinely borf pest users by turning off the modem or by hitting the auto-borf key sequence.", "BOS":"1. operating system Basic Operating System.", "BOSS":"Bridgport Operating System Software. A derivative of the ISO 1054 numerical machine control language for milling, etc.", "bot":"1. networking, chat, web From robot Any type of autonomous software that operates as an agent for a user or a program or simulates a human activity.", "botmaster":"chat The owner of a bot.", "botnet":"security A large number of hijacked computers controlled by a botmaster via the Internet. Some botnets have been estimated to include hundreds of thousands of computers.", "bottom":"theory The least defined element in a given domain.", "BottomFeeder":"networking An RSS aggregator.", "botwar":"chat The epic struggle of bots vying for dominance.", "bounce":"1. Perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification a bounce message to the sender is said to bounce.", "bounded":"theory In domain theory, a subset S of a cpo X is bounded if there exists x in X such that for all s in S, s = x. In other words, there is some element above all of S. If every bounded subset of X has a least upper bound then X is boundedly complete.", "bournebasic":"A BASIC interpreter.", "boustrophedonic":"hardware From the Greek boustrophe-don: turning like oxen in plowing; from bous: ox, cow; strephein: to turn An ancient method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left lines. It used for an optimisation performed by some computer typesetting software and moving-head printers to reduce physical movement of the print head. The adverbial form boustrophedonically is also found.", "box":"computer 1. A computer; especially in the construction foo box where foo is some functional qualifier, like graphics, or the name of an operating system thus, Unix box, MS-DOS box, etc. We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before handing it up to the mainframe. The plural boxen is sometimes seen.", "boxen":"/bok'sn/ By analogy with VAXen A fanciful plural of box often encountered in the phrase Unix boxen, used to describe commodity Unix hardware. The connotation is that any two Unix boxen are interchangeable.", "Boxer":"1. language A visual language by Hal Abelson and Andy diSessa of Berkeley which claims to be the successor to Logo. Boxes are used to represent scope.", "boxology":"graphics /bok-sol'*-jee/ ASCII art.", "bozotic":"abuse From Bozo the Clown, a famous circus personality, via bozo - a clod, idiot or generally silly person any form of clown-like or ludicrous behaviour. The word also has echoes of robotic, so bozotic behaviour is mindless, automaton-like stupidity.", "BPEL":"Web Services Business Process Execution Language", "BPI":"bits per inch", "bpmake":"Aspirin", "bpp":"bits per pixel", "BPR":"Business Process Re-engineering", "BPS":"Basic Programming Support", "bps":"bits per second", "BQS":"Berkeley Quality Software", "br":"networking The country code for Brazil.", "brace":"character left brace or right brace.", "bracket":"character Or square bracket A left bracket or right bracket.", "braille":"human language /breyl/ Often capitalised A class of writing systems, intended for use by blind and low-vision users, which express glyphs as raised dots. Currently employed braille standards use eight dots per cell, where a cell is a glyph-space two dots across by four dots high; most glyphs use only the top six dots.", "Brainfuck":"language An eight-instruction esoteric programming language created by Urban Müller. His goal was apparently to create a Turing-complete language with the smallest compiler ever, for the Amiga OS 2.0. He eventually reduced his compiler to under 200 bytes.", "braino":"thinko", "branch":"1. mathematics An edge in a tree.", "Brazil":"An operating system from Acorn Computers used on an ARM card which could be fitted to an IBM PC. There was also an ARM second processor for the BBC Microcomputer which used Brazil. Never used on the Archimedes?.", "BRB":"chat I will be right back.", "breadcrumbs":"After the story Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm.", "break":"1. To cause to be broken. Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands.", "breakpoint":"programming A point in a program that, when reached, triggers some special behavior useful to the process of debugging; generally, breakpoints are used to either pause program execution, and/or dump the values of some or all of the program variables. Breakpoints may be part of the program itself; or they may be set by the programmer as part of an interactive session with a debugging tool for scrutinizing the program's execution.", "breedle":"feep", "BRH":"Branch and Hang", "BRI":"Basic Rate Interface", "BRIDGE":"A component of ICES for civil engineers.", "bridge":"networking, hardware A device which forwards traffic between network segments based on data link layer information.", "Bridgetalk":"language A visual language.", "briefcase":"tool A Win95/WinNT utility for keeping files on two computers without permanent connection in sync.", "brightness":"graphics Or tone, luminance, value, luminosity, lightness The coordinate in the HSB colour model that determines the total amount of light in the colour. Zero brightness is black and 100% is white, intermediate values are light or dark colours.", "Brilliant":"One of five pedagogical languages based on Markov algorithms, used in [Nonpareil, a Machine Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of Semantics, B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London 1968].", "brittle":"jargon Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g. a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed software, which displays the quality far more often than it ought to.", "broadband":"communications A class of communication channel capable of supporting a wide range of frequencies, typically from audio up to video frequencies. A broadband channel can carry multiple signals by dividing the total capacity into multiple, independent bandwidth channels, where each channel operates only on a specific range of frequencies.", "broadcast":"A transmission to multiple, unspecified recipients. On Ethernet, a broadcast packet is a special type of multicast packet which all nodes on the network are always willing to receive.", "Broadway":"standard, operating system A standard which the X Consortium is currently January 1997 developing and plans to release soon as an open standard. A prime goal is to be more bandwidth-efficient and easier to develop for and to port than the X Window System, which has been widely described as over-sized, over-featured, over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated.", "brochureware":"jargon, business A planned, but non-existent, product, like vaporware but with the added implication that marketing is actively selling and promoting it they've printed brochures.", "broken":"Not working properly of programs.", "broker":"object request broker", "broket":"character /broh'k*t/ or /broh'ket/ From broken bracket Either of the characters or when used as paired enclosing delimiters angle brackets.", "brontobyte":"unit, data A proposed unit of data equal to 10^27 bytes. A brontobyte is 1000^9 bytes or 1000 yottabytes.", "brouter":"A device which bridges some packets i.e. forwards based on data link layer information and routes other packets i.e.", "browser":"hypertext A program which allows a person to read hypertext. The browser gives some means of viewing the contents of nodes or pages and of navigating from one node to another.", "BRS":"Big Red Switch", "BRUIN":"Brown University Interactive Language.", "BS":"backspace", "bs":"networking The country code for the Bahamas.", "BSA":"1. Business Software Alliance.", "BSD":"Berkeley Software Distribution", "BSDI":"Berkeley Software Design, Inc.", "BSI":"British Standards Institute", "BSL":"language A variant of IBM's PL/S systems language.", "BSOD":"Blue Screen of Death", "BSOL":"Blue Screen of Life", "BSOM":"Beats the shit outa me", "BSRAM":"Burst Static Random Access Memory", "BSS":"1. programming Block Started by Symbol.", "BST":"convention British Summer Time. The name for daylight-saving time in the UK GMT time zone.", "bt":"networking The country code for Bhutan.", "BTB":"Branch Target Buffer", "btoa":"tool, messaging, algorithm, file format /B too A/ A binary to ASCII conversion utility.", "BTOS":"Convergent Technologies Operating System", "BTRIEVE":"1. company BTRIEVE Technologies, Inc..", "BTRL":"company British Telecom Research Laboratories.", "BTS":"Bug Tracking System", "BTW":"chat By the way.", "BUAF":"[alt.fan.warlord] Big Ugly ASCII Font. A special form of ASCII art. Various programs exist for rendering text strings into block, bloob, and pseudo-script fonts in cells between four and six character cells on a side; this is smaller than the letters generated by older banner programs.", "BUAG":"[alt.fan.warlord] Big Ugly ASCII Graphic. Pejorative term for ugly ASCII ART, especially as found in sig blocks. For some reason, mutations of the head of Bart Simpson are particularly common in the least imaginative sig blocks.", "buffer":"1. An area of memory used for storing messages. Typically, a buffer will have other attributes such as an input pointer where new data will be written into the buffer, and output pointer where the next item will be read from and/or a count of the space used or free. Buffers are used to decouple processes so that the reader and writer may operate at different speeds or on different sized blocks of data.", "bug":"programming An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, especially one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym of feature. E.g. There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out backward. The identification and removal of bugs in a program is called debugging.", "Bugfoot":"Loch Ness Monster Bug", "buglix":"/buhg'liks/ Pejorative term referring to DEC's ULTRIX operating system in its earlier *severely* buggy versions.", "bugs":"bug", "BUGSYS":"programming A programming system for pattern recognition and preparing animated films, for IBM 7094 and IBM 360.", "Bugzilla":"programming The web-based bug tracking system used by the Mozilla project.", "build":"programming, systems To process all of a project's source code and other digital assets or resources in order to produce a deployable product. In the simplest case this might mean compiling one file of C source to produce an executable file. More complex builds would typically involve compiling multiple source files, building library modules, packaging intermediate build products e.g. Java class files in a jar file, adding or updating version information and other data about the product e.g. intended deployment platform, running tests and interacting with a source code control system.", "Bull":"Bull Information Systems", "bum":"1. To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code. I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code. In elder days, John McCarthy inventor of Lisp used to compare some efficiency-obsessed hackers among his students to ski bums; thus, optimisation became program bumming, and eventually just bumming.", "bump":"Increment. E.g. C's ++ operator. It is used especially of counter variables, pointers and index dummies in for, while, and do-while loops.", "burble":"[Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky] Like flame, but connotes that the source is truly clueless and ineffectual mere flamers can be competent. A term of deep contempt. There's some guy on the phone burbling about how he got a DISK FULL error and it's all our comm software's fault. This is mainstream slang in some parts of England.", "bus":"architecture, networking A set of electrical conductors wires, PCB tracks or connections in an integrated circuit connecting various stations, which can be functional units in a computer or nodes in a network. A bus is a broadcast channel, meaning that each station receives every other station's transmissions and all stations have equal access to the bus.", "button":"1. electronics push-button.", "buzz":"1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; especially said of programs thought to be executing a tight loop of code. A program that is buzzing appears to be catatonic, but never gets out of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of its own accord. The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying to sort all the names into order. See spin; see also grovel.", "bv":"networking The country code for Bouvet Island.", "bw":"networking The country code for Botswana.", "bwBASIC":"Bywater BASIC interpreter.", "BWQ":"[IBM] Buzz Word Quotient. The percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents. Usually roughly proportional to bogosity. See TLA.", "by":"networking The country code for Belarus.", "byacc":"Berkeley Yacc", "Byte":"publication A popular computing magazine.", "byte":"unit /bi:t/ B A component in the machine data hierarchy larger than a bit and usually smaller than a word; now nearly always eight bits and the smallest addressable unit of storage. A byte typically holds one character.", "bytesexual":"jargon /bi:t sekshu-*l/ An adjective used to describe hardware, denotes willingness to compute or pass data in either big-endian or little-endian format depending, presumably, on a mode bit somewhere. See also NUXI problem.", "Byzantine":"jargon, architecture A term describing any system that has so many labyrinthine internal interconnections that it would be impossible to simplify by separation into loosely coupled or linked components.", "bz":"networking The country code for Belize.", "C":"language A programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie at AT&T Bell Labs ca. 1972 for systems programming on the PDP-11 and immediately used to reimplement Unix.", "CA":"1. theory, architecture cellular automaton.", "ca":"networking The country code for Canada.", "cache":"memory management /kash/ A small fast memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up subsequent access to the same data. Most often applied to processor-memory access but also used for a local copy of data accessible over a network etc.", "caching":"cache", "CACI":"company A company developing and marketing SIMSCRIPT, MODSIM and other simulation software products.", "CACM":"Communications of the ACM", "CAD":"Computer Aided Design", "CADD":"Computer Aided Detector Design", "CADET":"Computer Aided Design Experimental Translator.", "CADRE":"company The US software engineering vendor which merged with Bachman Information Systems to form Cayenne Software in July 1996.", "CAE":"1. operating system Common Applications Environment.", "CAF":"constant applicative form", "CAFE":"[Job Control Languages: MAXIMOP and CAFE, J. Brandon, Proc BCS Symp on Job Control Languages--Past Present and Future, NCC, Manchester, England 1974].", "CAGE":"Early system on IBM 704. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "CAI":"Computer-Aided Instruction", "Cairo":"Windows NT 4", "CAIS":"Common APSE Interface Specification", "CAiSE":"Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering.", "CAJOLE":"language Chris And John's Own LanguagE A dataflow language developed by Chris Hankin clh@doc.ic.ac.uk and John Sharp at Westfield College.", "CAL":"1. Computer Assisted Learning.", "Calc":"tool, mathematics An extensible, advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in Emacs Lisp by Dave Gillespie daveg@synaptics.com. Calc runs as part of GNU Emacs. You can use Calc as only a simple four-function calculator, but it also provides additional features including choice of algebraic or RPN stack-based entry, logarithms, trigonometric and financial functions, arbitrary precision, complex numbers, vectors, matrices, dates, times, infinities, sets, algebraic simplification, differentiation, and integration.", "calculator":"bitty box", "Caliban":"A declarative annotation language for controlling the partitioning and placement of the evaluation of expressions in a distributed functional language. Designed by Paul Kelly phjk@doc.ic.ac.uk, Imperial College.", "Calico":"C+@", "callback":"1. programming A scheme used in event-driven programs where the program registers a subroutine a callback handler to handle a certain event. The program does not call the handler directly but when the event occurs, the run-time system calls the handler, usually passing it arguments to describe the event.", "callee":"programming The function or subroutine being called by the caller.", "Callware":"company The developers of Phonetastic.", "CALS":"Computer-Aided Acquisition and Logistics Support: a DoD standard for electronic exchange of data with commercial suppliers.", "CAM":"1. storage, architecture content addressable memory.", "CAMAL":"tool CAMbridge ALgebra system.", "CamelCase":"programming The practice of concatenating words with either all words capitalised e.g. ICantReadThis - sometimes called UpperCamelCase or PascalCase or all except the first iCantReadThis - called lowerCamelCase. It is used in contexts where space characters are not allowed, such as identifiers in source code.", "CAMIL":"Computer Assisted/Managed Instructional Language.", "CAML":"language", "CAN":"Cancel", "Canada":"Country with domain ca.", "Cancel":"character CAN, Control-X ASCII character 24.", "Cancelbunny":"Cancelpoodle", "Cancelmoose":"messaging A semi-mythical being that cancels Usenet articles posted by others. In general, an article can only be cancelled by its original author.", "Cancelpoodle":"messaging Or Cancelbunny A manifestation of the Cancelmoose in the form of a more selective and probably not automated way to cancel Usenet articles.", "Candle":"Part of the Scorpion environment development system.", "candygrammar":"language A programming-language grammar that is mostly syntactic sugar; a play on candygram. COBOL, Apple Computer's Hypertalk language, and many 4GLs share this property. The intent is to be as English-like as possible and thus easier for unskilled people to program. However, syntax isn't what makes programming hard; it's the mental effort and organisation required to specify an algorithm precisely. Thus candygrammar languages are just as difficult to program in, and far more painful for the experienced hacker.", "canonical":"Historically, according to religious law", "canonicity":"theory, jargon The extent to which something is canonical.", "Cantor":"1. person, mathematics A mathematician.", "CAP":"1. networking Columbia AppleTalk Package.", "capability":"operating system, security An operating system security or access control model where specific types of access to a specific object are granted by giving a process this data structure or token.", "capacitor":"electronics An electronic device that can store electrical charge. The charge stored Q in Coulombs is related to the capacitance C in Farads and the voltage V across the capacitor in Volts by Q = CV.", "capacity":"communications The maximum possible data transfer rate of a communications channel under ideal conditions. The total capacity of a channel may be shared between several independent data streams using some kind of multiplexing, in which case, each stream's data rate may be limited to a fixed fraction of the total capacity.", "CAPI":"1. Calendar Application Programming Interface.", "CAPTCHA":"security A type of test used to determine whether a request to a website comes from a human or a computer program, typically by asking the user to perform some kind of image recognition task such as reading distorted text. The term was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper all of Carnegie Mellon University and John Langford of IBM as a contrived acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. CAPTCHA aims to prevent software tools from performing actions which might degrade the service, such as registering user accounts or automating the playing of a game.", "car":"Contents of Address part of Register", "card":"1. hardware A circuit board.", "Cardbus":"hardware The 32-bit version of the PCMCIA PC Card bus.", "cardinality":"mathematics The number of elements in a set. If two sets have the same number of elements i.e. there is a bijection between them then they have the same cardinality. A cardinality is thus an isomorphism class in the category of sets.", "CARDS":"Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software of the DoD.", "caret":"^", "careware":"/keir'weir/ Or charityware 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.", "CAS":"1. hardware Column Address Strobe.", "cascade":"1. compiler A huge volume of spurious error-messages output 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, whether correct or not, is interpreted as garbaged or ill-formed.", "CASE":"1. Computer Aided Software Engineering.", "case":"1. programming switch statement.", "cashe":"spelling It's spelled cache.", "CAST":"Computer Aided Software Testing", "cast":"explicit type conversion", "CAT":"Common Abstract Tree Language. R. Voeller & Uwe Schmidt, U Kiel, Germany 1983. Universal intermediate language, used by Norsk Data in their family of compilers. A Multi-Language Compiler System with Automatically Generated Codegenerators, U. Schmidt et al, SIGPLAN Notices 196:202-2121 June 1984.", "cat":"tool From catenate Unix's command which copies one or more entire files to the screen or some other output sink without pause.", "catatonic":"jargon A description of a system that gives no indication that it is still working. This might be because it has crashed without being able to give any error message or because it is busy but not designed to give any feedback.", "CATE":"Computer Aided Test Engineering", "category":"theory A category K is a collection of objects, objK, and a collection of morphisms or arrows, morK such that", "CATIA":"tool, product A CAD/CAM system produced by Dassault Systemes and sold by IBM. CATIA is used heavily in the car and aerospace industries. It runs on various Unix platforms and Windows NT.", "CATNIP":"Common Architecture for Next Generation Internet Protocol", "CATO":"Fortran-like CAI language for PLATO system on CDC 1604. CSL PLATO System Manual, L.A. Fillman, U Illinois, June 1966.", "CAV":"Constant Angular Velocity", "CAYLEY":"symbolic mathematics, tool A symbolic mathematics system for group theory written by John Cannon of the University of Sydney, Australia in 1976.", "cb":"C Beautifier", "CBASIC":"A BASIC compiler by Gordon Eubanks, now at Symantec. It evolved from/into EBASIC.", "CBBS":"bulletin board system", "CBD":"component based development", "CBIR":"content-based information retrieval", "CBN":"call-by-name", "CBR":"case based reasoning", "CBT":"Computer-Based Training", "CBV":"call-by-value", "CBVIR":"content-based information retrieval", "cbw":"Crypt Breakers Workbench", "cc":"networking The country code for the Cocos Keeling Islands.", "CCalc":"A symbolic mathematics system for MS-DOS, available from Simtel.", "CCD":"Charge-Coupled Device", "CCIRN":"Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networks.", "CCITT":"Commite' Consultatif International de Telegraphique et Telephonique. International consultative committee on telecommunications and Telegraphy.", "CCL":"1. Coral Common LISP.", "CCLU":"Cambridge CLU. CLU extended to support concurrency, distributed programming and remote procedure call, by G. Hamilton et al at CUCL.", "ccmail":"It's written cc:mail.", "CCP":"1. language Concurrent Constraint Programming.", "CCR":"1. condition code register.", "CCS":"1. networking Common Communication Services.", "CCSP":"Contextually Communicating Sequential Processes", "CCTA":"The Government Centre for Information Systems.", "CD":"Compact Disc", "cd":"1. operating system change directory.", "CDA":"1. file format Compound Document Architecture.", "CDC":"Control Data Corporation", "CDDI":"Copper Distributed Data Interface", "CDE":"1. C Development environment from IDE.", "CDF":"Common Data Format", "CDIF":"CASE Data Interchange Format", "CDL":"1. Computer Definition [Design?] Language. A hardware description language. Computer Organisation and Microprogramming, Yaohan Chu, P-H 1970.", "CDM":"1. Content Data Model", "CDMA":"Code Division Multiple Access", "CDPD":"Cellular Digital Packet Data", "CDR":"1. networking Committed Data Rate.", "cdr":"Contents of Decrement part of Register", "CDS":"Concrete Data Structure", "CDW":"data warehouse", "CE":"IBM Customer Engineer", "Cecil":"AN object-oriented language combining multi-methods with a classless object model, object-based encapsulation and optional static type checking. It distinguishes between subtyping and code inheritance. Includes both explicit and implicit parameterisation of objects, types, and methods.", "Cedar":"A superset of Mesa, from Xerox PARC, adding garbage collection, dynamic types and a universal pointer type REF ANY. Cedar is a large complex language designed for custom Xerox hardware and the Cedar operating system/environment.", "Celeron":"processor Intel Corporation's trade name for its family of Pentium II microprocessors meant for use in low-end computers.", "CELIP":"language A cellular language for image processing.", "cell":"1. spreadsheet In a spreadsheet, the intersection of a row a column and a sheet, the smallest addressable unit of data.", "Cellang":"See Cellular.", "CELLAS":"language CELLular ASsemblies.", "Cello":"web A web browser client for IBM PCs. Runs under Microsoft Windows.", "CELLSIM":"application A program for modelling populations of biological cells.", "Cellular":"language A system for cellular automaton programming by J Dana Eckart dana@faculty.cs.runet.edu. Cellular includes a byte-code compiler, run-time system and a viewer.", "CELP":"language Computationally Extended Logic Programming.", "CEN":"Conseil Européen pour la Normalisation.", "CENELEC":"body, standard The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization. A body developing electrotechnical standards for the Single European Market / European Economic Area in order to reduce internal frontiers and trade barriers for electrotechnical products, systems and services. CENELEC's 19 member countries and 11 affiliate countries aim to adopt and implement the required standards, which are mostly identical to the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC standards. CENELEC works in co-operation with Comité Européen de Normalisation CEN and European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI.", "Centrex":"Central office exchange service", "Centronics":"company, hardware, printer A company in Hudson N.H., USA, best known for designing the parallel interface for printers with the same name, found on many microcomputers.", "cepstra":"cepstrum", "cepstrum":"mathematics Coined in a 1963 paper by Bogert, Healey, and Tukey The Fourier transform of the log-magnitude spectrum:", "CEPT":"Comite Europeen des Postes et Telecommunications", "CER":"Canonical Encoding Rules", "CERN":"body The European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Swizerland.", "CERNLIB":"library The CERN Program Library.", "CERT":"Computer Emergency Response Team", "CESP":"Common ESP", "CESSL":"CEll Space Simulation Language", "cextract":"programming, tool A C prototype extractor by Adam Bryant adb@cs.bu.edu. cextract can generate header files for large multi-file C programs, and will automatically generate prototypes for all of the functions in such a program. It can also generate a sorted list of all functions and their locations. cextract version 1.7 works with both ANSI C and K&R C and runs under Unix and VMS.", "cf":"networking The country code for the Central African Republic.", "CFD":"Computational Fluid Dynamics", "CFG":"context-free grammar", "CFML":"ColdFusion Markup Language", "cforth":"A Forth interpreter.", "CFP":"1. Constraint Functional Programming.", "cg":"networking The country code for Congo.", "CGA":"Color Graphics Adapter", "CGGL":"Code-Generator Generator Language", "CGI":"1. web Common Gateway Interface.", "CGM":"Computer Graphics Metafile", "CGOL":"language A package providing ALGOL-like surface syntax for MACLISP, written by V.R. Pratt in 1977.", "cgram":"language An ANSI C LL1 or LL2 grammar written in Scheme by Mohd Hanafiah Abdullah napi@cs.indiana.edu. A program f-f-d.s extracts the FIRST/FOLLOW/DIRECTOR sets.", "Ch":"language An interpreted programming language sold by Soft Integration and marketed for scripting, shell programming and graph plotting, it is a superset of C++. Ch is also the name of Soft Integration's interpreter for the language.", "ch":"networking The country code for Switzerland.", "chad":"jargon, printer /chad/ Or selvage /sel'v*j/ sewing and weaving, perf, perfory, snaf. 1. The perforated edge strips on paper for sprocket feed printers, after they have been separated from the printed portion.", "chain":"1. operating system From BASIC's CHAIN statement To pass control to a child or successor without going through the operating system command interpreter that invoked you.", "changeover":"programming The time when a new system has been tested successfully and replaces the old system.", "channel":"chat Or chat room, room, depending on the system in question The basic unit of group discussion in chat systems like IRC. Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel. Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings that begin with a # sign and can have topic descriptions which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion.", "chaos":"mathematics A property of some non-linear dynamic systems which exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions.", "CHAP":"Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol", "char":"programming /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ character.", "character":"character A letter of some alphabet either upper case or lower case, a digit, a punctuation or other symbol or a control character. In a computer, a character is represented as an integer. What character is represented by what integer is determined by the current character set.", "CHARITY":"language A functional language based purely on category theory by Cockett, Spencer, and Fukushima, 1990-1991.", "charityware":"careware", "CHARM":"language An explicitly parallel programming language based on C, for both shared and nonshared MIMD computers.", "Charme":"language, logic A language with discrete combinatorial constraint logic, aimed at industrial problems such as planning and scheduling. Implemented in C at Bull in 1989.", "CHARYBDIS":"mathematics, tool A Lisp program to display mathematical expressions. It is related to MATHLAB.", "CHASM":"CHeap ASseMbler", "chat":"chat, messaging Any system that allows any number of logged-in users to have a typed, real-time, on-line conversation via a network.", "chatbot":"chat Or chatterbot A bot meant to be able to interact conversationally with humans. A chatbot is either an exercise in AI or merely an interface as in an infobot.", "chatterbot":"chatbot", "cheapernet":"networking Or thinnet A colloquial term for thin-wire Ethernet 10base2 that uses RG58 coaxial cable instead of the full-spec Yellow Cable.", "checkdigit":"data A one-digit checksum.", "checkpoint":"programming Saving the current state of a program and its data, including intermediate results, to disk or other non-volatile storage, so that if interrupted the program could be restarted at the point at which the last checkpoint occurred.", "checksum":"storage, communications A computed value which depends on the contents of a block of data and which is transmitted or stored along with the data in order to detect corruption of the data. The receiving system recomputes the checksum based upon the received data and compares this value with the one sent with the data. If the two values are the same, the receiver has some confidence that the data was received correctly.", "chemist":"jargon Cambridge Someone who wastes computer time on number crunching when you'd far rather the computer were working out anagrams of your name or printing Snoopy calendars or running life patterns. May or may not refer to someone who actually studies chemistry.", "Chen":"Peter Chen", "CHEOPS":"communications A satellite-based batch data dissemination project between CERN and member state institutes.", "chess":"games A two-player game with perfect information.", "CHI":"language A wide spectrum language, the forerunner of Refine.", "Chicago":"Windows 95", "child":"daughter", "CHILI":"language D.L. Abt. A language for systems programming, based on ALGOL 60 with extensions for structures and type declarations.", "CHILL":"CCITT HIgh-Level Language", "Chimera":"web A modular, X Window System-based web browser for Unix. Chimera uses the Athena widget set so Motif is not needed. It supports forms, inline images, TERM, SOCKS, proxy servers, Gopher, FTP, HTTP and local file accesses. Chimera can be extended using external programs. New protocols can easily be added and alternate image formats can be used for inline images e.g. PostScript.", "CHIP":"language", "chip":"integrated circuit", "CHISEL":"language An extension of C for VLSI design, implemented as a C preprocessor. It produces CIF as output.", "chm":"Compiled HTML", "chmod":"file system Change mode The Unix command and system call to change the access permissions of a named file.", "CHOCS":"language A generalisation of CCS.", "choke":"jargon To fail to process input or, more generally, to fail at any endeavor.", "chomp":"jargon To fail.", "CHOP":"channel op", "Chop":"language, tool A code generator by Alan L. Wendt wendt@CS.ColoState.EDU for the lcc C compiler front end. Version 0.6 is interfaced with Fraser and Hanson's lcc front end. The result is a C compiler with good code selection but no global optimisation. In 1993, Chop could compile and run small test programs on the VAX. The National Semiconductor 32000 and Motorola 68000 code generators are being upgraded for lcc compatibility.", "Chorus":"operating system A distributed operating system developed at INRIA.", "chrome":"jargon From automotive slang via wargaming Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system.", "chroot":"operating system The UNIX command to make the root directory / become something other than its default for the lifetime of the current process. It can only be run by privileged users and is used to give a process commonly a network server such as FTP or HTTP access to a restricted portion of the file system.", "CHRP":"PowerPC Platform", "chug":"jargon To run slowly; to grind or grovel. The disk is chugging like crazy.", "chunker":"programming A program like Unix's split which breaks an input file into parts, usually of a pre-set size, e.g. the maximum size that can fit on a floppy. The parts can then be assembled with a dechunker, which is usually just the chunker in a different mode.", "ci":"networking The country code for Cote d'Ivoire the Ivory Coast.", "CICERO":"project Control Information system Concepts based on Encapsulated Real-time Objects.", "Cichlid":"graphics, tool A tool for rapidly visualising arbitrary data in high-quality 3D, while allowing the viewer to explore and interact with the data in real time. Cichlid was designed with remote data generation and machine independence in mind; data is transmitted via TCP from any number of sources data servers to the visualisation code the client, which displays them concurrently.", "CICS":"Customer Information Control System", "CID":"Caller ID", "CIDR":"Classless Inter-Domain Routing", "CIEL":"language An object-oriented Prolog-like language.", "CIF":"Caltech Intermediate Form", "CIFS":"Common Internet File System", "Cigale":"language, tool A parser generator language with extensible syntax.", "CIL":"1. project Component Integration Laboratories.", "CIM":"1. application Computer Integrated Manufacturing.", "CIO":"Chief Information Officer", "ciphertext":"cryptography Text which has been encrypted by some encryption system.", "CIR":"Committed Information Rate", "CIRCAL":"CIRcuit CALculus", "circuit":"1. communications A communications path in a circuit switching network.", "CIS":"1. standard, programming Case Integration Services.", "CISC":"Complex Instruction Set Computer", "CISI":"company A French software producer.", "CITRAN":"language Caltech's answer to MIT's JOSS.", "CityScape":"company A re-seller of Internet connections to the PIPEX backbone.", "CIX":"1. networking Commercial Internet Exchange.", "CJK":"character In internationalisation, a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.", "CJKV":"character CJK plus Vietnamese. Vietnamese, like the other three CJK languages, requires 16-bit character encodings but it does not use Han characters.", "ck":"networking The country code for the Cook Islands.", "CL":"language", "cl":"networking The country code for Chile.", "CLAM":"mathematics, tool A system for symbolic mathematics, especially General Relativity. It was first implemented in ATLAS assembly language and later Lisp.", "Clarify":"company A software vendor, specialising in Customer Relationship Management software. Nortel Networks sold Clarify to Amdocs in 2002.", "Clarion":"language A family of systems from SoftVelocity, Inc. for building database applications on Microsoft Windows.", "Claris":"company A subsidiary company of Apple Computer, Inc.. In January 1998, Apple restructured Claris to concentrate on their FileMaker line of database software and changed the company's name to FileMaker, Inc..", "CLASP":"Computer Language for AeronauticS and Programming", "class":"1. programming The prototype for an object in an object-oriented language; analogous to a derived type in a procedural language. A class may also be considered to be a set of objects which share a common structure and behaviour.", "classic":"jargon An adjective used before or after a noun to describe the original version of something, especially if the original is considered to be better.", "clause":"1. logic A logical formula in conjunctive normal form, which has the schema", "Clean":"language A lazy higher-order purely functional language from the University of Nijmegen. Clean was originally a subset of Lean, designed to be an experimental intermediate language and used to study the graph rewriting model. To help focus on the essential implementation issues it deliberately lacked all syntactic sugar, even infix expressions or complex lists,", "clean":"jargon", "cleanroom":"programming A software development approach aimed at producing software with the minimum number of errors.", "CLEAR":"language A specification language based on initial algebras.", "CLEO":"Clear Language for Expressing Orders", "CLHEP":"library A C++ class library for high energy physics applications.", "CLI":"1. operating system Command Line Interface.", "CLiCC":"language A Common Lisp to C compiler by Heinz Knutzen hk@informatik.uni-kiel.de, Ulrich Hoffman uho@informatik.uni-kiel.de and Wolfgang Goerigk wg@informatik.uni-kiel.de. CLiCC is meant to be used as a supplement to existing CLISP systems for generating portable applications. Target C code must be linked with the CLiCC run-time library to produce an executable.", "click":"hardware To press and release a button on a mouse or other pointing device. This generates an event, also specifying the screen position, which is processed by the window manager or application program.", "client":"programming A computer system or process that requests a service of another computer system or process a server using some kind of protocol and accepts the server's responses. A client is part of a client-server software architecture.", "CLIP":"1. Compiler Language for Information Processing.", "CLiP":"programming, tool A documentation extractor by Eric W. van Ammers that recognises a particular style of comments. This style can be adjusted to suit virtually any programming language and target documentation language. CLiP was designed to be compatible with hypertext systems.", "clipboard":"operating system A temporary memory area, used to transfer information within a document being edited or between documents or between programs. The fundamental operations are cut which moves data from a document to the clipboard, copy which copies it to the clipboard, and paste which inserts the clipboard contents into the current document in place of the current selection.", "Clipper":"1. hardware, cryptography An integrated circuit which implements the SkipJack algorithm. The Clipper is manufactured by the US government to encrypt telephone data.", "CLIPS":"C Language Integrated Production System", "clique":"mathematics A maximal totally connected subgraph.", "CLISP":"language", "CLIX":"language [Overview of a Parallel Object-Oriented Language CLIX, J. Hur et al, in ECOOP '87, LNCS 276, Springer 1987, pp. 265-273].", "CLM":"Career Limiting Move", "CLNP":"ConnectionLess Network Protocol", "clobber":"jargon To overwrite, usually unintentionally: I walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack.", "clock":"processor A circuit in a processor that generates a regular sequence of electronic pulses used to synchronise operations of the processor's components. The time between pulses is the cycle time and the number of pulses per second is the clock rate or frequency.", "clone":"jargon 1. An exact copy of a product, made legally or illegally, from documentation or by reverse engineering, and usually cheaper.", "clonebot":"chat Or clone A bot meant to replicate itself en masse on a talk network generally IRC. A bot appears on the network as several agents, and then carries out some task, typically that of flooding another user.", "CLOS":"Common LISP Object System", "closure":"1. programming In a reduction system, a closure is a data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings in which that expression is to be evaluated.", "cloud":"cloud computing", "Clover":"communications, protocol A protocoll similar to packet radio or AMTOR.", "CLP":"1. Cornell List Processor.", "CLR":"Consortium for Lexical Research", "CLU":"language CLUster An object-oriented programming language developed at MIT by Liskov et al in 1974-1975.", "cluster":"1. architecture Multiple servers providing the same service. The term may imply resilience to failure and/or some kind of load balancing between the servers. Compare RAIS.", "clustergeeking":"jargon /kluh'st*r-geeking/ CMU Spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend breathing.", "clustering":"cluster", "CLUT":"colour palette", "CLV":"Constant Linear Velocity", "CLX":"library, graphics The Common Lisp library providing a low-level interface to the X Window System, equivalent to Xlib. Graphics toolkits can be built on top of CLX, e.g. McCLIM, Garnet, CLUE and CLIO. Various LISP implementors have independently ported CLX to their own platforms, fixing bugs and, in some cases, adding features in the process.", "CM":"Configuration Management", "cm":"networking The country code for Cameroon.", "CMA":"Concert Multithread Architecture from DEC.", "CMAY":"operating system A microkernel.", "CMC":"1. messaging Computer Mediated Communication.", "cmd":"operating system The command interpreter of Microsoft Disk Operating System. cmd.exe appears as the interactive Command Prompt window in later versions of Microsoft Windows and is also responsible for executing .bat batch files.", "CMGA":"1. body Computer Management Group of Australia", "CMIP":"Common Management Information Protocol", "CMIS":"Common Management Information Services", "CML":"1. A query language.", "CMM":"Capability Maturity Model", "CMOS":"Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor", "CMP":"1. cellular multiprocessing.", "CMS":"programming A code management system from DEC.", "CMU":"Carnegie Mellon University", "CMVC":"Configuration Management Version Control from IBM.", "CMYK":"graphics cyan, magenta, yellow, key.", "CMZ":"programming A portable interactive code management system from CodeME S.A.R.L in use in the high-energy physics community.", "cn":"networking The country code for China.", "CNAME":"networking The canonical name query type for Domain Name System. This query asks a DNS server for a host's official hostname.", "CNC":"Collaborative Networked Communication", "CNET":"body Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion.", "CNI":"Coalition for Networked Information", "CNN":"architecture Cellular Neural Network.", "CNR":"Communication and Network Riser", "CNRI":"Corporation for National Research Initiatives", "co":"networking The country code for Colombia.", "COALA":"language", "COAST":"Cache On A STick", "coax":"coaxial cable", "COBOL":"COmmon Business Oriented Language", "COBRA":"spelling Do you mean CORBA? Or is there a COBRA?", "cobwebsite":"jargon, web A website that hasn't been updated for a long time. A dead web page.", "Cocktail":"GMD Toolbox for Compiler Construction", "CoCo":"computer The Tandy Color Computer with a Motorola MC6809E CPU. The Dragon is a CoCo clone. The CoCo was as powerful as the IBM XT at the time it was made, and could run OS-9.", "Cocol":"Coco Language", "COCOMO":"Constructive Cost Model", "CODASYL":"Conference On DAta SYstems Languages", "code":"1. software Instructions for a computer in some programming language, often machine language machine code.", "codebook":"data dictionary", "CODEC":"coder/decoder", "CodeCenter":"programming Formerly Saber-C A proprietary software development environment for C programs, offering an integrated toolkit for developing, testing, debugging and maintainance.", "codes":"1. jargon Programs. This usage is common among scientific computing people who use supercumputers for heavy-duty number crunching.", "codewalker":"programming, tool A program component that analyses other programs. Compilers have codewalkers in their front ends; so do cross-reference generators and some database front ends. Other utility programs that try to do too much with source code may turn into codewalkers. As in This new 'vgrind' feature would require a codewalker to implement.", "CODIL":"COntext Dependent Information Language", "codomain":"theory The set of values or type containing all possible results of a function. The codomain of a function f of type D - C is C. A function's image is a subset of its codomain.", "coercion":"implicit type conversion", "COFF":"Common Object File Format", "COGENT":"COmpiler and GENeralized Translator", "Cognitech":"company A French software company specialising in artificial intelligence.", "COGO":"application A subsystem of ICES aimed at coordinate geometry problems in civil engineering.", "COHESION":"programming DEC's CASE environment.", "COIF":"language Fortran with interactive graphic extensions for circuit design, on UNIVAC 1108.", "CoIP":"Conferencing over IP", "cokebottle":"character, humour /kohk'bot-l/ Any unusual character, particularly one you can't type because it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the control-meta-cokebottle commands at SAIL, and SAIL people complained about the altmode-altmode-cokebottle commands at MIT. After the demise of the space-cadet keyboard, cokebottle was used less, but was often used to describe weird or non-intuitive keystrokes.", "COLASL":"mathematics, application An early system for numerical problems on the IBM 7030. It used a special character set for input of natural mathematical expressions.", "COLD":"1. language A sugared version of COLD-K.", "ColdFusion":"web, database, tool Allaire Corporation's commercial database application development tool that allows databases to have a web interface, so a database can be queried and updated using a web browser.", "COLINGO":"language Compile On-LINe and GO. An english-like query system from MITRE Corporation for the IBM 1401.", "collision":"1. networking When two hosts transmit on a network at once causing their packets to corrupt each other.", "collocation":"co-location", "colon":"character : ASCII character 58. Common names: ITU-T: colon. Rare: dots; INTERCAL: two-spot.", "color":"colour", "Colossus":"A huge and ancient statue on the Greek island of Rhodes.", "colour":"graphics US color Colours are usually represented as RGB triples in a digital image because this corresponds most closely to the electronic signals needed to drive a CRT. Several equivalent systems colour models exist, e.g. HSB. A colour image may be stored as three separate images, one for each of red, green, and blue, or each pixel may encode the colour using separate bit-fields for each colour component, or each pixel may store a logical colour number which is looked up in a hardware colour palette to find the colour to display.", "column":"1. database A named slice through a database table that includes the same field of each row. For example, a telephone directory table might have a row for each person with a name column and a telephone number column.", "COM":"1. programming Component Object Model.", "com":"networking .com, commercial The top-level domain originally for American companies but, since the explosion of the web, used by most companies and for vanity domains of all types, whether in the US or not, often in addition to country code domains like amazon.co.uk.", "COMAL":"COMmon Algorithmic Language", "combination":"1. mathematics A set containing a certain number of objects selected from another set.", "combinator":"theory A function with no free variables. A term is either a constant, a variable or of the form A B denoting the application of term A a function of one argument to term B. Juxtaposition associates to the left in the absence of parentheses. All combinators can be defined from two basic combinators - S and K. These two and a third, I, are defined thus:", "Comdex":"business A computer show that is held twice yearly, once in the spring in Atlanta and once in autumn in Las Vegas.", "COMIS":"language A COMpilation and Interpretation System.", "COMIT":"language The first string-handling and pattern-matching language, designed in 1957-8 for applications in natural language translation. The user has a workspace organised into shelves. Strings are made of constituents words, accessed by subscript. A program is a set of rules, each of which has a pattern, a replacement and goto another rule.", "Comma":"project COMputable MAthematics.", "comma":"character , ASCII character 44. Common names: ITU-T: comma. Rare: ITU-T: cedilla; INTERCAL: tail.", "command":"operating system A character string which tells a program to perform a specific action. Most commands take arguments which either modify the action performed or supply it with input. Commands may be typed by the user or read from a file by a command interpreter. It is also common to refer to menu items as commands.", "COMMEN":"[L.J. Cohen. Proc SJCC 30:671-676, AFIPS Spring 1967].", "comment":"programming Or remark Explanatory text embedded in program source or less often data intended to help human readers understand it.", "Commodore":"company, computer Commodore Business Machines or one of their computers such as the Commodore 64.", "CommonLoops":"language Xerox's object-oriented Lisp which led to CLOS.", "COMNET":"simulation, networking A simulation tool from CACI for analysing wide-area voice or data networks, based on SIMSCRIPT.", "compact":"1. theory Or finite, isolated In domain theory, an element d of a cpo D is compact if and only if, for any chain S, a subset of D,", "compaction":"compression", "COMPASS":"COMPrehensive ASSembler.", "compatibility":"compatible", "compatible":"jargon Different systems e.g., programs, file formats, protocols, even programming languages that can work together or exchange data are said to be compatible.", "Compel":"COMpute ParallEL", "compiler":"programming, tool A program that converts another program from some source language or programming language to machine language object code. Some compilers output assembly language which is then converted to machine language by a separate assembler.", "COMPL":"language, operating system", "complement":"logic The other value or values in the set of possible values.", "complete":"See also complete graph, complete inference system, complete lattice, complete metric space, complete partial ordering, complete theory.", "completeness":"complete", "complexity":"algorithm The level in difficulty in solving mathematically posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or arithmetic operations, or memory space required called time complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity, respectively.", "component":"programming An object adhering to a component architecture.", "composite":"aggregate", "composition":"1. function composition.", "COMPREHENSIVE":"An early system on MIT's Whirlwind.", "compress":"1. To feed data through any compression algorithm.", "compression":"1. application Or compaction The coding of data to save storage space or transmission time. Although data is already coded in digital form for computer processing, it can often be coded more efficiently using fewer bits. For example, run-length encoding replaces strings of repeated characters or other units of data with a single character and a count.", "COMPROSL":"COMpound PROcedural Scientific Language.", "CompuServe":"CompuServe Information Service", "computable":"computability theory", "Computer":"publication A journal of the IEEE Computer Society.", "computer":"computer A machine that can be programmed to manipulate symbols. Computers can perform complex and repetitive procedures quickly, precisely and reliably and can store and retrieve large amounts of data. Most computers in use today are electronic digital computers as opposed to analogue computers.", "computing":"computer", "computron":"jargon /kom'pyoo-tron/ 1. A notional unit of computing power combining execution speed and storage capacity. E.g. That machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!", "COMSL":"language [COMSL - A Communication System Simulation Language, R.L. Granger, Proc FJCC 37 1970].", "COMTRAN":"[Communications Computer Language COMTRAN, D.W. Clark et al, RADC-TR-69-190, Rose Air Development Center, Griffiss AFB, NY, July 1969].", "ConC":"language A concurrent extension of C based on decomposed Petri nets. It uses the 'handshake' and 'unit' constructs.", "concatenate":"programming To join together two or more files or lists to form one big one.", "concentrator":"communications A device that combines the data streams from many simultaneously active inputs into one shared channel in such a way that the streams can be separated after transmission. The concentrator's output bandwidth must be at least as great as the total bandwidth of all simultaneously active inputs. A concentrator is one kind of multiplexing device.", "conceptualisation":"artificial intelligence The process or result of listing the types of objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them. A conceptualisation is an abstract, simplified view of the world that we wish to represent. For example, we may conceptualise a family as the set of names, sexes and the relationships of the family members. Choosing a conceptualisation is the first stage of knowledge representation. A conceptualisation is a high-level data model.", "ConCoord":"programming, parallel An environment for programming networks of sequential and parallel computers. ConCoord supports explicit parallelism with different granularity.", "CONCUR":"language A proposal for a language for programming with concurrent processes. CONCUR was inspired by Modula but removes Modula's restrictions on the placement of process declarations and invocations in order to study the implications of process support more fully. Anderson presents a compiler which translates CONCUR into the object language for a hypothetical machine.", "concurrency":"multitasking", "ConcurrentSmalltalk":"language A concurrent variant of Smalltalk.", "condela":"Connection Definition Language", "condom":"jargon 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch microfloppy diskettes. Rarely, also used of paper disk envelopes. Unlike the write protect tab, the condom when left on not only impedes the practice of SEX but has also been shown to have a high failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk - and can even fatally frustrate insertion.", "configuraholic":"jargon A luser who twiddles with computer settings until it no longer works and must be fixed by the system administror.", "configure":"software A program by Richard Stallman to discover properties of the current platform and to set up make to compile and install gcc.", "conflation":"database Combining or blending of two or more versions of a text; confusion or mixing up. Conflation algorithms are used in databases.", "congestion":"communications The condition that arises when the amount of data that senders want to send down a communication channel exceeds its capacity. Typically this will result in some packets being delayed, thus increasing the average latency.", "CONIC":"systems A distributed system language and operating system developed at Imperial College to support dynamic configuration.", "conjunction":"AND", "connect":"library, networking Unix socket library routine to connect a socket that has been created on the local hosts to one at a specified socket address on the remote host.", "connective":"logic An operator used in first order logic to combine two logical formulas.", "CONNIVER":"language An artificial intelligence programming language for automatic theorem proving from MIT. CONNIVER grew out of PLANNER and was based on coroutines rather than backtracking. It allowed multiple database contexts with hypothetical assertions.", "CONS":"connection-oriented network service", "cons":"programming The Lisp function that creates a cons cell.", "console":"1. hardware, operating system, history The operator's station of a mainframe as opposed to an ordinary user's terminal. In times past, the console was a privileged location that conveyed godlike powers to anyone with fingers on its keys. Under Unix and other modern time-sharing operating systems, such privileges are guarded by passwords instead, and the console is just the tty the system was booted from. On Unix the device is called /dev/console.", "consortium":"body A group of two or more companies, educational institutions, governments or other bodies with some shared purpose.", "constraint":"programming, mathematics A Boolean relation, often an equality or ineqality relation, between the values of one or more mathematical variables. E.g. x3 is a constraint on x.", "ConstraintLisp":"language An object-oriented constraint language based on CSP. An extension of Common Lisp and CLOS.", "CONSTRAINTS":"programming A programming language for solving constraints using value inference.", "constructor":"programming 1. In object-oriented languages, a function provided by a class to initialise a newly created object. The constructor function typically has the same name as the class. It may take arguments, e.g. to set various attributes of the object or it may just leave everything undefined to be set elsewhere.", "Consul":"language A constraint-based declarative language based on axiomatic set theory and designed for parallel execution on MIMD architectures. Consul's fundamental data type is the set and its fundamental operators are the logical connectives and, or, not and quantifiers forall, exists. It is written in Lisp-like syntax, e.g.,", "consultant":"job A person who facilitates organisational change and/or provides subject matter expertise on technical, functional and business topics during development or implementation. Consultants perform business requirements analysis, recommend selection of packaged software, develop proposals for consulting services and manage implementation projects at client sites. They provides expert knowledge of products such as SAP R/3, PeopleSoft, HRMS/Financials and SmartStream.", "context":"grammar In a grammar, context refers to the symbols before and after the symbol under consideration. If the syntax of a symbol is independent of its context, the grammar is a context-free grammar.", "continuation":"continuation passing style", "continuations":"continuation passing style", "contraction":"reduction", "control":"1. character, hardware A control key on a keyboard used to input control characters.", "controller":"hardware Part of a computer, typically a separate circuit board, which allows the computer to use certain kinds of peripheral devices. A disk controller is used to connect hard disks and floppy disks, a network controller is used for Ethernet. Other controllers are: keyboard controller, interrupt controller and graphics controller.", "converse":"logic The truth of a proposition of the form A = B and its converse B = A are shown in the following truth table:", "CONVERT":"language 1. Or REC, Regular Expression Converter A string processing language that combined the pattern matching and transformation operations of COMIT with the recursive data structures of Lisp.", "cooC":"Concurrent Object-Oriented C.", "cookbook":"programming From amateur electronics and radio A book of small code segments that the reader can use to do various magic things in programs.", "cookie":"1. web HTTP cookie.", "cooky":"cookie", "COOL":"1. Concurrent Object-Oriented Language.", "CooL":"language Combined object-oriented Language.", "coordinate":"mathematics One member of a tuple of numbers which defines the position of a point in some space. Commonly used coordinate systems have as many coordinates as their are dimensions in the space, e.g. a pair for two dimensions. The most common coordinate system is Cartesian coordinates, probably followed by polar coordinates.", "copper":"Conventional electrical network cable with a core conductor of copper or aluminium!", "coprocessor":"Any computer processor which assists the main processor the CPU by performing certain special functions, usually much faster than the main processor could perform them in software.", "copybook":"programming, library Or copy member, copy module A common piece of source code designed to be copied into many source programs, used mainly in IBM DOS mainframe programming.", "copybroke":"security /kop'ee-brohk/ Or copywronged - a play on copyright 1. Used to describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been broken; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled or removed.", "copyleft":"legal /kop'ee-left/ A play on copyright The copyright notice and General Public License applying to the works of the Free Software Foundation, granting reuse and reproduction rights to everyone.", "copyright":"legal The exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright on a work to make and distribute copies, prepare derivative works, and perform and display the work in public these last two mainly apply to plays, films, dances and the like, but could also apply to software.", "copywronged":"copybroke", "CORAL":"1. Class Oriented Ring Associated Language.", "CORBA":"Common Object Request Broker Architecture", "CORBIE":"language An early system on the IBM 704.", "CORC":"CORnell Compiler. Simple language for student math problems.", "core":"1. storage Main memory or RAM. This term dates from the days of ferrite core memory and, like the technology, is now archaic.", "corge":"/korj/ Yet another metasyntactic variable, named after a cat invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the GOSMACS documentation.", "CORREGATE":"Based on Internal Translator IT.", "Cortex":"An experimental slow controls project at CERN.", "CORTL":"An intermediate language, a form of RTL, by Carl McConnell mcconnell@cs.uiuc.edu.", "COS":"1. Cray Operating System.", "COSE":"Common Open Software Environment. An initiative by Hewlett-Packard, Sun, IBM, Novell, Univel and SCO to move toward consistency and interoperability between Unix suppliers.", "COSINE":"Cooperation for Open Systems Interconnection Networking in Europe. A EUREKA project.", "COSS":"Common Object Services Specification in CORBA.", "COTS":"software commercial off-the-shelf. See commercial software.", "Cougar":"web, standard A former development name for the W3C's HTML 4 standard.", "count":"programming One of the built-in aggregate functions in relational database systems, that returns the number of rows in a result. The argument to the function is nearly always *, e.g.", "countable":"mathematics A term describing a set which is isomorphic to a subet of the natural numbers. A countable set has countably many elements. If the isomorphism is stated explicitly then the set is called a counted set or an enumeration.", "counted":"mathematics A term describing a set with an explicit isomorphism to the natural numbers.", "counterbug":"humour A bug used as a relpy to refute another person's bug report, as in counterargument.", "coupling":"programming, hardware The degree to which components depend on one another. There are two types of coupling, tight and loose. Loose coupling is desirable for good software engineering but tight coupling may be necessary for maximum performance. Coupling is increased when the data exchanged between components becomes larger or more complex.", "courseware":"application Programs and data used in Computer-Based Training.", "cowboy":"[Sun, from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF] Synonym for hacker. It is reported that at Sun this word is often said with reverence.", "COWSEL":"COntrolled Working SpacE Language. Burstall and Popplestone, U Edinburgh, 1964-66. LISP-like semantics with FORTH-like stack, and reverse Polish syntax. Forerunner of POP.", "CP":"A concurrent Prolog.", "CPAN":"Comprehensive Perl Archive Network", "CPE":"Customer Premises Equipment", "CPGA":"Ceramic Pin Grid Array", "CPI":"Common Program Interface", "CPL":"Combined Programming Language. U Cambridge and U London. A very complex language, syntactically based on ALGOL 60, with a pure functional subset. Provides the ..where.. form of local definitions. Strongly typed but has a general type enabling a weak form of polymorphism. Functions may be defined as either normal or applicative order. Typed array and polymorphic list structures. List selection is through structure matching. Partially implemented on the Titan Atlas 2 computer at Cambridge. Led to the much simpler BCPL. The Main Features of CPL, D.W. Barron et al, Computer J 62:134-143 Jul 1963.", "CPLD":"complex programmable logic device", "CPM":"Control Program for Microcomputers", "cpo":"complete partial ordering", "cpp":"C preprocessor.", "cppp":"tool A compiler front-end for C++ by Tony Davis ted@cs.brown.edu with complete semantic processing. cppp is based on Yacc and outputs an abstract syntax graph.", "cproto":"programming, tool A translator , written by Chin Huang at canrem.com, that generates ANSI C function prototypes from K&R C function definitions. It can also translate function definition heads between K&R style and ANSI C style.", "CPS":"1. Conversational Programming System. An interactive extended subset of PL/I from Allen-Babcock Corp in 1965.", "CPSR":"Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility", "CPU":"central processing unit", "CR":"Carriage Return", "cr":"networking The country code for Costa Rica.", "cracker":"jargon An individual who attempts to gain unauthorised access to a computer system. These individuals are often malicious and have many means at their disposal for breaking into a system. The term was coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defence against journalistic misuse of hacker. An earlier attempt to establish worm in this sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a failure.", "cracking":"cracker", "crank":"Automotive slang Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. This box cranks or, cranks at about 6 megaflops, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorised operations.", "crapplet":"web, abuse A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. I just wasted 30 minutes downloading this stinkin' crapplet!", "CrApTeX":"/krap'tekh/ University of York, England Term of abuse used to describe TeX and LaTeX when they don't work when used by TeXhackers, or all the time by everyone else. The non-TeX enthusiasts generally dislike it because it is more verbose than other formatters e.g. troff and because particularly if the standard Computer Modern fonts are used it generates vast output files.", "crash":"1. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the system, especially of magnetic disk drives the term originally described what happened when the air gap of a hard disk collapses. Three lusers lost their files in last night's disk crash. A disk crash that involves the read/write heads dropping onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also be referred to as a head crash, whereas the term system crash usually, though not always, implies that the operating system or other software was at fault.", "crawler":"robot", "crayola":"/kray-oh'l*/ A super-minicomputer or super-microcomputer that provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer performance for an unreasonably low price. A crayola might also be a killer micro.", "crayon":"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 irrespective of gender. Systems types who have a Unix background tend not to be described as crayons.", "CRC":"cyclic redundancy check", "creationism":"The false belief that large, innovative software designs can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers. In fact, experience has shown repeatedly that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory interaction between one or at most a small handful of exceptionally able designers and an active user population - and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong. Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models beloved of management, they are generally ignored.", "CREN":"Corporation for Research and Educational Networking", "crippleware":"1. Software that has some important functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a working version.", "criptography":"spelling It's spelled cryptography.", "CRISP":"A Lisp-like language and compiler for the IBM 370 written by Jeff Barnett of SDC, Santa Monica, CA, USA in the early 1970s. It generalised Lisp's two-part cons nodes to n-part nodes.", "crisp":"Or discrete The opposite of fuzzy.", "CRL":"Carnegie Representation Language.", "CRLF":"character /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ A carriage return CR, ASCII 13 followed by a line feed LF, ASCII 10. Under Unix influence this usage has become less common because Unix uses just line feed as its line terminator.", "CRM":"1. business Customer Relationship Management.", "crock":"[American scatologism crock of shit] 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user as in, for example, Unix make1, which returns code 139 for a process that dies due to segfault.", "cron":"operating system The Unix clock daemon that executes commands at specified dates and times according to instructions in a crontab file.", "CROSSTABS":"Simple language for statistical analysis of tabular data.", "crosstalk":"electronics Interference caused by two signals becoming partially superimposed on each other due to electromagnetic inductive or electrostatic capacitive coupling between the conductors carrying the signals. A common example of crosstalk is where the magnetic field from changing current flow in one wire induces current in another wire running parallel to the other, as in a transformer. Crosstalk can be reduced by using shielded cables and increasing the distance between conductors.", "CRT":"cathode ray tube", "CRUD":"programming, testing A mnemonic for the four most important kinds of activity that almost any system of any type needs to support: create, read, update, delete. The absence or failure of any one of these is often a sign of a bad design or poor testing.", "crudware":"/kruhd'weir/ Pejorative term for the hundreds of megabytes of low-quality freeware circulated by user's groups and BBSs in the micro-hobbyist world.", "cruft":"jargon back-formation from crufty Anything unpleasant that accumulates over time. Also used as a verb, as in cruft together, hand cruft.", "crufted":"cruft", "crumb":"data, jargon Or tayste /tayst/ Silly suggested term for two binary digits.", "crunch":"1. jargon To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000. Fortran programs do mostly number crunching.", "crunchy":"floppy disk", "cryppie":"job, cryptography /krip'ee/ A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements software or hardware for cryptography.", "crypt":"Unix command to perform encryption and decryption.", "cryptanalysis":"The branch of cryptography concerned with decoding encrypted messages when you're not supposed to be able to.", "cryptography":"cryptography The practise and study of encryption and decryption - encoding data so that it can only be decoded by specific individuals. A system for encrypting and decrypting data is a cryptosystem. These usually involve an algorithm for combining the original data plaintext with one or more keys - numbers or strings of characters known only to the sender and/or recipient. The resulting output is known as ciphertext.", "CryptoLocker":"security The best known example of the kind of malware known as ransomware. CryptoLocker encrypts files on your computer and then demands that you send the malware operator money in order to have the files decrypted.", "cryptology":"cryptography The study of cryptography and cryptanalysis.", "Crystal":"Concurrent Representation of Your Space-Time ALgorithms.", "CSCI":"Computer Software Configuration Item", "CSCW":"Computer Supported Cooperative Work", "CSG":"constructive solid geometry", "csh":"C shell", "CSID":"character set identifier", "CSL":"1. Computer Structure Language. A computer hardware description language, written in BCPL.", "CSLIP":"Compressed SLIP", "CSM":"[CSM - A Distributed Programming Language, S. Zhongxiu et al, IEEE Trans Soft Eng SE-134:497-500 Apr 1987].", "CSMP":"Continuous System Modeling Program", "CSNET":"Computers and Science Network, operated by CREN for US computer science institutes. It provides electronic mail service via dial-up lines, X.25 and Internet services.", "CSO":"Campus Phone Book software developed for, and originally used at, the Computer Services Office of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The server software is known as qi and the client is ph. Recent versions of the software refer to CCSO Computing & Communications Service Office.", "CSP":"1. language Communicating Sequential Processes.", "CSPS":"[Toward Comprehensive Specification of Distributed Systems, G. Roman et al, Proc 7th Intl Conf on Distrib Comp Sys, IEEE 1987, pp. 282-289].", "CSR":"Control and Status Register", "CSS":"Cascading Style Sheets", "CSSA":"An object-oriented language.", "CSSL":"Continuous System Simulation Language", "CSTools":"Concurrency through message-passing to named message queues.", "CSU":"1. California State University.", "CSV":"comma separated values", "CT":"Computer Telephone Integration", "CTC":"Cornell Theory Center", "CTCP":"networking Client To Client Protocol", "CTI":"1. communications Computer Telephone Integration.", "CTL":"1. Checkout Test language.", "CTOS":"1. operating system Computerised Tomography Operating System.", "ctrl":"control", "CTS":"1. communications clear to send.", "CTSS":"Compatible Timesharing System", "CTY":"/sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ [MIT] The terminal physically associated with a computer's system console. The term is a contraction of Console tty, that is, Console TeleTYpe. This ITS- and TOPS-10-associated term has become less common, as most Unix hackers simply refer to the CTY as the console.", "CU":"chat see you.", "cu":"1. communications Call Unix.", "CUA":"Common User Access", "Cube":"Three-dimensional visual language for higher-order logic.", "cube":"1. [short for cubicle] A module in the open-plan offices used at many programming shops. I've got the manuals in my cube.", "cubing":"jargon By analogy with tubing, hacking on an IPSC Intel Personal SuperComputer hypercube. Louella's gone cubing *again*!!", "CUCH":"CUrry-CHurch.", "CUL":"chat See you later.", "CUPID":"A graphic query language.", "CUPL":"Cornell University Programming Language.", "current":"electronics The quantity of charge per unit time, measured in Amperes Amps, A. By historical convention, the sign of current is positive for currents flowing from positive to negative potential, but experience indicates that electrons are negatively charged and flow in the opposite direction.", "currying":"Turning an uncurried function into a curried function.", "curseperl":"A curses library for Perl by the author of Perl, Larry Wall lwall@netlabs.com. It comes with Perl.", "curses":"A set of subroutines in Unix for handling navigation on a terminal screen using the cursor.", "cursor":"1. hardware A visually distinct mark on a display indicating where newly typed text will be inserted. The cursor moves as text is typed and, in most modern editors, can be moved around within a document by the user to change the insertion point.", "CUSI":"A collection of indices to various web and other Internet documents. It is located at Nexor in the UK.", "cuspy":"/kuhs'pee/ [WPI: from the DEC abbreviation CUSP, for Commonly Used System Program, i.e. a utility program used by many people] 1. of a program Well-written.", "custom":"Or bespoke An adjective describing any product that is special in some way, individually created for a specific user or system, as opposed to generic or off-the-shelf.", "CUT":"Coordinated Universal Time", "cutover":"communications, networking /cut-ov*/ Switching from an old hardware and/or software system to a replacement system, covering the overlap from when the new system is live until the old system has been shut down.", "cv":"networking The country code for Cape Verde.", "CVS":"Concurrent Versions System", "CW":"continuous wave", "CWeb":"language An ANSI C implementation of the Web literate programming language. Version 3.1 by Levy, Knuth, and Marc van Leeuwen is writen in, and outputs, ANSI C and C++.", "CWI":"Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica", "CWIC":"Compiler for Writing and Implementing Compilers. Val Schorre.", "CWIS":"Campus-Wide Information System", "cx":"networking The country code for Christmas Island.", "cxref":"tool A cross-reference generator by Arnold Robbins from Georgia Institute of Technology.", "cy":"networking The country code for Cyprus.", "cyber":"chat To have cybersex.", "cyberbunny":"abuse Someone who knows absolutely nothing about computers and advises people who know absolutely nothing about computers. The term is used mostly on AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve, etc.", "cyberchondriac":"jargon, humour After hypochondriac 1. A user who always thinks there is something wrong with his computer.", "cybercrime":"security, legal Any of a broad range of activities that use computers or networks to commit illegal acts, including theft of personal data, phishing, distribution of malware, copyright infringement, denial of service attacks, cyberstalking, bullying, online harassment, child pornography, child predation, stock market manipulation and corporate espionage.", "cybercrud":"jargon /si:'ber-kruhd/ 1. Coined by Ted Nelson Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high MEGO factor. The computer equivalent of bureaucratese.", "CyberGlove":"hardware, virtual reality A data glove sold by Virtual Technologies. The spandex-like glove houses 18 sensors to track accurately just about every move your hand is capable of making. The accompanying software includes a three-dimensional hand model that can he added to any virtual reality application. The glove includes a mount for Polhemus and Ascension sensors.", "cybernetics":"robotics /si:`b*-net'iks/ The study of control and communication in living and man-made systems.", "cyberpunk":"/si:'ber-puhnk/ Originally coined by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel Neuromancer though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's True Names to John Brunner's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider. Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating.", "cyberrhea":"humour, jargon /si:'ber-eer/ An affliction of some word processor users; excessive frequency and looseness of productivity. Particularly virulent among those who have not discovered the fortifying virtues of revision.", "cybersex":"networking Sex performed in real time via a digital medium.", "cyberspace":"jargon /si:'ber-spays/ 1. Coined by William Gibson Notional information-space loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called cyberspace decks; a characteristic prop of cyberpunk SF. In 1991 serious efforts to construct virtual reality interfaces modelled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace were already under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of the network see network, the.", "cyberspastic":"humour A person suffering from information overload while browsing the Internet or web.", "CyberWand":"hardware, virtual reality A virtual reality controller.", "CyberZine":"publication A combination paper and web on-line Cyberspace guide. Upon payment you will be given a user name and password to access CyberZine on-line and the paper version will be posted first class. Subscribers can also use the CyberZine help desk.", "CYBIL":"Control Data's system programming language in the 80's. Major parts of CDC systems written in this.", "Cyc":"artificial intelligence A large knowledge-based system.", "CYCL":"A frame language.", "cycle":"unit A basic unit of computation, one period of a computer clock.", "cyclebabble":"jargon Advertising raw clock speed, instead of bus speed.", "Cyclo":"programming, tool Cyclomatic complexity tool A C and C++ code analysis tool by Roger D. Binns. It measures cyclomatic complexity, shows function calls, and can draw flowgraphs of ANSI C and C++ code. It requires Lex and C++.", "cylinder":"storage The set of tracks on a multi-headed disk that may be accessed without head movement. That is, the collection of disk tracks which are the same distance from the spindle about which the disks rotate. Each such group forms the shape of a cylinder. Placing data that are likely to be accessed together in cylinders reduces the access significantly as head movement seeking is slow compared to disk rotation and switching between heads.", "CypherText":"language An interactive language for text formatting and typesetting.", "Cyrix":"company A microprocessor manufacturer. They produce an Intel 486 equivalent - the Cy486SLC and a Pentium equivalent - the Cyrix 6x86.", "cz":"networking The country code for the Czech Republic.", "D":"1. The Data Language. MS-DOS 4GL.", "DAA":"Distributed Application Architecture: under design by Hewlett-Packard and Sun. A distributed object management environment that will allow applications to be developed independent of operating system, network or windowing system.", "DAC":"Digital to Analog Converter", "DACAPO":"Broad-range hardware specification language. Mixed Level Modelling and Simulation of VLSI Systems, F.J. Rammig in Logic Design and Simulation, E. Horbst ed, N-H 1986.", "DACNOS":"A prototype network operating system for multi-vendor environments, from IBM European Networking Centre Heidelberg and University of Karlsruhe.", "DACTL":"Declarative Alvey Compiler Target Language.", "DADS":"Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures", "daemon":"operating system /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ From the mythological meaning, later rationalised as the acronym Disk And Execution MONitor A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some conditions to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon.", "DAG":"1. architecture Data Address Generator.", "Daisy":"A functional language.", "DANTE":"A company established by the national research networks in Europe to provide international network services.", "DAPLEX":"[The Functional Data Model and the Data Language DAPLEX, D.W. Shipman, ACM Trans Database Sys, 61:140-173 Mar 1981].", "DARE":"Differential Analyzer REplacement. A family of simulation languages for continuous systems.", "Darms":"language, music A music language.", "DARPA":"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency", "Darwin":"1. operating system An operating system based on the FreeBSD version of Unix, running on top of a microkernel Mach 3.0 with darwin 1.02 that offers advanced networking, services such as the Apache web server, and support for both Macintosh and Unix file systems. Darwin was originally released in March 1999. It currently runs on PowerPC based Macintosh computers, and, in October 2000, was being ported to Intel processor-based computers and compatible systems by the Darwin community.", "DAS":"Digital Analog Simulator.", "DASD":"Direct-Access Storage Device", "DASE":"Distributed Application Support Environment", "DASL":"Datapoint's Advanced System Language.", "DAT":"1. Digital Audio Tape.", "data":"data, data processing, jargon /day't*/ Or raw data Numbers, characters, images, or other method of recording, in a form which can be assessed by a human or especially input into a computer, stored and processed there, or transmitted on some digital channel. Computers nearly always represent data in binary.", "database":"1. database One or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which contains the same set of fields where each field is a certain fixed width.", "DATABUS":"DATApoint BUSiness Language.", "Datacom":"A DBMS from Computer Associates International.", "datagram":"A self-contained, independent entity of data carrying sufficient information to be routed from the source to the destination computer without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and destination computer and the transporting network.", "Datakit":"networking A circuit-switched digital network, similar to X.25. Datakit supports host-to-host connections and EIA-232 connections for terminals, printers, and hosts.", "Datamation":"/dayt*-maysh*n/ A magazine that many hackers assume all suits read. Used to question an unbelieved quote, as in Did you read that in Datamation? It used to publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like the original paper on COME FROM in 1973, and Ed Post's Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal ten years later, but it has since become much more exclusively suit-oriented and boring.", "DataPoint":"company An early minicomputer manufacturer which also developed ARCnet.", "DataStage":"database, tool A tool set for designing, developing, and running applications that populate one or more tables in a data warehouse or data mart.", "DATATRIEVE":"database, language A query and report system for use with DEC's VMS RMS, VAX Rdb/VMS or VAX DBMS.", "DataViews":"Graphical user interface development software from V.I.Corporation, aimed at constructing platform-independent interactive views of dynamic data.", "DataVis":"A dataflow language for scientific visualisation.", "date":"convention, data A string unique to a time duration of 24 hours between 2 successive midnights defined by the local time zone. The specific representation of a date will depend on which calendar convention is in force; e.g., Gregorian, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew etc. as well as local ordering conventions such as UK: day/month/year, US: month/day/year.", "DAU":"/dow/ [German Fidonet] Dummster Anzunehmender User. A German acronym for stupidest imaginable user. From the engineering-slang GAU for Grosster Anzunehmender Unfall worst foreseeable accident, especially of a LNG tank farm plant or something with similarly disastrous consequences. In popular German, GAU is used only to refer to worst-case nuclear accidents such as a core meltdown.", "daughter":"mathematics, data Or child, successor In a tree, a node pointed to by a parent, i.e. another node closer to the root node.", "daughterboard":"hardware Or daughter board, daughtercard, daughter card A printed circuit board that connects to the motherboard. The daughterboard is typically smaller than the motherboard.", "daughtercard":"daughterboard", "DAZIX":"Daisy/Cadnetix Corporation.", "DB":"database", "DBA":"database administrator", "dBASE":"tool, product, language An interactive DBMS, originally from Ashton-Tate Corporation, and the language used by it.", "DBC":"language, parallel A data-parallel bit-serial C based on MPL. SRC, Bowie MD.", "DBCS":"character IBM double-byte character set.", "dBFAST":"dBASE dialect for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.", "DBH":"Denis Howe", "DBMS":"database management system", "DBPL":"language, database A procedural language with relational database constructs. A successor to Pascal/R and Modula/R.", "DBRI":"Dual Basic Rate Interface", "dbx":"programming A source-level debugger originating from BSD Unix but now available for many other Unix distributions.", "dBXL":"A dBASE-like interpreter/language for MS-DOS from WordTech, Orinda, CA.", "DC":"language, tool The Unix arbitrary precision postfix calculator and its language.", "DCA":"1. Defense Communications Agency. See DISA.", "DCAC":"Domestic Communications Assistance Center", "DCALGOL":"Data Communications ALGOL. A superset of Burroughs Extended ALGOL used for writing Message Control Systems.", "DCC":"1. audio Digital Compact Cassette.", "DCDL":"Digital Control Design Language. A language for simulating computer systems.", "DCE":"1. programming Dead Code Elimination.", "DCG":"Definite Clause Grammar", "DCI":"Display Control Interface", "DCL":"1. DIGITAL Command Language. The interactive command and scripting language for VAX/VMS.", "DCOM":"Distributed Component Object Model", "DCP":"definitional constraint programming", "DCS":"1. Digital Cellular System.", "DCT":"Discrete Cosine Transform", "DD":"1. storage double density.", "dd":"A Unix copy command with special options suitable for block-oriented devices; it was often used in heavy-handed system maintenance, as in Let's dd the root partition onto a tape, then use the boot PROM to load it back on to a new disk.", "DDB":"device independent bitmap", "DDCMP":"Digital Data Communications Message Protocol DEC.", "DDE":"Dynamic Data Exchange", "DDIF":"Digital Document Interchange Format. A CDA specification for representing compound documents in revisable format; a DEC standard for document encoding.", "DDL":"1. [A Digital System Design Language DDL, J.R. Duley, IEEE Trans on Computers c-179, pp. 850-861, Sep 1968].", "DDM":"1. protocol, database Distributed Data Management.", "DDN":"Defense Data Network", "DDO":"Dynamic Drive Overlay", "DDP":"Distributed Data Processing", "DDR":"Double Data Rate Random Access Memory", "DDS":"1. Digital Data Service.", "DDT":"1. Generic term for a program that assists in debugging other programs by showing individual machine instructions in a readable symbolic form and letting the user change them. In this sense the term DDT is now archaic, having been widely displaced by debugger or names of individual programs like adb, sdb, dbx, or gdb.", "DDW":"distributed data warehouse", "de":"networking The country code for Germany.", "DEA":"Data Encryption Algorithm", "DEACON":"Direct English Access and CONtrol. English-like query system.", "dead":"1. Non-functional; down; crashed. Especially used of hardware.", "DEADBEEF":"convention, storage /ded-beef/ The hexadecimal pattern used to fill words of freshly allocated memory under a number of IBM environments including the RS/6000; equal to decimal 3,735,928,559 unsigned or -559,038,737 32-bit signed. As in Your program is DEADBEEF meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory.", "deadlock":"parallel, programming A situation where two or more processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of the others to do something.", "deamon":"spelling It's spelled daemon.", "deb":"filename extension, Debian The filename extension for a Debian binary package.", "Debbugs":"programming The bug tracking system used by the Debian Project. Each bug is given a number, and is kept on file until it is marked as having been dealt with. The system is mainly controlled by electronic mail, but the bug reports can be viewed via the web.", "Debian":"operating system /deb'ee`n/, *not* /deeb'ee`n/ The non-profit volunteer organisation responsible for Debian GNU/Linux and Debian GNU/Hurd. Debian's Linux distribution is dedicated to free and open source software; the main goal of the distribution is to ensure that one can download and install a fully-functional operating system that is completely adherent to the Debian Free Software Guidelines DFSG.", "debianize":"Debian To take a source package and make the necessary modifications to allow it to be built as a policy compliant Debian package.", "deboursification":"jargon Removal of irrelevant newsgroups from the Newsgroups header of a followup. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks.", "DEBUG":"software, tool The bundled compiler/assembler for DOS/Windows after CP/M.", "debugger":"tool, programming A tool used by a programmer to monitor and control a program he is trying to fix. The most important functions of a debugger are tracing, stepping, breakpoints and watches.", "debugging":"programming The process of attempting to determine the cause of the symptoms of malfunctions in a program or other system. These symptoms may be detected during testing or use by real users.", "DEC":"Digital Equipment Corporation", "dec":"programming /dek/ decrement, decrease by one. Especially used by assembly language programmers, as many assembly languages have a dec mnemonic.", "decay":"[Nuclear physics] An automatic conversion which is applied to most array-valued expressions in C; they decay into pointer-valued expressions pointing to the array's first element. This term is not used in the official standard for the language.", "DECdesign":"A software analysis and design tool from DEC supporting several methodologies. Now replaced by Teamwork.", "DECdns":"Distributed Naming Service.", "DEChead":"/dek'hed/ 1. A DEC field servoid. Not flattering.", "dechunker":"chunker", "decidability":"mathematics A property of sets for which one can determine whether something is a member or not in a finite number of computational steps.", "decidable":"decidability", "deckle":"/dek'l/ From dec- and nibble; the original spelling seems to have been decle Two nickles; 10 bits.", "DECnet":"A proprietary network protocol designed by Digital Equipment Corporation. The functionality of each Phase of the implementation, such as Phase IV and Phase V, is different.", "decode":"cryptography To apply decryption.", "decompress":"compression, data To reverse the effects of data compression.", "decryption":"cryptography Any procedure used in cryptography to convert ciphertext encrypted data into plaintext.", "DECstation":"computer A range of RISC based workstations manufactured by DEC.", "DECT":"Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications", "DECtape":"hardware, storage A reel of magnetic tape about 4 inches in diameter and one inch wide. Unlike today's macrotapes, microtape drivers allowed random access to the data, and therefore could be used to support file systems and even for swapping this was generally done purely for hack value, as they were far too slow for practical use. DECtape was a variant on LINCtape.", "DECUS":"Digital Equipment Computer Users Society", "DECwindows":"DEC's windowing environment based on the X Window System.", "DECwrite":"DEC's CDA-based, WYSIWYG document processing application. It can generate and import SGML marked-up documents.", "DED":"Dark-Emitting Diode that is, a burned-out LED. Compare SED, LER, write-only memory. In the early 1970s both Signetics and Texas instruments released DED spec sheets as AFJs suggested uses included as a power-off indicator.", "default":"data A value or thing to use when none is specified by the user. Defaults are important for making systems behave in a predictable way without the user having to give lots of obvious details.", "defect":"bug", "deferral":"Waiting for quiet on the Ethernet.", "deflate":"file format, compression A compression standard derived from LZ77; it is reportedly used in zip, gzip, PKZIP, and png, among others.", "deforestation":"programming A technique invented by Phil Wadler for eliminating intermediate data structures built and passed between composed functions in function languages.", "defrag":"defragment", "defragment":"tool, file system /dee-frag-ment'/ Or defrag To coalesce files and free space on a file system; to reduce fragmentation.", "degree":"The degree or valency of a node in a graph is the number of edges joined to it.", "dehose":"/dee-hohz/ To clear a hosed condition.", "DEK":"Data Encryption Key", "delete":"1. operating system Or erase To make a file inaccessible.", "delimiter":"character A character or string used to separate, or mark the start and end of, items of data in, e.g., a database, source code, or text file.", "delint":"/dee-lint/ To modify code to remove problems detected when linting. Confusingly, this process is also referred to as linting code.", "Delirium":"An embedding coordinate language for parallel programming, implemented on Sequent Symmetry, Cray, BBN Butterfly.", "Delphi":"1. company, communications A US Internet service provider.", "Delta":"language", "delta":"1. A quantitative change, especially a small or incremental one this use is general in physics and engineering. I just doubled the speed of my program! What was the delta on program size? About 30 percent. He doubled the speed of his program, but increased its size by only 30 percent.", "DELTASE":"A distributed processing environment concerned with fault-tolerant and process-control applications from the Esprit Delta-4 project.", "DeMarco":"Tom DeMarco proposed a form of structured analysis.", "demented":"Yet another term of disgust used to describe a program. The connotation in this case is that the program works as designed, but the design is bad. Said, for example, of a program that generates large numbers of meaningless error messages, implying that it is on the brink of imminent collapse.", "Demeter":"A CASE tool developed mainly by Karl Lieberherr.", "demigod":"person A hacker with years of experience, a national reputation, and a major role in the development of at least one design, tool, or game used by or known to more than half of the hacker community. To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person must recognisably identify with the hacker community and have helped shape it. Major demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie co-inventors of Unix and C and Richard Stallman inventor of Emacs. In their hearts of hearts, most hackers dream of someday becoming demigods themselves, and more than one major software project has been driven to completion by the author's veiled hopes of apotheosis.", "demo":"/de'moh/ 1. A demonstration of a product, often of an early version or prototype. A demo is a far more effective way of inducing bugs to manifest themselves than any number of test runs, especially when important people are watching.", "demodulate":"demodulation", "demodulation":"communications To recover the signal from the carrier.", "demon":"1. operating system Often used equivalently to daemon, especially in the Unix world, where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic. A program or part of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some conditions to occur.", "depeditate":"/dee-ped'*-tayt/ [by faulty analogy with decapitate] Humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of text blocks within a page or above a rule can result in chopped-off letter descenders. Such letters are said to have been depeditated.", "dependability":"software reliability", "deprecated":"Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in favour of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for many years. This term appears with distressing frequency in standards documents when the committees writing the documents realise that large amounts of extant and presumably happily working code depend on the features that have passed out of favour.", "deque":"double-ended queue", "dequeue":"queue", "DER":"Distinguished Encoding Rules", "dereference":"programming To access the thing to which a pointer points; to follow the pointer. E.g. in C, the declarations", "DES":"Data Encryption Standard", "descender":"text A lowercase letter that extends below the base line, such as g, j, or p. Also used to denote the part of the letter extending below the base line. Compare ascender.", "descriptor":"operating system An integer, string or other small data value which refers to one of several objects allocated to a program by the operating system, usually the kernel. A common example is a Unix file descriptor which is a small integer that identifies an I/O channel. Another example is a reference to an area of memory e.g. shared memory.", "design":"process The approach that engineering and some other disciplines use to specify how to create or do something. A successful design must satisfies a perhaps informal functional specification do what it was designed to do; conforms to the limitations of the target medium it is possible to implement; meets implicit or explicit requirements on performance and resource usage it is efficient enough.", "desktop":"1. operating system In a WIMP graphical user interface, the visual representation of a real desktop the top surface of a piece of furniture with documents, folders and a rubbish bin arranged on it. The user manipulates files on the computer by using a mouse to click and drag their representations icons on the desktop.", "DESQview":"A system from Quarterdeck Office Systems implementing multitasking under MS-DOS.", "destructor":"programming A function provided by a class in C++ and some other object-oriented languages to delete an object, the inverse of a constructor.", "DESY":"Deutsches Electronen Synchrotron Laboratory, Hamburg, Germany.", "DETAB":"DEcision TABle.", "deterministic":"1. probability Describes a system whose time evolution can be predicted exactly.", "DETOL":"language Directly Executable Test Oriented Language.", "developer":"programmer", "development":"The process of analysis, design, coding and testing software.", "device":"peripheral", "devo":"/dee'voh/ In-house jargon at Symbolics A person in a development group. See also doco and mango.", "DEX":"A cross between Modula-2 and C by W. van Oortmerssen.", "DFA":"Deterministic Finite-state Automaton. See Finite State Machine.", "DFC":"A dataflow language.", "DFD":"Data Flow Diagram", "DFS":"1. algorithm Depth-First Search.", "DFT":"discrete Fourier transform", "DGL":"1. Data Generation Language. A tool for generating test data for hardware or software systems.", "DHCP":"Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", "Dhrystone":"benchmark A short synthetic benchmark program by Reinhold Weicker weicker.muc@sni.de, weicker.muc@sni-usa.com, intended to be representative of system integer programming.", "DHSD":"Duplex High Speed Data", "DHTML":"Dynamic HTML", "DIALOG":"1. A commercial bibliographic database and retrieval service from DIALOG Information Services.", "dialup":"A temporary, as opposed to dedicated, connection between machines established over a telephone line using modems.", "DIAMAG":"An interactive extension of ALGOL.", "diameter":"The diameter of a graph is the maximum value of the minimum distance between any two nodes.", "Diamond":"One of five pedagogical languages based on Markov algorithms, used in Nonpareil, a Machine Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of Semantics, B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London 1968. cf. Brilliant, Nonpareil, Pearl[3], Ruby[2].", "DIANA":"Descriptive Intermediate Attributed Notation for Ada", "DIB":"device independent bitmap", "DIBOL":"Digital Interactive Business Oriented Language.", "DICOM":"medical, standard From Digital Imaging and COmmunications in Medicine A standard developed by ACR-NEMA American College of Radiology - National Electrical Manufacturer's Association for communications between medical imaging devices. It conforms to the ISO reference model for network communications and incorporates object-oriented design concepts.", "dictionary":"1. data dictionary.", "DID":"Direct Inward Dialing", "diddle":"jargon US To work in a casual manner, or the result of such work. In the UK to diddle someone means to cheat them.", "die":"1. jargon crash. Unlike crash, which is used primarily of hardware, this verb is used of both hardware and software.", "diff":"/dif/ 1. A change listing, especially giving differences between and additions to different versions of a piece of source code or documentation the term is often used in the plural diffs. Send me your diffs for the Jargon File!", "digerati":"jargon Or digirati. By analogy with literati - people knowledgeable about literature People knowledgeable about computers, computer literate.", "digest":"A periodical collection of messages which have been posted to a newsgroup or mailing list. A digest is prepared by a moderator who selects articles from the group or list, formats them and adds a contents list. The digest is then either mailed to an alternative mailing list or posted to an alternative newsgroup.", "Digex":"Digital Express Group, Inc.", "DigiCash":"company A company, started in April 1990, which aims to develop and license products to support electronic payment methods including chip card, software only, and hybrid.", "Digicom":"ftp://ftp.whnet.com/pub/wolfgang, ftp://softmodem.whnet.com/pub/wolfgang, ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/wolfgang.", "digirati":"digerati", "digit":"An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation. See also VAX, VMS, PDP-10, TOPS-10, DEChead, double DECkers, field circus.", "Digital":"company Common abbreviation for Digital Equipment Corporation.", "digital":"data A description of data which is stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most commonly this means binary data represented using electronic or electromagnetic signals.", "dike":"To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is When in doubt, dike it out. The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing complexity than by increasing it. The word dikes is widely used among mechanics and engineers to mean diagonal cutters, especially the heavy-duty metal-cutting version, but may also refer to a kind of wire-cutters used by electronics technicians. To dike something out means to use such cutters to remove something. Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as to attack with dikes. Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended to informational objects such as sections of code.", "DIL":"Dual In-Line Package", "Dilbert":"humour A cartoon computer worker drawn by Scott Adams scottadams@aol.com, who works in Silicon Valley. The cartoon became so popular he left his day job. The cartoon satirises typical corporate life, especially that which revolves around computers.", "Dilberted":"jargon To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.", "DIM":"DIM statement", "DIMATE":"language Depot Installed Maintenance Automatic Test Equipment. A language for programming automatic test equipment. It Runs on the RCA 301.", "DIMM":"Dual In-Line Memory Module", "DIN":"Deutsche Institut fuer Normung. The German standardisation body, a member of ISO.", "ding":"1. Synonym for feep. Usage: rare among hackers, but commoner in the Real World.", "dink":"/dink/ Said of a machine that has the bitty box nature; a machine too small to be worth bothering with - sometimes the system you're currently forced to work on. First heard from an MIT hacker working on a CP/M system with 64K, in reference to any 6502 system, then from fans of 32 bit architectures about 16-bit machines. GNUMACS will never work on that dink machine. Probably derived from mainstream dinky, which isn't sufficiently pejorative.", "DinnerBell":"An object-oriented dataflow language with single assignment.", "DINO":"Data parallel superset of C.", "dinosaur":"1. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special power.", "diode":"hardware, electronics A semiconductor device which conducts electric current run in one direction only. This is the simplest kind of semiconductor device, it has two terminals and a single PN junction. One diode can be used as a half-wave rectifier or four as a full-wave rectifier.", "DIP":"1. Dual In-line Package.", "diplex":"communications From telegraphy Two simultaneous transmissions in one direction.", "DIPP":"Dual Inline Pin Package", "directories":"directory", "directory":"file system A node in a hierarchical file system which contains zero or more other nodes - generally, files or other directories.", "DirectX":"programming, hardware A Microsoft programming interface standard, first included with Windows 95. DirectX gives games programmers a standard way to gain direct access to enhanced hardware features under Windows 95 instead of going via the Windows 95 GDI. Some DirectX code runs faster than the equivalent under MS DOS.", "DIRFT":"Do It Right the First Time", "Dirt":"Design In Real Time", "dirtball":"XEROX PARC A small, perhaps struggling outsider; not in the major or even the minor leagues. For example, Xerox is not a dirtball company.", "dis":"programming A CPython bytecode disassembler.", "DISA":"1. body Defense Information Systems Agency.", "disc":"storage, spelling British spelling of disk, normally only used for compact disc.", "disclaimer":"networking Statement ritually appended to many Usenet postings sometimes automatically, by the posting software reiterating the fact which should be obvious, but is easily forgotten that the article reflects its author's opinions and not necessarily those of the organisation running the computer through which the article entered the network.", "disconnect":"SCSI reconnect", "Discordianism":"recreation /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ The veneration of Eris, also known as Discordia; widely popular among hackers.", "discrete":"mathematics A description of a quantity whose value is one of a fixed set of values, as opposed to a continuous - a value capable of infinitessimal variation. For example, integers are discrete values whereas real numbers are continuous; digital sound has discrete amplitude leves whereas analog sound is continuous.", "Disiple":"language, DSP A DSP language.", "disk":"storage 1. magnetic disk.", "diskette":"floppy disk", "disks":"disk", "Dislang":"language", "disman":"Distributed Management", "display":"1. hardware monitor.", "distfix":"programming distributed fixity? A description of an operator represented by multiple symbols before, between, and/or after the arguments.", "distribution":"1. software A software source tree packaged for distribution; but see kit.", "disusered":"jargon Usenet Said of a person whose account on a computer has been removed to prevent access. Setting the DISUSER account status flag on VMS disables the account.", "dithering":"data, algorithm A technique used in quantisation processes such as graphics and audio to reduce or remove the correlation between noise and signal.", "diverge":"If a series of approximations to some value get progressively further from it then the series is said to diverge.", "divisor":"A quantity that evenly divides another quantity.", "dj":"networking The country code for Djibouti.", "DJGPP":"tool A 32-bit GNU C/C++/etc development system for MS-DOS.", "DjVu":"application, compression, file format, graphics, web pronounced like deja vu An image compression algorithm and program developed by Yann LeCun's research group at AT&T Labs. DjVu provides high resolution digital images for distribution over the Internet. DjVu is five to 20 times more efficient than JPEG or GIF. A free web browser plug-in allows users to display DjVu images.", "DK":"Datakit", "dk":"networking The country code for Denmark.", "DLC":"Data Link Control", "DLCI":"Data Link Connection Identifier", "DLE":"character Data Link Escape, the mnemonic for ASCII 16.", "DLG":"DFA-based Lexical analyser Generator The lexical analyser generator in the Purdue Compiler-Construction Tool Set.", "DLL":"1. networking Data Link Layer.", "DLM":"Distributed Lock Manager on distributed VMS systems.", "DLP":"language Distributed Logic Programming.", "DLPI":"Data Link Provider Interface", "DLSw":"Data Link Switching", "DLT":"Digital Linear Tape", "dm":"networking The country code for Dominica.", "DMA":"Direct Memory Access", "DMAD":"Diagnostic Machine Aid-Digital. A system for functional testing of digital devices.", "dmake":"Required by uC++.", "DMALGOL":"ALGOL with extensions to interface to DMS II, the Burroughs database.", "DME":"Distributed Management Environment", "DMI":"Desktop Management Interface", "DML":"language", "DMM":"Digital Multimeter", "DMS":"Dataless Management Services", "DMTF":"Desktop Management Task Force", "DMU":"Data Management Unit", "DMZ":"De-Militarised Zone", "DNF":"disjunctive normal form", "DNIS":"Dialled Number Identification Service", "DNIX":"operating system A flavor of Unix that is proprietary to Olivetti and Wang Global.", "DNOS":"Distributed Network Operating System", "DNS":"1. Domain Name System.", "do":"1. programming repeat loop.", "DOA":"jargon Dead on arrival. A piece of hardware that has never worked.", "Doc":"Directed Oc", "doc":"/dok/ Common spoken and written shorthand for documentation.", "DOCMaker":"text, tool, product An application for the Apple Macintosh which creates stand-alone, self-running document files. It features scrollable and re-sizable windows, graphics, varied text styles and fonts, full printing capability, and links to other software and information.", "doco":"jargon /do'koh/ 1. In-house jargon at Symbolics A documentation writer.", "DOCSIS":"Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification", "document":"1. application Any specific type of file produced or edited by a specific application; usually capable of being printed. E.g. Word document, Photoshop document, etc.", "documentation":"programming The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded, steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern software or hardware products see also tree-killer.", "DOCUS":"Display Oriented Computer Usage System. Interactive system using push buttons. Sammet 1969, p.678", "DoD":"1. body Department of Defense.", "dodgy":"Synonym with flaky. Preferred outside the US", "DOE":"Distributed Object Environment: a distributed object-oriented application framework from SunSoft.", "DOF":"degrees of freedom", "dog":"tool An enhanced version of the Unix cat command that, in addition to outputting the contents of files, can output the data obtained by fetching URLs. It also offers various output options such as line numbering.", "dogcow":"/dog'kow/ See Moof.", "dogfood":"eating one's own dogfood", "dogfooding":"eating one's own dogfood", "dogpile":"Usenet, probably from mainstream puppy pile When many people post unfriendly responses in short order to a single posting, they are sometimes said to dogpile or dogpile on the person to whom they're responding. For example, when a religious missionary posts a simplistic appeal to alt.atheism, he can expect to be dogpiled.", "dogwash":"/dog'wosh/ A quip in the urgency field of a very optional software change request, ca. 1982. It was something like Urgency: Wash your dog first A project of minimal priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. Many games and much freeware get written this way, including this dictionary.", "Dojo":"The Dojo Toolkit", "DOL":"Display Oriented Language. Subsystem of DOCUS. Sammet 1969, p.678.", "dollar":"character $, numeric character reference: $, Common names: ITU-T: dollar sign. Rare: currency symbol; buck; cash; string; escape when used as the echo of ASCII ESC; ding; cache; INTERCAL: big money.", "DOM":"Document Object Model", "domain":"1. networking A group of computers whose fully qualified domain names FQDN share a common suffix, the domain name.", "domainist":"jargon /doh-mayn'ist/ 1. Said of a domain address as opposed to a bang path because the part to the right of the @ specifies a nested series of domains; for example, esr@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus within the top-level domain called com. See also big-endian.", "DOMF":"Distributed Object Management Facility.", "dongle":"hardware /dong'gl/ From dangle - because it dangles off the computer?", "donuts":"Obsolete A collective noun for any set of memory bits. This usage is extremely archaic and may no longer be live jargon; it dates from the days of ferrite core memories in which each bit was implemented by a doughnut-shaped magnetic flip-flop.", "Dooced":"jargon Losing your job because of something posted on a personal website. After http://dooce.com/ where Heather Armstrong posted details about her job.", "DOOM":"games A simulated 3D moster-hunting action game for IBM PCs, created and published by id Software. The original press release was dated January 1993. A cut-down shareware version v1.0 was released on 10 December 1993 and again with some bug-fixes, as v1.4 in June 1994.", "DOORS":"Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System", "doorstop":"Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolete equipment kept around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup. When we get another Wyse-50 in here, that ADM 3 will turn into a doorstop.", "DORUM":"Draft Once ReUse Many", "DOS":"operating system 1. The common abbreviation for MS-DOS.", "dot":"character decimal point.", "DOUGLAS":"language An early system on the IBM 701.", "down":"1. Not operating. The up escalator is down is considered a humorous thing to say, and The elevator is down always means The elevator isn't working and never refers to what floor the elevator is on. With respect to computers, this term has passed into the mainstream; the extension to other kinds of machine is still hackish.", "download":"jargon To transfer data from one computer to another.", "downloading":"download", "downsizing":"jargon The process of moving an application program from a mainframe to a cheaper system, typically a client-server system.", "downstream":"upstream", "DP":"1. data processing.", "DPA":"Data Protection Act", "DPB":"/d*-pib'/ The PDP-10 instruction DePosit Byte that inserts some bits into the middle of some other bits. Hackish usage has been kept alive by the Common LISP function of the same name.", "DPer":"/dee-pee-er/ Data Processor. Hackers are absolutely amazed that suits use this term self-referentially. *Computers* process data, not people!", "dpi":"Dots per inch.", "DPL":"DECmmp Parallel Language.", "DPLL":"Digital Phase-Locked Loop", "DPMI":"DOS Protected Mode Interface", "DPMS":"hardware Display Power Management Signaling.", "DPN":"Decomposed Petri Net", "DPP":"Dining Philosophers Problem", "DPS":"1. language, text Display PostScript.", "dpSather":"Data-parallel Sather. deterministic fine-grained parallelism.", "DPSK":"communications Differential Phase-Shift Keying.", "DQDB":"Distributed Queue Dual Bus", "draco":"A blend of Pascal, C and ALGOL 68 developed by Chris Gray in 1987. It has been implemented for CP/M-80 and Amiga.", "drag":"drag and drop", "dragging":"drag", "DRAGON":"1. An Esprit project aimed at providing effective support to reuse in real-time distributed Ada application programs.", "dragon":"[MIT] A program similar to a daemon, except that it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to perform various secondary tasks. A typical example would be an accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in, accumulates load-average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they were, what they were running, etc., along with some random picture such as a unicorn, Snoopy or the Enterprise, which was generated by the name dragon. Use is rare outside MIT, under Unix and most other operating systems this would be called a background demon or daemon. The best-known Unix example of a dragon is cron. At SAIL, they called this sort of thing a phantom.", "DRAGOON":"language A distributed, concurrent, object-oriented Ada-based language developed in the Esprit DRAGON project by Colin Atkinson at Imperial College in 1989 Now at University of Houston, Clear Lake. DRAGOON supports object-oriented programming for embeddable systems and is presently implemented as an Ada preprocessor.", "drain":"jargon IBM To allow a system to complete the processing of its current work before the system becomes unavailable.", "DRAM":"dynamic random-access memory", "DRECNET":"/drek'net/ [Yiddish/German dreck, meaning filth] Deliberate distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So called because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification and then either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic violated that spec in the design of DRECNET in a way that made it incompatible. See also connector conspiracy.", "drive":"storage A peripheral device that allows a computer to read or/or write some storage medium such as a hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic tape, compact disc or DVD. These would be called a disk drive, magnetic tape drive, etc. CD and DVD drives are known collectively as optical drives. When unqualified the term probably refers to a hard disk drive.", "driver":"1. operating system device driver.", "drivers":"driver", "DRM":"1. Digital Rights Management", "droid":"robotics From android The robots of the Star Wars universe. While androids look somewhat human-like, Star Wars' droids are typically fashioned in the likeness of their creators or in a utilitarian design that stresses function over appearance. Droids are equipped with artificial intelligence, though some are naturally created smarter than others depending on the function they are designed to serve.", "DROOL":"games Dave's Recycled Object-Oriented Language. Language for writing adventure games. An updated implementation of AdvSys. multiple inheritance, garbage collection.", "DrScheme":"Scheme A popular Scheme implementation from the PLT team at Rice University.", "drugged":"Or on drugs 1. Conspicuously stupid, heading toward brain-damaged. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a joint.", "drum":"Ancient slow, cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art storage devices. Under BSD Unix the disk partition used for swapping is still called /dev/drum; this has led to considerable humour and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus explanations getting foisted on newbies.", "DSA":"Directory System Agent", "DSDM":"Dynamic Systems Development Method", "DSE":"1. Display Screen Equipment. See Visual Display Unit.", "DSEE":"Domain Software Engineering Environment", "DSI":"Delivered Source Instruction", "DSL":"1. communications Digital Subscriber Line.", "DSLAM":"Digital Subscriber Line Access Module", "DSM":"1. Data Structure Manager.", "DSN":"Digital Switched Network", "DSO":"dynamic shared object", "DSORG":"data set organization", "DSP":"digital signal processing", "DSPL":"Digital Signal Processing Language", "DSR":"Dynamic Service Register", "DSS":"1. Decision Support Systems.", "DSSSL":"Document Style Semantics and Specification Language", "DST":"Daylight-Saving Time.", "DSU":"1. communications Data Service Unit.", "DSVD":"Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data", "DSW":"penis war", "DTALGOL":"Decision Table ALGOL.", "DTD":"Document Type Definition", "DTE":"Data Terminal Equipment", "DTLS":"Descriptive Top-Level Specification", "DTMF":"Dual Tone Multi Frequency", "DTP":"desktop publishing", "DTR":"Data Terminal Ready", "DTS":"1. Distributed Time Service.", "DTSS":"operating system The first commercial time-sharing system, created by Dartmouth College and sold by General Electric around 1967.", "du":"tool, storage disk usage The Unix command to list the amount of disk space consumed by a directory and its subdirectories.", "DUA":"Directory User Agent", "dual":"mathematics Every field of mathematics has a different meaning of dual. Loosely, where there is some binary symmetry of a theory, the image of what you look at normally under this symmetry is referred to as the dual of your normal things.", "DUEL":"programming A front end to gdb by Michael Golan mg@cs.princeton.edu. DUEL implements a language designed for debugging C programs. It features efficient ways to select and display data items. It is normally linked into the gdb executable, but could stand alone. It interprets a subset of C in addition to its own language.", "duff":"1. programming Duff's device.", "dump":"operating system 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the slowest available output device compare core dump, and most especially one consisting of hexadecimal or octal runes describing the byte-by-byte state of memory, mass storage, or some file. In elder days, debugging was generally done by groveling over a dump see grovel; increasing use of high-level languages and interactive debuggers has made such tedium uncommon, and the term dump now has a faintly archaic flavour.", "Dungeon":"Zork", "duplex":"communications Used to describe a communications channel that can carry signals in both directions, in contrast to a simplex channel which only ever carries a signal in one direction.", "Durra":"Description language for coarse-grained concurrency on heterogeneous processors. Durra: A Task-level Description Language, M.R. Barbacci et al, CMU/SEI-86-TR-3, CMU 1986.", "DVD":"Digital Versatile Disc", "DVI":"1. file format device independent The usual output format of TeX, giving a description of a formatted document that is not related to any specific hardware or other standard document format. Utilities exist to view and print DVI files on various systems and devices.", "Dvorak":"hardware A configuration of computer keyboard keys arranged to increase the speed and ease of typing over the normal qwerty layout; the most common characters for English have been put on the home row.", "DWDM":"wavelength division multiplexing", "dweeb":"An even lower form of life than the spod, found in much the same habitat as the former. though more prevailent on talker systems. Unlike spods, upon receiving the desired response to the question Are you male or female?, dweebs will then engage upon a detailed description of themselves and how wonderful they are, often in the hopes of truly impressing the other with their charm and wit. Nearly all dweebs are male, but very few actually live up to the image that they present. Dweebs, unfortunately, are often the cause of ill-will, and may well bring a bad reputation to the system in question. They are often, however, easy to wind up and can be the source of great mirth to the seasoned user.", "dwg":"filename extension The filename extension for Autodesk drawing files.", "DWIM":"/dwim/ [acronym, Do What I Mean not what I say] 1. Able to guess, sometimes even correctly, the result intended when bogus input was provided.", "DXF":"Drawing Exchange Format", "dyadic":"programming binary describing an operator.", "DYANA":"DYnamics ANAlyzer", "Dylan":"DYnamic LANguage", "Dylperl":"A dynamic linking package for Perl by Roberto Salama rs@fi.gs.com. Dynamically loaded functions are accessed as if they were user-defined functions. This code is based on Oliver Sharp's May 1993 article in Dr. Dobbs Journal Dynamic Linking under Berkeley Unix.", "DYNAMO":"DYNamic MOdels. A language for continuous simulation including economic, industrial and social systems, developed by Phyllis Fox and A.L. Pugh in 1959.", "Dynix":"library A host-based library automation system from Dynix Automated Library Systems. First installed in 1993, it is now used in over 2000 libraries worldwide.", "dynner":"data, jargon /din'r/ 32 bits, by analogy with byte.", "DYSAC":"Digital Simulated Analog Computer.", "DYSTAL":"DYnamic STorage ALlocation.", "dz":"networking The country code for Algeria.", "E":"1. An extension of C++ with database types and persistent objects. E is a powerful and flexible procedural programming language. It is used in the Exodus database system.", "EAF":"Effort Adjustment Factor", "EAG":"Extended Affix Grammar", "Eagle":"A dBASE-like dialect bundled with Emerald Bay, sold by Migent from 1986-1988, later renamed Vulcan when Wayne Ratliff reacquired the product.", "EAI":"Enterprise Application Integration", "EAPROM":"Electrically Alterable Programmable Read-Only Memory", "EARN":"networking European Academic and Research Network.", "EAROM":"Electrically Alterable Read-Only Memory.", "earthquake":"IBM The ultimate real-world shock test for computer hardware. Hackish sources at IBM deny the rumor that the San Francisco Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test quality-assurance procedures at its California plants.", "Ease":"General purpose parallel programming language, combining the process constructs of CSP and the distributed data structures of Linda. Programming with Ease: Semiotic Definition of the Language, S.E. Zenith, zenith-steven@yale.edu Yale U TR-809, Jul 1990.", "EASIAC":"Early system on Midac computer. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "EAST":"A Eureka project developing a software engineering platform.", "EAX":"Environmental Audio eXtensions", "EBASIC":"language A BASIC by Gordon Eubanks, now at Symantec, that led to CBASIC.", "EBCDIC":"Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code", "EBCIDIC":"spelling It's spelled EBCDIC.", "EBNF":"language Extended Backus-Naur Form.", "Ebone":"A pan-European backbone network service.", "ec":"networking The country code for Ecuador.", "Ecash":"application A trial form of electronic funds transfer over the Internet and soon by electronic mail.", "ECC":"error detection and correction", "Echidna":"Constraint logic programming embedded in an object-oriented language. The syntax is an extension of Edinburgh Prolog.", "echo":"1. A topic group on FidoNet's echomail system.", "ECHT":"European Conference on Hypertext.", "ECIS":"European Committee for Interoperable Systems", "ECL":"1. hardware Emitter Coupled Logic.", "ECLIPSE":"A Prolog + CLP compiler from ECRC.", "ECM":"storage error correcting memory.", "ECMA":"1. European Computer Manufacturers Association, now ECMA International.", "ECMAScript":"language ECMA standard 262, ISO standard 16262 The standardised version of the core JavaScript language.", "Econet":"1. One of the IGC networks. EcoNet serves individuals and organisations working for environmental preservation and sustainability. Important issues covered include: global warming, energy policy, rainforest preservation, legislative activities, water quality, toxics and environmental education.", "ECOOP":"European Conference on Object-oriented Programming.", "ECP":"1. Engineering Change Proposal.", "ECRC":"European Computer-Industry Research Centre GmbH", "ECSL":"Extended CSL.", "ECSP":"An extension to CSP, supporting dynamic communication channels and nested processes.", "ECSSL":"Formerly APSE. An equation-oriented specification language for continuous simulations. The compiler outputs HYTRAN, which must be run on an analog processor.", "ed":"tool, text editor Unix's line editor. Ed is rarely used by humans since even vi is better.", "EDA":"1. Electronic Design Automation.", "EDAC":"error detection and correction", "Eden":"language, operating system A concurrent, object-oriented, distributed operating system and language, Eden Programming Language EPL, based on remote procedure call. It has both synchronous and asynchronous message passing.", "EDF":"earliest deadline first", "EDI":"Electronic Data Interchange", "EDIF":"Electronic Design Interchange Format.", "EDIFACT":"ISO 9735:1988", "Edison":"1. Named after the American inventor Thomas Edison 1847-1931", "edit":"application Use of some kind of editor program to modify a document. Also used to refer to the modification itself, e.g. my last edit only made things worse.", "editor":"application A program used to edit a document.", "EDL":"language", "EDM":"Electronic Data Management", "EdML":"Edinburgh SML", "EDMS":"Electronic Document Management System", "EDP":"Electronic Data Processing", "EDRAM":"Enhanced Dynamic Random Access Memory", "EDS":"Enhanced Directory Service", "EDSAC":"Electronic Discrete Sequential Automatic Computer", "edu":"networking education The top-level domain for educational establishments in the USA and some other countries. E.g. mit.edu. The UK equivalent is ac.uk.", "edutainment":"application Interactive education and entertainment services or software, usually supplied commercially via a cable network or on CD-ROM.", "Edwin":"MIT Scheme", "ee":"networking The country code for Estonia.", "EEMA":"European Electronic Messaging Association", "EEPROM":"Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory", "EER":"An extended entity-relationship model.", "EFF":"Electronic Frontier Foundation", "EFI":"Extensible Firmware Interface", "EFL":"Extended Fortran Language", "EFNet":"networking From Eris-free Net, eris being eris.berkeley.edu.", "Eforth":"language A system produced by Ting to help implementers produce Forths for different targets, using assemblers.", "EFT":"electronic funds transfer", "EFTPOS":"Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale", "EFTS":"electronic funds transfer", "eg":"networking The country code for Egypt.", "EGA":"Enhanced Graphics Adapter", "Eggdrop":"communications The world's most popular open source IRC bot, designed for flexibility and ease of use. Eggdrop is freely distributable under the GPL. It was originally developed by Robey Pointer but he no longer works on it.", "egosurfing":"jargon Scanning the web, databases, print media or research papers looking for the mention of your name.", "EGP":"Exterior Gateway Protocol", "egrep":"tool An extended version of the Unix grep command.", "Eh":"/A/. Software Portability Group, U Waterloo. A typeless language derived from and similar to B. Provides guaranteed order of evaluation for side effects in expressions. Also character indexing operators.", "eh":"networking The country code for Western Sahara.", "EHTS":"Emacs HyperText System.", "EIA":"Electronics Industry Association", "EIDE":"Advanced Technology Attachment Interface with Extensions", "Eiffel":"language An object-oriented language produced by Bertrand Meyer in 1985. Eiffel has classes with multiple inheritance and repeated inheritance, deferred classes like Smalltalk's abstract class, and clusters of classes. Objects can have both static types and dynamic types. The dynamic type must be a descendant of the static declared type. Dynamic binding resolves multiple inheritance clashes. It has flattened forms of classes, in which all of the inherited features are added at the same level and generic classes parametrised by type.", "eigenvalue":"mathematics The factor by which a linear transformation multiplies one of its eigenvectors.", "eigenvector":"mathematics A vector which, when acted on by a particular linear transformation, produces a scalar multiple of the original vector. The scalar in question is called the eigenvalue corresponding to this eigenvector.", "EIRP":"equivalent isotropically radiated power", "EISA":"Extended Industry-Standard Architecture", "EJB":"Enterprise JavaBeans", "Elan":"[Top-down Programming with Elan, C.H.A. Koster, Ellis Horwood 1987].", "electromigration":"electronics Mass transport due to momentum exchange between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms.", "electron":"electronics A sub-atomic particle with a negative quantised charge. A flow of electrical current consists of the unidirectional on average movement of many electrons. The more mobile electrons are in a given material, the greater it electrical conductance or equivalently, the lower its resistance.", "elegant":"From Mathematics Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than clever, winning or even cuspy.", "element":"1. data, programming One of the items of data in an array.", "elephant":"Large, grey, four-legged mammal.", "elephantine":"Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous hogs owing perhaps to poor design founded on brute force and ignorance and exceedingly hairy in source form. An elephantine program may be functional and even friendly, but as in the old joke about being in bed with an elephant it's tough to have around all the same and, like a pachyderm, difficult to maintain. In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the mention of the offending program.", "ELF":"Binary format used by System V Release 4 Unix.", "ELI":"1. language An early system on the IBM 705 and IBM 650.", "ELISP":"1. language A Lisp variant originally implemented for DEC-20s by Chuck Hedrick of Rutgers.", "elite":"1. security A term used to describe skilled crackers or hackers, or their deeds. In the last sense, compare to elegant.", "ELIZA":"artificial intelligence A famous program by Joseph Weizenbaum, which simulated a Rogerian psychoanalyst by rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It worked by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words into canned phrases. It was so convincing, however, that there are many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in dealing with ELIZA. All this was due to people's tendency to attach to words meanings which the computer never put there.", "Elk":"Extension Language Kit", "ELLA":"A hardware design language from DRA Malvern. Implemented in ALGOL68-RS.", "Ellemtel":"A C++ style-guide originated by Ellemtel Telecom Systems, Stockholm.", "Ellie":"language An object-oriented language with fine-grained parallelism for distributed computing. Ellie is based on BETA, Smalltalk, and others. Parallelism is supported by unbounded RPC and future objects. Synchronisation is by dynamic interfaces. Classes, methods, blocks, and objects are all modelled by first-class Ellie objects.", "ELLIS":"EuLisp LInda System. An object-oriented Linda system written for EuLisp. Using Object-Oriented Mechanisms to Describe Linda, P. Broadbery pab@maths.bath.ac.uk et al, in Linda-Like Systems and Their Implementation, G. Wilson ed, U Edinburgh TR 91-13, 1991.", "elm":"messaging A full-screen MUA for Unix, MS-DOS, MS Windows, and OS/2.", "ELMAGUIDE":"language The metalanguage used for interpretation of user actions in the ELMA compiler writer developed at Tallinn Poly Institute in 1978.", "ELMAMETA":"A Fortran extension, written at the Tallinn Poly Inst in 1978, used for lexical, syntactic and semantic sepecification in the ELMA compiler writer. This system was widely used in the Soviet Union, and produced an Ada to Diana compiler.", "ELP":"1. English Language Programs. Language for testing avionics equipment, on Varian 620/i.", "ELSIE":"language A distributed version of ELLIS.", "Elvis":"tool A vi lookalike which supports nearly all of the vi/ex commands, in both visual mode and colon mode.", "elvish":"character 1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the Book of Kells. Invented and described by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of The Rings as an orthography for his fictional elvish languages, this system which is both visually and phonetically elegant has long fascinated hackers who tend to be intrigued by artificial languages in general. It is traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items. By extension, the term might be used for any odd or unreadable typeface produced by a graphics device.", "EM":"End of Medium", "EMA":"Extended Mercury Autocode.", "Emacs":"text, tool /ee'maks/ Editing MACroS, or Extensible MACro System, GNU Emacs A popular screen editor for Unix and most other operating systems.", "EMAS":"Edinburgh Multi Access System", "embedding":"1. mathematics One instance of some mathematical object contained with in another instance, e.g. a group which is a subgroup.", "embosser":"Braille printer", "EMC":"Electromagnetic Compatibility", "EMDIR":"The CERN Electronic Mail DIRectory utility.", "Emerald":"An object-oriented distributed programming language and environment developed at the University of Washington in the early 1980s. Emeral was the successor to EPL. It is strongly typed and uses signatures and prototypes rather than inheritance.", "EMI":"External Machine Interface", "EML":"Extended ML. A language for formally specifying SML programs.", "EMM":"storage Expanded Memory Manager.", "emote":"chat emotion A command used on talk systems and MUDs to indicate the performance of an action, usually a facial expression of emotional state.", "emoticon":"messaging /ee-moh'ti-kon/ Or smiley An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in text-only electronic messaging systems such as chat, electronic mail, SMS or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons are widely recognised if not expected; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause non-serious comments to be misinterpreted, resulting in offence, arguments and flame wars.", "empeg":"hardware An in-car audio product that plays MP3 files from a hard disk. It is based around a DEC/Intel StrongARM S-1100 processor and runs a version of Linux. The user interface is written in Python.", "empire":"games Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game written by Peter Langston many years ago. Five or six multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication exist, and one single-player version implemented for both Unix and VMS; the latter is even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive.", "EMS":"Expanded Memory Specification", "emTeX":"language, text, tool Eberhard Mattes TeX Eberhard Mattes mattes@azu.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de's version of the LaTeX document preparation system designed for DOS and OS/2.", "emulation":"architecture When one system performs in exactly the same way as another, though perhaps not at the same speed. A typical example would be emulation of one computer by a program running on another. You might use an emulation as a replacement for a system whereas you would use a simulation if you just wanted to analyse it and make predictions about it.", "emulator":"Hardware or software that performs emulation.", "EMX":"A programming environment for OS/2 by Eberhard Mattes mattes@azu.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de. EMX supports programming in C, C++ and Objective C. It works with gcc, g++, gdb, libg++, .obj linkage, DLL and headers. Version 0.8g.", "enabling":"software enabling", "encapsulation":"1. The technique used by layered protocols in which a layer adds header information to the protocol data unit PDU from the layer above. As an example, in Internet terminology, a packet would contain a header from the physical layer, followed by a header from the network layer IP, followed by a header from the transport layer TCP, followed by the application protocol data.", "encode":"1. algorithm, hardware To convert data or some physical quantity into a given format. E.g. uuencode.", "encoder":"1. algorithm, hardware Any program, circuit or algorithm which encodes.", "encryption":"algorithm, cryptography Any procedure used in cryptography to convert plaintext into ciphertext encrypted message in order to prevent any but the intended recipient from reading that data.", "endian":"data, architecture Suffix used in the terms big-endian and little-endian that describe the ordering of bytes in a multi-byte number.", "engage":"spelling Do you mean Nokia N-Gage?", "engine":"jargon 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be used without some kind of front end.", "English":"database The official name of the database language used by the Pick operating system, actually a sort of crufty, brain-damaged SQL with delusions of grandeur. The name permits marketroids to say Yes, and you can program our computers in English! to ignorant suits without quite running afoul of the truth-in-advertising laws.", "enhanced":"enhancement", "enhancement":"marketing 1. A change intended to make a product better in some way, e.g. new functions, faster, or occasionally more compatible with other systems. Enhancements to hardware components, especially integrated circuits often mean they are smaller and less demanding of resources. Sadly, this is almost never true of software enhancements.", "ENIAC":"Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer", "Enigma":"hardware, cryptography The electro-mechanical cipher engine used by the Germans in World War II to encrypt and decrypt field orders. Many of their messages were deciphered at Bletchley Park, by Alan Turing and others.", "ENOB":"effective number of bits", "ENQ":"1. character /enkw/ or /enk/ ENQuire. The mnemonic for ASCII character 5.", "enqueue":"queue", "ENS":"body See Ecole Normale Superieure", "enterprise":"body A business, generally a large one.", "EntireX":"operating system The German company Software AG's implementation of DCOM under Unix and on IBM mainframes, released at the end of 1997. EntireX enables users to exchange their DCOM components between Windows 95, Windows NT, Unix and OS/390 and to build application programs with components running on any of those platforms.", "entity":"database In an entity-relationship model, an entity is a type of thing being modeled such as person or product.", "entropy":"theory A measure of the disorder of a system. Systems tend to go from a state of order low entropy to a state of maximum disorder high entropy.", "enumeration":"1. mathematics A bijection with the natural numbers; a counted set.", "environment":"environment variable", "Envoy":"Motorola's integrated personal wireless communicator. Envoy is a personal digital assistant which incorporates two-way wireless and wireline communication. It was announced on 7 March 1994 and released in the third quarter of 1994. It runs Genral Magic's Magic Cap operating system and TelescriptTM communications language on Motorola's Dragon chip set. This includes the highly integrated Motorola 68349 processor and a special purpose application specific integrated circuit ASIC referred to as Astro. This chip set was designed specifically for Magic Cap and Telescript.", "EOF":"End Of File", "EOL":"1. End Of Line.", "EOR":"exclusive or", "EOT":"1. character End Of Transmission", "EOU":"character, humour The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control character End Of User that would make an ASR-33 Teletype explode on receipt. This construction parodies the numerous obscure delimiter and control characters left in ASCII from the days when it was associated more with wire-service teletypes than computers e.g. FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and especially EOT. It is worth remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical beasts with a lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might explode was nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone sitting in front of a tube or flatscreen today.", "EOUG":"European ORACLE Users Group.", "EP":"Emulator program", "EPCS":"Experimental Physics Control Systems", "EPILOG":"1. Extended Programming In LOGic. PROLOG with several AND's having different time constraints.", "EPIM":"Enterprise Product Information Management", "EPL":"1. Early PL/I.", "EPOC":"operating system A family of graphical operating systems developed by Psion for portable devices, primarily PDAs.", "epoch":"1. operating system Probably from astronomical timekeeping A term used originally in Unix documentation for the time and date corresponding to zero in an operating system's clock and timestamp values.", "EPP":"Enhanced Parallel Port", "EPROM":"Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory", "EPROS":"A specification/prototyping language. Implemented in Franz Lisp.", "EPS":"Encapsulated PostScript", "EPSILON":"language A macro language with high level features including strings and lists, developed by A.P. Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967. EPSILON was used to implement ALGOL 68 on the M-220.", "epsilon":"1. character The fifth letter of the Greek alphabet.", "EPSIMONE":"Concurrent simulation language derived from Simone. EPSIMONE Manual, J. Beziin et al, Pub Int No 90, IRISA, Sept 1978.", "EPSS":"Electronic Performance Support System", "EqL":"An equational language. Bharat Jayaraman bharat@cs.buffalo.edu. EqL: The Language and its Implementation, B. Jayaraman et al, IEEE Trans Soft Eng SE-156:771-780 June 1989.", "EQLOG":"Equality, types and generic modules for logic programming.", "EQLog":"OBJ2 plus logic programming based on Horn logic with equality.", "Eqn":"Language for typesetting mathematics.", "equals":"character =, ASCII character 61.", "Equel":"Embedded Quel. INGRES, Inc. Combines QUEL theories with C code.", "ER":"Entity-Relationship", "er":"networking The country code for Eritrea.", "ERA":"Entity-Relationship-Attribute", "era":"Synonym epoch. Webster's Unabridged makes these words almost synonymous, but era usually connotes a span of time rather than a point in time.", "erase":"delete", "ERC":"database An extended entity-relationship model.", "ERCIM":"European Research Consortium on Informatics and Mathematics.", "ERD":"entity-relationship diagram", "ERFPI":"An early system on the LGP-30 computer.", "ergonomic":"Concerning ergonomics or exhibitting good ergonimics.", "ergonomics":"The study of the design and arrangement of equipment so that people will interact with the equipment in healthy, comfortable, and efficient manner. As related to computer equipment, ergonomics is concerned with such factors as the physical design of the keyboard, screens, and related hardware, and the manner in which people interact with these hardware devices.", "Eris":"/e'ris/ The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion, and Things You Know Not Of; her name was latinised to Discordia and she was worshiped by that name in Rome. Not a very friendly deity in the Classical original, she was reinvented as a more benign personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the adherents of Discordianism and has since been a semi-serious subject of veneration in several fringe cultures, including hackerdom.", "Erlang":"1. person Agner Krarup Erlang. The other senses were named after him.", "ERM":"Electronic Report Management", "erotica":"pornography", "ERP":"Enterprise Resource Planning", "error":"1. A discrepancy between a computed, observed, or measured value or condition and the true, specified, or theoretically correct value or condition.", "es":"1. networking The country code for Spain.", "ESA":"1. architecture Enterprise Systems Architecture.", "ESC":"escape", "ESCAPE":"language An early system on the IBM 650.", "escape":"character ESC ASCII character 27.", "ESCD":"Extended System Configuration Data", "ESCON":"Enterprise Systems CONnectivity", "escrow":"security An arrangement where something generally money or documents is held in trust in escrow by a trusted third party until certain agreed conditions are met. In computing the term is used for key escrow and also for source code escrow.", "ESD":"Electrostatic Discharge", "ESDI":"Enhanced Small Disk Interface", "ESF":"Eureka Software Factory.", "ESI":"1. European Software Institute.", "esim":"A language for simulation of VLSI at the switch level.", "ESL":"Expert Systems Ltd.", "ESLPDPRO":"ESL public domain version of Edinburgh Prolog for MS-DOS. The code is totally compatible with C-Prolog.", "ESML":"Extended Systems Modelling Language", "ESMTP":"messaging, protocol Extended SMTP. Initially defined in RFC 1869 and extended thereafter.", "esolang":"esoteric programming language", "ESP":"1. Extra Simple Pascal. Subset of Pascal.", "ESPOL":"Executive Systems Programming Oriented Language", "ESPRIT":"European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology", "ESR":"Eric S. Raymond", "Estelle":"A Pascal extension for formal specification of computer network protocols. Protocols are described by modules which are communicating NFAs. Modules are arranged in a dynamic hierarchy and communicate at named interaction points.", "Esterel":"A distributed language for synchronous interaction of real-time systems with their environment. Uses explicit timing requests. Esterel programs are compiled into finite automata.", "EstPC":"A compiler from Estelle to C.", "ET":"Bernd Gersdorf, U Bremen. An integration of functional and logic programming.", "et":"networking The country code for Ethiopia.", "ETB":"End Transmission Block", "ETC":"ExTendible Compiler", "ETHER":"language A concurrent object-oriented language?", "EtherGate":"Multi-protocol Ethernet gateway made by LRT.", "Ethernet":"networking A local area network first described by Metcalfe & Boggs of Xerox PARC in 1976. Specified by DEC, Intel and XEROX DIX as IEEE 802.3 and now recognised as the industry standard.", "EtherTalk":"networking An Apple Computer network standard used to extend an AppleTalk network across an Ethernet network.", "ethics":"computer ethics", "ETL":"database The processes of Extracting, Transforming or Transporting, and Loading data from source systems into a data warehouse.", "ETM":"database An active DBMS from the University of Karlsruhe.", "ETRN":"messaging, protocol Extended TURN An ESMTP command first defined in RFC 1985 with which a client asks the server to deliver queued mail to the client via a new ESMTP connection.", "ETSI":"European Telecommunications Standards Institute", "ETX":"End Of Text", "Euclid":"language Named after the Greek geometer, fl ca 300 BC. A Pascal descendant for development of verifiable system software. No goto, no side effects, no global assignments, no functional arguments, no nested procedures, no floats, no enumeration types. Pointers are treated as indices of special arrays called collections. To prevent aliasing, Euclid forbids any overlap in the list of actual parameters of a procedure. Each procedure gives an imports list, and the compiler determines the identifiers that are implicitly imported. Iterators.", "Eudora":"Electronic mail software for communicating over TCP/IP from Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, and IBM OS/2 computers. Both commercial and free versions are produced by QUALCOMM, Inc.", "EULA":"end-user license agreement", "EULER":"[Named after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler 1707-1783] A revision of ALGOL by Niklaus Wirth. A small predecessor of Pascal.", "EuLisp":"1985-present. A Lisp dialect intended to be a common European standard, with influences from Common LISP, Le LISP, Scheme and T. First-class functions, classes and continuations, both static scope and dynamic scope, modules, support for parallelism. The class system TELOS incorporates ideas from CLOS, ObjVLisp and Oaklisp.", "Euphoria":"End User Programming with Hierarchical Objects for Robust Interpreted Applications. Interpreted language with dynamic storage and dynamic typing. Rapid Deployment Software.", "Eureka":"A European technological development programme.", "Eurisko":"artificial intelligence A language for opportunistic programming written by Doug Lenat in 1978. Eurisko constructs its own methods and modifies its strategies as it tries to solve a problem.", "Eurocard":"A range of standard circuit board sizes.", "EuroNet":"company An IAP from Amsterdam, The Netherlands operating since 1994-08-01 and owned by France Telecom since 1998-11-06.", "EuropaNET":"A combination of pan-European backbone services run by DANTE.", "EUUG":"European Unix User Group", "Eva":"1. A toy ALGOL-like language used in Formal Specification of Programming Languages: A Panoramic Primer, F.G. Pagan, P-H 1981.", "EVALUATE":"programming The COBOL85 keyword for a switch statement.", "evaluation":"programming 1. Converting an expression into a value using some reduction strategy.", "evaluator":"theory Geoff Burn defines evaluators E0, E1, E2 and E3 which when applied to an expression, reduce it to varying degrees.", "EVE":"Extensible VAX Editor", "event":"1. software An occurrence or happening of significance to a task or program, such as the completion of an asynchronous input/output operation. A task may wait for an event or any of a set of events or it may request to receive asynchronous notification a signal or interrupt that the event has occurred.", "EVGA":"Extended Video Graphics Array", "EWOS":"European Workshop for Open Systems", "Exabyte":"company, storage A company and, by extension, a tape format for computer data backup and transfer. The tape is a data quality 8mm video cassette recorder tape. Exabyte units can store between five and fourteen gigabytes of data per tape. Exabytes are usually attached to Unix workstations.", "exabyte":"unit, data EB A unit of data equal to 10^18 bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions. An exabyte is exactly 1000^6 bytes or 1000 petabytes.", "EXAPT":"EXtended APT.", "Exceed":"interface A tool to display remote X Window System applications on Microsoft Windows. Exceed is not an X server.", "Excel":"Microsoft Excel", "Excelan":"Manufacturers of intelligent Ethernet cards. Software and addresses are down-loadable. The cards have their own RAM for buffers.", "Excelerator":"A set of CASE tools from Index Technology Corporation.", "exception":"An error condition that changes the normal flow of control in a program. An exception may be generated raised by hardware or software. Hardware exceptions include reset, interrupt or a signal from a memory management unit. Exceptions may be generated by the arithmetic logic unit or floating-point unit for numerical errors such as divide by zero, overflow or underflow or instruction decoding errors such as privileged, reserved, trap or undefined instructions. Software exceptions are even more varied and the term could be applied to any kind of error checking which alters the normal behaviour of the program.", "EXCH":"jargon /eks'ch*/ or /eksch/ To exchange two things, each for the other; to swap places. If you point to two people sitting down and say Exch!, you are asking them to trade places.", "excl":"exclamation mark", "EXCP":"Execute Channel Program", "EXE":"/eks'ee/ or /eek'see/ or /E-X-E/ An executable binary file.", "EXEC":"language An early batch language for the IBM VM/CMS systems.", "exec":"/eg-zek'/ operating system 1. execute.", "executable":"operating system A binary file containing a program in machine language which is ready to be executed run.", "execute":"execution", "execution":"operating system, programming The process of carrying out the instructions in a computer program by a computer.", "executive":"operating system The command interpreter or shell for an operating system. The term is used especially around mainframes and probably derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and current in 2000 EXEC 8 operating systems.", "exit":"1. programming A library function in the C and Unix run-time library that causes the program to terminate and return control to the shell. The alternative to calling exit is simply to fall off the end of the program or its top-level, main, routine.", "EXODUS":"database An extensible database project developed at the University of Wisconsin.", "eXodus":"A package from White Pines allowing the Macintosh to be used as an X server.", "EXOS":"A brand of Ethernet controller card and Ethernet software for Unix.", "expect":"language, tool A Unix tool written in Tcl and a script language for automating the operation of interactive applications such as telnet, FTP, passwd, fsck, rlogin, tip, etc.. Expect can feed input to other programs and perform pattern matching on their output. It is also useful for testing these applications. By adding Tk, you can also wrap interactive applications in X11 GUIs.", "exploit":"security A security vulnerability or an instance of taking advantage of a security vulnerability.", "exponent":"programming Or characteristic The part of a floating-point number specifying the power of ten by which the mantissa should be multiplied. In the common notation, e.g. 3.1E8, the exponent is 8.", "exponential":"1. mathematics A function which raises some given constant the base to the power of its argument. I.e.", "Express":"1. A language supporting concurrency through message passing to named message queues from ParaSoft Corporation", "expression":"programming Any piece of program code in a high-level language which, when if its execution terminates, returns a value. In most programming languages, expressions consist of constants, variables, operators, functions, and parentheses.", "extend":"programming To add features to a program, especially through the use of hooks.", "extensible":"programming Said of a system e.g., program, file format, programming language, protocol, etc. designed to easily allow the addition of new features at a later date, e.g. through the use of hooks, an API or plug-ins.", "extension":"1. filename extension filename extension.", "extensional":"Extensional properties, e.g. extensional equality, relate to the black-box behaviour of an object, i.e. how its output depends on its input. The opposite is intensional which concerns how the object is implemented.", "extensionality":"extensional equality", "EXTRA":"Object-oriented, Pascal style, handles sets. A Data Model and Query Language for EXODUS, M.J. Carey et al, SIGMOD 88 Conf Proc, pp.413- 423, ACM SIGMOD Record 17:3 Sept 1988.", "extranet":"web The extension of a company's intranet out onto the Internet, e.g. to allow selected customers, suppliers and mobile workers to access the company's private data and applications via the web. This is in contrast to, and usually in addition to, the company's public website which is accessible to everyone. The difference can be somewhat blurred but generally an extranet implies real-time access through a firewall of some kind.", "extrapolate":"extrapolation", "extrapolation":"mathematics, algorithm A mathematical procedure which estimates values of a function for certain desired inputs given values for known inputs.", "EXUG":"European X User Group", "EZ":"High-level string-processing language derived from SNOBOL4, SL5 and Icon.", "ezd":"graphics, tool Easy drawing A graphics server that sits between an application program and an X server and allows both existing and new programs easy access to structured graphics. Ezd users have been able to have their programs produce interactive drawings within hours of reading the manual page. Ezd supports structured graphics - application defined graphical objects are ordered into drawings by the application. Unlike most X tools, ezd does not require any event handling by the application. The ezd server maintains the window contents. When an event occurs an application supplied Scheme expression is evaluated.", "FAC":"Functional Array Calculator. An APL-like language, but purely functional and lazy. It allows infinite arrays.", "Facile":"language A concurrent extension of ML from ECRC.", "facsimile":"communications fax A process by which fixed graphic material including pictures, text, or images is scanned and the information converted into electrical signals which are transmitted via telephone to produce a paper copy of the graphics on the receiving fax machine.", "FACT":"Fully Automated Compiling Technique", "fact":"artificial intelligence, programming The kind of clause used in logic programming which has no subgoals and so is always true always succeeds. E.g.", "factor":"A quantity which is multiplied by another quantity.", "factorial":"mathematics The mathematical function that takes a natural number, N, and returns the product of N and all smaller positive integers. This is written", "FAD":"[FAD, A Simple and Powerful Database Language, F. Bancilon et al, Proc 13th Intl Conf on VLDB, Brighton, England, Sep 1987].", "failback":"failover", "failover":"systems Automatically switching to a different, redundant system upon failure or abnormal termination of the currently active system. Failover can be applied to a cluster of servers, to network or storage components or any other set of redundant devices that must provide high availability because down-time would be expensive or inconvenient. It may be implemented in hardware, software or a combination.", "failure":"The inability of a system or system component to perform a required function within specified limits. A failure may be produced when a fault is encountered.", "FAIR":"language An early system on the IBM 705.", "FALSE":"A small, compiled extensible language with lambda abstractions by W. van Oortmerssen.", "FAP":"language The assembly language for Sperry-Rand 1103 and 1103A.", "FAQ":"frequently asked question", "FAQL":"frequently asked question", "faradise":"/far'*-di:z/ [US Geological Survey] To start any hyper-addictive process or trend, or to continue adding current to such a trend. Telling one user about a new octo-tetris game you compiled would be a faradising act - in two weeks you might find your entire department playing the faradic game.", "farkled":"jargon /far'kld/ From DeVry Institute of Technology, Atlanta A synonym for hosed. Possibly related to Yiddish farblondjet and/or the Farkle Family skits on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.", "farm":"processor farm", "farming":"jargon From Adelaide University, Australia What the heads of a disk drive are said to do when they plow little furrows in the magnetic media during a head crash.", "FARNET":"A non-profit corporation, established in 1987, whose mission is to advance the use of computer networks to improve research and education.", "fas":"1. Frankenstein Cross Assemblers. A reconfigurable assembler package, especially suited for 8-bit processors, consisting of a base assembler module and a yacc parser, for each microprocessor, to handle mnemonics and addressing.", "FASBOL":"[FASBOL. A SNOBOL4 Compiler, P.J. Santos, Memo ERL-M134, UC Berkeley 1971].", "fascist":"jargon Said of a computer system with excessive or annoying security barriers, usage limits, or access policies. The implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from getting interesting work done. The variant fascistic seems to have been preferred at MIT.", "FASE":"Fundamentally Analyzable Simplified English.", "FAST":"1. body Federation Against Software Theft.", "FAT":"File Allocation Table", "fatal":"programming Resulting in termination of the program.", "fault":"1. programming A manifestation of an error in software.", "fax":"facsimile", "FC":"language A functional language.", "FCB":"operating system file control block.", "FCP":"Flat Concurrent Prolog.", "FCS":"Frame Check Sequence", "FDC":"floppy disk controller", "FDD":"disk drive", "FDDI":"Fiber Distributed Data Interface", "FDISK":"operating system, tool Fixed disk utility An MS-DOS utility program which prepares a hard disk so that it can be used as a boot disk and file systems can be created on it.", "fdlibm":"A new version of the C maths library, libm, by Dr. K-C Ng.", "FDMA":"frequency division multiple access", "FDSE":"full-duplex Switched Ethernet", "FDSP":"full-duplex speaker phone", "FDT":"Formal Description Technique", "fdx":"full-duplex", "FEA":"finite element analysis", "feasible":"algorithm A description of an algorithm that takes polynomial time that is, for a problem set of size N, the resources required to solve the problem can be expressed as some polynomial involving N.", "feature":"jargon 1. A good property or behaviour as of a program.", "featurectomy":"/feech*r-ekt*-mee/ The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavours, the righteous and the reluctant. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and better way to achieve the same end. Doing so is not quite the same thing as removing a misfeature. Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed.", "FEC":"Forward Error Correction", "FED":"field emission display", "federation":"security The establishment of some or all of business agreements, cryptographic trust and user identifiers or attributes across security and policy domains to enable more seamless business interaction.", "Fedora":"operating system, project An open source project, sponsored by Red Hat, Inc., and potentially feeding into their products.", "feed":"1. data data feed.", "feedback":"electronics Part of a system output presented at its input.", "Feel":"Free and Eventually Eulisp An initial implementation of an EuLisp interpreter by Pete Broadbery pab@maths.bath.ac.uk. Version 0.75 features an integrated object system, modules, parallelism, interfaces to PVM library, TCP/IP sockets, futures, Linda and CSP.", "feep":"/feep/ 1. The soft electronic bell sound of a display terminal except for a VT-52; a beep in fact, the microcomputer world seems to prefer beep.", "feeper":"/fee'pr/ The device in a terminal or workstation usually a loudspeaker of some kind that makes the feep sound.", "FEL":"Function Equation Language. Programs are sets of definitions.", "fence":"1. A sequence of one or more distinguished out-of-band characters or other data items, used to delimit a piece of data intended to be treated as a unit the computer-science literature calls this a sentinel. The NUL ASCII 0000000 character that terminates strings in C is a fence. Hex FF is also though slightly less frequently used this way. See zigamorph.", "FEPROM":"Flash Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory", "Fetch":"A Macintosh program by Jim Matthews Fetch@Dartmouth.edu for transferring files using File Transfer Protocol FTP.", "FF":"form feed", "ffccc":"Floppy Fortran coding convention checker.", "FFP":"Formal FP. A language similar to FP, but with regular sugarless syntax, for machine execution.", "FFT":"Fast Fourier Transform", "FGDC":"Federal Geographic Data Committee", "FGHC":"Flat GHC. A flat variant of GHC in which guard calls can be only to primitives.", "FGL":"1. Flow Graph Lisp. A distributed dataflow language for AMPS Applicative Multi-Processing System. A Loosely-Coupled Applicative Multi-Processing System, R. Keller et al, NCC, AFIPS June 1979, pp.613- 622.", "FGRAAL":"Fortran extended GRAph Algorithmic Language. A Fortran extension for handling sets and graphs. On a Programming Language for Graph Algorithms, W.C. Rheinboldt et al, BIT 122 1972.", "fgrep":"tool A variant of the Unix grep command which searches for fixed uninterpreted strings rather than regular expressions. Surprisingly, this is not always faster.", "FhG":"Fraunhofer Gesellschaft", "FHS":"Filesystem Hierarchy Standard", "FHSS":"Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum", "fi":"networking The country code for Finland.", "FIDIL":"Based on maps, generalised arrays whose index sets domains are arbitrary D-dimensional sets. Domains are first-class objects and may be constructed by union, intersection, etc.", "FIDO":"language FInite DOmains A constraint language implemented on top of Prolog.", "FidoNet":"messaging, networking, history A worldwide hobbyist network of personal computers which exchanged e-mail, discussion groups, and files. Founded in 1984 and originally consisting only of IBM PCs and compatibles, FidoNet grew to include such diverse machines as Apple IIs, Ataris, Amigas and Unix systems.", "Fidonews":"messaging, history The weekly official on-line newsletter of FidoNet, also known as 'Snooz. As the editorial policy of Fidonews was anything that arrives, we print, there were often large articles completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend to elicit flamage in subsequent issues.", "field":"data, database An area of a database record, or graphical user interface form, into which a particular item of data is entered.", "FIFO":"first-in first-out", "Fifth":"An enhanced version of FORTH. M.S. Dissertation, Cliff Click cliff@cs.rice.edu, Texas A&M, 1985. Available from the Software Construction Co, 409696-5432.", "file":"file system An element of data storage in a file system.", "FileMaker":"software A database application developed by Claris. It is currently the leading database application for the Macintosh and is the second most popular standalone package for Windows.", "FileNet":"storage A system for storage of images on laser disk using COLD.", "filk":"/filk/ [SF fandom, where a typo for folk was adopted as a new word] A popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read, and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions.", "FILO":"stack", "Filtabyte":"networking, hardware An Ethernet controller card made by LRT based on the LANCE and SIA. It uses DMA. Its Ethernet address can be changed by software.", "filter":"1. Originally Unix, now also MS-DOS A program that processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a pipeline see plumbing. Compare sponge.", "FIMS":"Form Interface Management System", "Finder":"operating system The part of the Macintosh Operating System and GUI that simulates the desktop. The multitasking version of Finder was called MultiFinder until multitasking was integrated into the core of the OS with the introduction of System 7.0 in 1990.", "finger":"tool A Unix program that displays information about a particular user or all users logged on the system, or a remote system. Finger typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line, and terminal location where applicable. It may also display a plan file left by the user see also Hacking X for Y. Some versions take a -l long argument which yields more information.", "finite":"compact", "finn":"jargon, chat To pull rank on somebody based on the amount of time one has spent on IRC. The term derives from the fact that IRC was originally written in Finland in 1987.", "FIPS":"Federal Information Processing Standards", "FIR":"1. electronics Finite Impulse Response filter.", "firebottle":"electron tube", "firefighting":"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 the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires.", "Firefox":"web A complete free, open-source web browser from the Mozilla Foundation and therefore a true code descendent of Netscape Navigator. The first non-beta release was in late 2004.", "firewall":"1. firewall code.", "FireWire":"High Performance Serial Bus", "Firmware":"Software stored in read-only memory ROM or programmable ROM PROM. Easier to change than hardware but harder than software stored on disk. Firmware is often responsible for the behaviour of a system when it is first switched on. A typical example would be a monitor program in a microcomputer which loads the full operating system from disk or from a network and then passes control to it.", "firmy":"stiffy", "fish":"Adelaide University, Australia 1. Another metasyntactic variable. See foo. Derived originally from the Monty Python skit in the middle of The Meaning of Life entitled Find the Fish.", "FITNR":"Thinking Machines, Inc. Fixed In the Next Release.", "FITS":"Flexible Image Transport System. The standard data interchange and archive format of the astronomy community.", "FIX":"1. networking Federal Information Exchange.", "fix":"1. mathematics The fixed point combinator. Called Y in combinatory logic. Fix is a higher-order function which returns a fixed point of its argument which is a function.", "FIXME":"programming A standard tag often put in comments near a piece of code that needs work. The point of doing so is that a grep or a similar pattern-matching tool can find all such places quickly. This is common in GNU code. Compare XXX.", "fixpoint":"fixed point", "fj":"networking The country code for Fiji.", "Fjolnir":"language An Icelandic programming language for the IBM PC from the University of Iceland.", "fk":"networking The country code for the Falkland Islands Malvinas.", "FL":"language Function Level.", "flag":"1. programming A variable or quantity that can take on one of two values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done. This flag controls whether to clear the screen before printing the message. The program status word contains several flag bits. See also hidden flag, mode bit.", "FLAIR":"language An early system on the IBM 650.", "flaky":"Or flakey Subject to frequent lossage. This use is of course related to the common slang use of the word to describe a person as eccentric, crazy, or just unreliable. A system that is flaky is working, sort of - enough that you are tempted to try to use it - but fails frequently enough that the odds in favour of finishing what you start are low.", "flamage":"flame", "flame":"messaging To rant, to speak or write incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude or with hostility toward a particular person or group of people. Flame is used as a verb Don't flame me for this, but..., a flame is a single flaming message, and flamage /flay'm*j/ the content.", "flamer":"jargon, person Or pain in the net One who habitually flames. Said especially of obnoxious Usenet personalities.", "flaming":"flame", "FLAP":"A symbolic mathematics package for IBM 360.", "flap":"1. storage, jargon To unload a DECtape so it goes flap, flap, flap. Old-time hackers at MIT tell of the days when the disk was device 0 and microtapes were 1, 2, etc. and attempting to flap device 0 would instead start a motor banging inside a cabinet near the disk.", "flarp":"/flarp/ [Rutgers University] Yet another metasyntactic variable see foo. Among those who use it, it is associated with a legend that any program not containing the word flarp somewhere will not work. The legend is discreetly silent on the reliability of programs which *do* contain the magic word.", "Flash":"file format, web Or Shockwave Flash A file format for delivering interactive vector graphics and animation on the web, developed by Macromedia.", "flash":"1. file format Adobe Flash.", "flat":"1. Lacking any complex internal structure. That bitty box has only a flat file system, not a hierarchical one. The verb form is flatten. Usually used pejoratively at least with respect to file systems.", "flatten":"To remove structural information, especially to filter something with an implicit tree structure into a simple sequence of leaves; also tends to imply mapping to flat ASCII. This code flattens an expression with parentheses into an equivalent canonical form.", "Flavors":"language A Lisp variant for the LISP Machine, with object-oriented features, developed by D. Weinreb and D.A. Moon moon@cambridge.apple.com in 1980. Classes were called Flavors in the language.", "Fleng":"A parallel logic language.", "FLEX":"language 1. Faster LEX.", "Flex":"software, hardware A system developed by Ian Currie Iain? at the then Royal Signals and Radar Establishment at Malvern in the late 1970s. The hardware was custom and microprogrammable, with an operating system, modular compiler, editor, garbage collector and filing system all written in Algol-68. Flex was also re-implemented on the Perq?.", "FLI":"Flash Lights Impressively.", "flib":"/flib/ WPI A meta-number, said to be an integer between 3 and 4.", "FLIC":"Functional Language Intermediate Code.", "FLIP":"1. An early assembly language on the G-15.", "flippy":"storage /flip'ee/ A single-sided floppy disk altered for double-sided use by addition of a second write-notch, so called because it must be flipped over for the second side the flip side to be accessible. Used in the Commodore 1541 and elsewhere. No longer common.", "float":"programming The usual keyword for the floating-point data type, e.g. in the C programming language. The keyword double usually also introduces a floating-point type, but with twice the precession of a float.", "floater":"programming A report in a bug tracking system that floats at the top of the queue but never gets assigned to a developer, maybe because there is a workaround.", "flood":"chat On a real-time network whether at the level of TCP/IP, or at the level of, say, IRC, to send a huge amount of data to another user or a group of users, in a channel in an attempt to annoy him, lock his terminal, or to overflow his network buffer and thus lose his network connection.", "FLOP":"1. An early system on the IBM 701.", "Floppy":"programming, tool A Fortran coding convention checker.", "floppy":"floppy disk", "FLOPS":"Floating-point operations per second.", "Flops":"benchmark The MFLOPS benchmark.", "floptical":"hardware, storage From floppy disk and optical A floppy disk which uses an optical tracking mechanism to improve the positioning accuracy of an ordinary magnetic head, thereby allowing more tracks and greater density.", "Flow":"tool A companion utility to Floppy by Julian James Bunn julian@vxcrna.cxern.ch. Flow allows the user to produce various reports on the structure of Fortran 77 code, such as flow diagrams and common block tables. It runs under VMS, Unix, CMS.", "FLPL":"Fortran List Processing Language. A package of Fortran subroutines for handling lists by H. Gelernter et al, ca 1960.", "FLUB":"language The abstract machine for bootstrapping STAGE2.", "flush":"data To delete something, usually superfluous, or to abort an operation.", "flytrap":"firewall machine", "FM":"1. communications Frequency Modulation.", "fm":"networking The country code for the Federated States of Micronesia.", "FMPL":"Frobozz Magic Programming Language", "FMQ":"A BNF-based paser generator with an error corrector generator, by Jon Mauney.", "FMS":"Flexible Manufacturing System factory automation.", "FMV":"video", "FNAL":"Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Illinois, USA.", "FNC":"Federal Networking Council", "fnord":"1. convention A word used in electronic mail and news messages to tag utterances as surrealist mind-play or humour, especially in connection with Discordianism and elaborate conspiracy theories. I heard that David Koresh is sharing an apartment in Argentina with Hitler. Fnord. Where can I fnord get the Principia Discordia from?", "fo":"networking The country code for the Faroe Islands.", "FOAD":"chat fuck off and die.", "FOAF":"[Usenet] Friend Of A Friend. The source of an unverified, possibly untrue story. This term was not originated by hackers it is used in Jan Brunvand's books on urban folklore, but is much better recognised on Usenet and elsewhere than in mainstream English.", "FOCAL":"1. FOrmula CALculator.", "FOCL":"An expert system shell and backward chaining rule interpreter for the Macintosh.", "FOCUS":"database, language A hierarchical database language from Information Builders, Inc.", "FOD":"/fod/ [Abbreviation for Finger of Death, originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. From MUDs where the wizard command FOD player results in the immediate and total death of player, usually as punishment for obnoxious behaviour. This usage migrated to other circumstances, such as I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the cycles. Compare gun.", "FOIL":"File Oriented Interpretive Language. CAI language.", "FoIP":"Fax over IP", "FOIRL":"Fiber Optic InterRepeater Link", "folder":"directory", "FOLDOC":"Free On-line Dictionary of Computing", "followup":"On Usenet, a posting generated in response to another posting as opposed to a reply, which goes by e-mail rather than being broadcast. Followups include the ID of the parent message in their headers; smart news-readers can use this information to present Usenet news in conversation sequence rather than order-of-arrival. See thread.", "font":"text A set of glyphs images representing the characters from some particular character set in a particular size and typeface. The image of each character may be encoded either as a bitmap in a bitmap font or by a higher-level description in terms of lines and areas an outline font.", "fontology":"XEROX PARC The body of knowledge dealing with the construction and use of new fonts e.g. for window systems and typesetting software. It has been said that fontology recapitulates file-ogeny.", "foo":"jargon /foo/ A sample name for absolutely anything, especially programs and files especially scratch files.", "foobar":"jargon Another common metasyntactic variable; see foo.", "foogol":"A tiny ALGOL-like language by Per Lindberg, based on the VALGOL I compiler, G.A. Edgar, DDJ May 1985. Runs on vaxen. Posted to comp.sources.Unix archive volume 8.", "FOOL":"Fool's Lisp. A small Scheme interpreter.", "Foonly":"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 system. The intention was to leapfrog from the old DEC time-sharing system SAIL was then running to a new generation, bypassing TENEX which at that time was the ARPANET standard. ARPA funding for both the Super Foonly and the new operating system was cut in 1974. Most of the design team went to DEC and contributed greatly to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.", "FOOP":"OBJ2 plus object-orientation. Extensions and Foundations for Object-Oriented Programming, J. Goguen et al, in Research Directions in Object-Oriented Programming, B. Shriver et al eds, MIT Press 1987.", "footprint":"1. jargon, hardware The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of hardware.", "for":"for loop", "fora":"forum", "FORC":"Early system on IBM 704. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "Force":"A dBASE dialect for MS-DOS.", "ForceOne":"A programming language by Andrew K. Wright.", "ForceTwo":"An unofficial successor to ForceOne by Andrew K. Wright.", "foreground":"Unix On a time-sharing system, a task executing in foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to the user in contrast to one running in the background.", "Foresight":"graphics, tool A software product from Nu Thena providing graphical modelling tools for high level system design and simulation.", "fork":"operating system A Unix system call used by a process the parent to make a copy the child of itself. The child process is identical to the parent except it has a different process identifier and a zero return value from the fork call. It is assumed to have used no resources.", "forked":"jargon Unix; probably after fucked Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system was slowed to a snail's pace by an inadvertent fork bomb.", "FORM":"mathematics, tool A system written by Jos Vermaseren t68@nikhefh.nikhef.nl in 1989 for fast handling of very large-scale symbolic mathematics problems. FORM is a descendant of Schoonschip and is available for many personal computers and workstations.", "FORMAC":"FORmula MAnipulation Compiler. J. Sammet & Tobey, IBM Boston APD, 1962. An extension of Fortran for symbolic mathematics. Versions: PL/I-FORMAC and FORMAC73.", "FORMAL":"1. FORmula MAnipulation Language.", "format":"1. storage disk format - to prepare a new, blank disk for writing.", "Formes":"language, music An object-oriented language for music composition and synthesis, written in VLISP.", "FORML":"1. language Formal Object Role Modeling Language.", "forms":"1. programming fill-out form.", "formula":"1. In logic, a sequence of symbols representing terms, predicates, connectives and quantifiers which is either true or false.", "Forsythe":"A descendent of Algol 60, intended to be as uniform and general as possible, while retaining the basic character of its progenitor. Forsythe features higher-order procedures and intersection types.", "FORTH":"1. language An interactive extensible language using postfix syntax and a data stack, developed by Charles H. Moore in the 1960s. FORTH is highly user-configurable and there are many different implementations, the following description is of a typical default configuration.", "Fortran":"language Formula Translation The first and, for a long time, the most widely used programming language for numerical and scientific applications. The original versions lacked recursive procedures and block structure and had a line-oriented syntax in which certain columns had special significance.", "FORTRANSIT":"language Fortran Internal Translator.", "Fortrash":"abuse, language /for'trash/ Hackerism for the Fortran language, referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.", "FORTRUNCIBLE":"A cross between Fortran and RUNCIBLE for the IBM 650.", "forum":"messaging Plural fora or forums Any discussion group accessible through a dial-in BBS e.g. GEnie, CI$, a mailing list, or a Usenet newsgroup see network, the. A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit postings for all to read and discussion ensues.", "forward":"messaging verb To send a copy of an electronic mail message that you have received on to one or more other addressees. Most e-mail systems can be configured to do this automatically to all or certain messages, e.g. Unix sendmail looks for a .forward file in the recipient's home directory.", "FORWISS":"Bayerische Forschungszentrum fuer Wissensbasierte Systeme Bavarian research centre for knowledge-based systems in Passau.", "FOSI":"Formatting Output Specification Instance", "FOSIL":"Fredette's Operating System Interface Language", "FOSS":"free open-source software", "fossil":"1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for string escapes in C, in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures. See dusty deck.", "foundation":"The axiom of foundation states that the membership relation is well founded, i.e. that any non-empty collection Y of sets has a member y which is disjoint from Y. This rules out sets which contain themselves directly or indirectly.", "Fox":"Free Objects for Crystallography", "FoxPRO":"database A dBASE IV-like product originally from Fox Software which well before 2000 mutated into Microsoft Visual FoxPro.", "FP":"1. functional programming.", "FPA":"1. hardware floating-point accelerator.", "fpc":"A translator from Backus's FP to C.", "FPGA":"Field-Programmable Gate Array", "FPLMTS":"communications Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications System.", "FPM":"Fast Page Mode Dynamic Random Access Memory", "fprintf":"library Variant of the C library routine printf which prints to a given stream. E.g.", "fps":"frames per second", "FPU":"floating-point unit", "FQDN":"fully qualified domain name", "FQL":"language A functional database language.", "fr":"networking The country code for France.", "FRA":"Wireless Local Loop", "fractal":"mathematics, graphics A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is at least approximately a smaller copy of the whole.", "FRAD":"communications Frame Relay Access Device.", "fragile":"brittle", "fragment":"fragmentation", "fragmentation":"1. networking segmentation.", "FRAM":"Ferroelectric Random Access Memory", "frame":"1. networking A data link layer packet which contains the header and trailer information required by the physical medium. That is, network layer packets are encapsulated to become frames.", "FrameKit":"language A frame language.", "FrameMaker":"text A commercial document preparation program produced by Frame Technology Corporation who were taken over by Adobe Systems, Inc. in 1995/6. FrameMaker is available for a wide variety of workstations and is designed for technical and scientific documents. It uses a powerful system of templates and paragraph styles to control WYSIWYG formatting. It supports graphics, tables, and contents pages among other things.", "framework":"In object-oriented systems, a set of classes that embodies an abstract design for solutions to a number of related problems.", "FRANK":"[Using BINS for Interprocess Communication, P.C.J. Graham, SIGPLAN Notices 202:32-41 Feb 1985].", "Fraps":"application, video A Windows application that can be used with games using DirectX or OpenGL to display the current screen redraw rate in frames per second FPS. Fraps can also measure the frame rate between any two points and can capture stills, audio and video to disk.", "FRED":"Robert Carr. Language used by Framework, Ashton-Tate.", "fred":"1. The personal name most frequently used as a metasyntactic variable see foo. Allegedly popular because it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard QWERTY keyboard.", "frednet":"/fred'net/ Used to refer to some random and uncommon protocol encountered on a network. We're implementing bridging in our router to solve the frednet problem.", "free":"See free software, free variable.", "FreeBSD":"operating system A free operating system based on the BSD 4.4-lite release from Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California at Berkeley.", "FreeHEP":"An organisation offering a repository of software and related information for high energy physics applications.", "Freenet":"Community-based bulletin board system with e-mail, information services, interactive communications, and conferencing.", "FreePPP":"networking The latest incarnation of MacPPP. FreePPP continues to be used by many MacOS users as an alternative to Apple's TCP/IP stack.", "freerexx":"REXX interpreters for Unix in C++.", "freeware":"legal Software, often written by enthusiasts and distributed at no charge by users' groups, or via the web, electronic mail, bulletin boards, Usenet, or other electronic media.", "freeze":"To lock an evolving software distribution or document against changes so it can be released with some hope of stability.", "Fresco":"1. standard, programming An object-oriented API for graphical user interfaces, under development by the X Consortium as an open, multi-vendor standard.", "Fresh":"language", "fried":"1. hardware Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out.", "Friend":"Relationship between classes in the language C++.", "FRINGE":"C. Katz, GE, 1961. Subcomponent of GE-255 GECOM system.", "frink":"/frink/ The unknown ur-verb, fill in your own meaning. Found especially on the Usenet newsgroup news:alt.fan.lemurs, where it is said that the lemurs know what frink means, but they aren't telling.", "friode":"humour, electronics /fri:'ohd/ TMRC A reversible that is, fused, blown, or fried diode. A friode may have been a SED at some time.", "fritterware":"An excess of capability that serves no productive end. The canonical example is font-diddling software on the Mac see macdink; the term describes anything that eats huge amounts of time for quite marginal gains in function but seduces people into using it anyway. See also window shopping.", "FRL":"Frame Representation Language.", "frob":"/frob/ 1. [MIT] The TMRC definition was FROB = a protruding arm or trunnion; by metaphoric extension, a frob is any random small thing; an object that you can comfortably hold in one hand; something you can frob sense 2. See frobnitz.", "frobnicate":"/frob'ni-kayt/ Possibly from frobnitz, and usually abbreviated to frob, but frobnicate is recognised as the official full form. To manipulate or adjust, to tweak.", "frobnitz":"/frob'nits/, plural frobnitzem /frob'nit-zm/ or frobni /frob'ni:/ TMRC An unspecified physical object, a widget.", "frogging":"University of Waterloo 1. Partial corruption of a text file or input stream by some bug or consistent glitch, as opposed to random events like line noise or media failures.", "Frolic":"A Prolog system in Common Lisp.", "frotzed":"jargon /frotst/ down because of hardware problems.", "frowney":"chat Or frowney face See emoticon.", "fry":"1. To fail. Said especially of smoke-producing hardware failures. More generally, to become non-working. Usage: never said of software, only of hardware and humans. See fried, magic smoke.", "FS":"1. file system file system.", "FSB":"front side bus", "fsck":"1. operating system file system check. The Unix program that checks a file system for internal consistency and bad blocks etc. and can repair some faults.", "FSF":"Free Software Foundation", "FSK":"Frequency Shift Keying", "FSL":"Formal Semantics Language.", "FSM":"1. mathematics, algorithm, theory Finite State Machine.", "FSP":"File Service Protocol", "fsplit":"A tool to split up monolithic Fortran programs.", "FT":"fault tolerant", "FTAM":"File Transfer, Access, and Management: an application layer protocol for file transfer and remote manipulation ISO 8571.", "FTP":"File Transfer Protocol", "FTTP":"Do you mean FTP or HTTP?", "FTW":"chat An ambiguous acronym which might stand for any of For The Win the thing just referred to will help you succeed, Forever Two Wheels biker slang, WTF backwards, Fuck The World, Fuck This War, Fun To Watch or something else.", "FTX":"Fault Tolerant Unix", "FUBAR":"1. WWII military slang Fucked up beyond all recognition or repair.", "FUD":"jargon /fuhd/ An acronym invented by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering [Amdahl] products. The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software.", "fudge":"1. 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 fudged it - I'll fix it later.", "Fudgets":"programming From functional widgets Graphical user interface widgets available as The Fudget library - a toolkit for concurrent programming of graphical user interfaces, client/servers and more written in Haskell by Thomas Hallgren hallgren@cs.chalmers.se and Magnus Carlsson magnus@cs.chalmers.se.", "FUDGIT":"A double-precision multi-purpose fitting program by Thomas Koenig ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de. It can manipulate complete columns of numbers in the form of vector arithmetic. FUDGIT is also an expression language interpreter understanding most of C grammar except pointers. Morever, FUDGIT is a front end for any plotting program supporting commands from stdin, e.g. Gnuplot.", "Fugue":"language, music A music language implemented in Xlisp.", "Fujitsu":"company A Japanese elecronics corporation. Fujitsu owns ICL, Amdahl Corporation, and DMR.", "fum":"jargon At Xerox PARC, often the third standard metasyntactic variable after foo and bar. baz is more common outside PARC.", "Fun":"A typed lambda-calculus, similar to SOL[2]. On Understanding Types, Data Abstractions and Polymorphism, L. Cardelli et al, ACM Comp Surveys 174 Dec 1985.", "function":"1. mathematics Or map, mapping If D and C are sets the domain and codomain then a function f from D to C, normally written f : D - C is a subset of D x C such that:", "functional":"1. Working correctly.", "functionality":"programming Waffle for features or function. The capabilities or behaviours of a program, part of a program, or system, seen as the sum of its features. Roughly, the things it can do. Generally used in a comparative sense, e.g. The latest update adds some useful functionality.", "functor":"In category theory, a functor F is an operator on types. F is also considered to be a polymorphic operator on functions with the type", "funky":"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 alone. Often used to describe interfaces. The more bugs something has that nobody has bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the funkier it is. TECO and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's exception handling is extraordinarily funky. Most standards acquire funkiness as they age. The new mailer is installed, but is still somewhat funky; if it bounces your mail for no reason, try resubmitting it. This UART is pretty funky. The data ready line is active-high in interrupt mode and active-low in DMA mode.", "FUNLOG":"Functional programming plus unification. Lazy in the sense that expressions are reduced only if they are not unifiable.", "FunnelWeb":"A literate-programming tool by Ross Williams ross@spam.adelaide.edu.au. It emphasises simplicity and reliability. It provides a macro facility and assists in the production of typeset documentation. It is independent of the input programming language.", "furigana":"human language, Japanese Or rubi Small hiragana, written above kanji and these days sometimes above Latin characters as a phonetic comment and reading aid. The singular and plural are both furigana.", "furrfu":"jargon Written-only rot13 Sheesh!. furrfu evolved in mid-1992 as a response to postings repeating urban myths on newsgroup news:alt.folklore.urban, after some posters complained that Sheesh! as a response to newbies was being overused.", "FUSE":"A DEC software development environment for ULTRIX, offering an integrated toolkit for developing, testing, debugging and maintenance.", "FUSION":"Software package supplied by Network Research Corporation claiming to connect various different configurations of LAN.", "fusion":"programming A program transformation where a composition of two functions is replaced by in-lining them and combining their bodies. E.g.", "FutureBasic":"language A BASIC compiler for the Macintosh.", "futz":"jargon futzing around To waste time on activity that is often experimental and may or may not be productive. Not normally used for game playing.", "fuzzball":"A DEC LSI-11 running a particular suite of homebrewed software written by Dave Mills and assorted co-conspirators, used in the early 1980s for Internet protocol testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFnet backbone sites in its early 56KB-line days. A few were still active on the Internet in early 1991, doing odd jobs such as network time service.", "fweep":"WPI One step below a gweep, a person who uses the system solely to play games and use electronic mail.", "FWIW":"For what it's worth.", "fx":"networking The country code for metropolitan France.", "FXO":"Foreign eXchange Office", "FXS":"Foreign eXchange Subscriber", "FYA":"For your amusement.", "FYI":"For Your Information", "G":"1. unit The abbreviated form of giga-.", "GA":"genetic algorithm", "ga":"networking The country code for Gabon.", "Gabriel":"language A graphical DSP language for simulation and real systems.", "gabriel":"/gay'bree-*l/ After Richard Gabriel An unnecessary in the opinion of the opponent stalling tactic, e.g. tying one's shoelaces or combing one's hair repeatedly, asking the time, etc. Also used to refer to the perpetrator of such tactics.", "GADS":"Picture retrieval language. Integrated Geographical Databases: The GADS Experience, P.E. Mantey et al, in Database Techniques for Pictorial Applications, A. Blaser ed, pp.193-198.", "Gaelic":"For automated test programs. Used in military, essentially replaced by ATLAS.", "gag":"Equivalent to choke, but connotes more disgust. Hey, this is Fortran code. No wonder the C compiler gagged. See also barf.", "GAIA":"GUI Application Interoperability Architecture. An OSF project.", "GAL":"hardware Generic Array Logic.", "Galaxy":"language An extensible language in the vein of EL/1 and RCC.", "Galileo":"[Galileo: A Strongly Typed Interactive Conceptual Language, A. Albano et al, ACM Trans Database Sys 102:230-260 June 1985].", "Gambit":"language A variant of Scheme R3.99 supporting the future construct of Multilisp by Marc Feeley feeley@iro.umontreal.ca. Implementation includes optimising compilers for Macintosh with Toolbox and built-in editor and Motorola 680x0 Unix systems and HP300, BBN GP100 and NeXT. Version 2.0 conforms to the IEEE Scheme standard.", "games":"games The time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted. -- Bertrand Russell.", "GAMMA":"language 1. A language for matrices and generation of mathematical programming reports.", "GAMS":"Guide to Available Mathematical Software", "gamut":"The gamut of a monitor is the set of colours it can display.", "GAN":"Generating and Analyzing Networks. GAN - A System for Generating and Analyzing Activity Networks, A. Schurmann, CACM 1110 Oct 1968.", "GANDALF":"A software development environment from Carnegie Mellon University.", "GAP":"mathematics, tool Groups Algorithms and Programming.", "GAPLog":"General Amalgamated Programming with Logic. LOGPRO group, Linkoping Sweden. A restricted version of constraint logic programming, using S-unification but not restricted to a single domain.", "Gargoyle":"A language for compiler writing.", "Garnet":"1. A graphical object editor and Macintosh environment.", "GARP":"A graphical language for concurrent programming.", "garply":"/gar'plee/ A metasyntactic variable like foo, once popular among SAIL hackers.", "gas":"GNU assembler", "GASP":"1. library Graph Algorithm and Software Package.", "GAT":"Generalized Algebraic Translator. Improved version of IT. On IBM 650 RAMAC.", "GATE":"GAT Extended? Based on IT.", "gate":"hardware A low-level digital logic component. Gates perform Boolean functions e.g. AND, NOT, store bits of data e.g. a flip-flop, and connect and disconnect various parts of the overall circuit to control the flow of data tri-state buffer.", "gated":"networking /gayt-dee/ Gate daemon.", "Gates":"Bill Gates", "gateway":"1. networking A deprecated term for a device that enables data to flow between different networks forming an internet.", "Gauss":"1. person Carl Friedrich Gauss.", "gawk":"tool, language GNU awk. Gawk is a superset of standard awk and includes some Plan 9 features.", "GB":"unit gigabytes or gigabits - see MB. Giga stands for 10^9 - a US billion, or in computing for 2^30.", "Gb":"unit Gigabit. 10^9 bits. Might also be wrongly used for gigabyte GB.", "gb":"networking Great Britain A country code for United Kingdom. uk is generally used instead.", "GBIP":"General Purpose Interface Bus", "GBML":"Genetics Based Machine Learning", "gbps":"gigabits per second", "GC":"1. garbage collection.", "GCAL":"text, tool The Cambridge Phoenix equivalent of troff.", "GCC":"compiler, programming The GNU Compiler Collection, which currently contains front ends for C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Java, and Ada, as well as libraries for these languages libstdc++, libgcj, etc.", "GCL":"General Control Language. A portable job control language.", "GCOS":"operating system /jee'kohs/ An operating system developed by General Electric from 1962; originally called GECOS the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System.", "GCR":"Group Code Recording", "GCT":"programming, tool A test-coverage tool by Brian Marick marick@testing.com, based on GNU C. Version 1.4 was ported to Sun-3, Sun-4, RS/6000, 68000, 88000, HP-PA, IBM 3090, Ultrix, Convex, SCO but not Linux, Solaris, or Microsoft Windows.", "gd":"networking The country code for Grenada.", "GDA":"application Genetic Data Analysis A program by Paul O. Lewis and Dmitri Zaykin, designed to accompany the referenced book, that computes linkage and hardy-weinberg disequilibrium and some genetic distances, and provides method-of-moments estimators for hierarchical F-statistics.", "GDB":"programming, tool GNU debugger. The FSF's source-level debugger for C, C++ and other languages. Developed by many people but most recently Fred Fish fnf@cygnus.com, Stu Grossman grossman@cygnus.com and John Gilmore gnu@cygnus.com all of Cygnus Support. GDB fills the same niche as dbx. Programs must be compiled to include debugging symbols.", "GDBPSK":"Gaussian Differential Binary Phase-Shift Keying", "GDI":"Graphic Display Interface", "GDMO":"Guidelines for the Definition of Managed Objects.", "GDPL":"Generalized Distributed Programming Language. GDPL - A Generalized Distributed Programming Language, K. Ng et al, Proc 4th Intl Conf Distrib Comp Sys, IEEE 1984, pp.69-78.", "GE":"General Electric", "ge":"networking The country code for Georgia.", "GEA":"Graph Extended ALGOL. Extension of ALGOL 60 for graph manipulation, on UNIVAC 1108. A Language for Treating Graphs, S. Crespi-Reghizzi et al, CACM 135 May 1970.", "GEANT":"A simulation, tracking and drawing package for HEP.", "GECOM":"language A language for the GE-255 series, like COBOL with some ALGOL features added, in use around 1964-5. GECOM included many of the early COBOL constructs including report writer and TABSOL programming by truth table. Another planned but unimplemented? component was FRINGE.", "GECOS":"GCOS", "Gedanken":"John Reynolds, 1970. GEDANKEN - A Simple Typeless Language Based on the Principle of Completeness and the Reference Concept, J.C. Reynolds, CACM 135:308-319 May 1970.", "gedanken":"/g*-dahn'kn/ Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested.", "geef":"Ostensibly from gefingerpoken mung.", "geek":"computer geek", "GEI":"A German software engineering company.", "GEM":"operating system One of the first commercially available GUIs. Borrowing heavily from the Macintosh WIMP-style interface it was available for both the IBM compatible market being packaged with Amstrad's original PC series and more successfully for the Atari ST range. The PC version was produced by Digital Research more famous for DR-DOS, their MS-DOS clone, and was not developed very far. The Atari version, however, continued to be developed until the early 1990s and the later versions supported 24-bit colour modes, full colour icons and a nice looking sculpted 3D interface.", "gen":"generate", "generate":"To produce something according to an algorithm or program or set of rules, or as a possibly unintended side effect of the execution of an algorithm or program.", "generation":"An attempt to classify the degree of sophistication of programming languages.", "genericity":"programming The possibility for a language to provided parameterised modules or types. E.g. Listof:Integer or Listof:People.", "Genesia":"An expert system developed by Electricite de France and commercialised by STERIA Paris.", "GENOVA":"An old statistical package still in use on some VM computers.", "gensym":"library /jen'sim/ From the MacLISP for generated symbol To invent a new name for something temporary, in such a way that the name is almost certainly not in conflict with one already in use.", "GEORGE":"language One of the earliest programming languages, developed by Charles Hamblin in 1957. GEORGE was a stack oriented language, using reverse Polish notation. It was implemented on the English Electric DEUCE.", "GEOS":"A small windowing, microkernel less than 64 kbytes long operating system written in heavily bummed assembly language for MS-DOS computers. It multitasks rather nicely on a 6 Mhz Intel 80286 with at least 512K memory.", "GEPURS":"An early system on the IBM 701.", "Gerald":"[Gerald: An Exceptional Lazy Functional Programming Language, A.C. Reeves et al, in Functional Programming, Glasgow 1989, K. Davis et al eds, Springer 1990].", "German":"human language \\j*r'mn\\ A human language written in latin alphabet and spoken in Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland.", "GEST":"Generic Expert System Tool", "getty":"operating system A Unix program which sets terminal type, modes, speed and line discipline for a serial port, and is used in the login process.", "gf":"networking The country code for French Guiana.", "GFDL":"GNU Free Documentation License", "GFLOPS":"gigaflops", "GFR":"Grim File Reaper", "GFS":"Grandfather, Father, Son", "gh":"networking The country code for Ghana.", "GHC":"language", "ghost":"chat Or zombie The image of a user's session on IRC and similar systems, left when the session has been terminated properly or, often, improperly but the server or the network at large believes the connection is still active and belongs to a real user.", "Ghostscript":"graphics, tool The GNU interpreter for PostScript and PDF, with previewers for serval systems and many fonts.", "ghostview":"An X Window System interface to the ghostscript PostScript interpreter.", "GHz":"GigaHertz", "GI":"generic identifier", "gi":"networking The country code for Gibraltar.", "gid":"1. operating system group identifier.", "GIF":"Graphics Interchange Format", "GIFF":"Do you mean GIF or is this some kind of IFF?", "gig":"gigabyte", "gigabit":"unit 2^30 bits, 1,073,741,824 bits.", "gigabyte":"unit, data GB or colloquially gig A unit of data equal to one billion bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions.", "gigaflop":"gigaflops", "gigaflops":"unit GFLOPS One thousand million 10^9 floating point operations per second.", "GigaHertz":"unit GHz Billions of cycles per second.", "GIGO":"Garbage In, Garbage Out", "gilley":"humour Usenet The unit of analogical bogosity.", "gillion":"unit /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ From giga- by analogy with mega/million and tera/trillion 10^9.", "GIN":"A special-purpose macro assembler used to build the GEORGE 3 operating system for ICL1900 series computers.", "GINA":"Generic Interactive Application. An application framework based on Common Lisp and OSF/Motif, designed to simplify the construction of graphical interactive applications.", "Ginger":"A simple functional language from the University of Warwick with parallel constructs.", "GIP":"1. General Interpretive Programme.", "GIPS":"/gips/ or /jips/ [Analogy with MIPS] Giga-Instructions per Second or possibly Gillions of Instructions per Second; see gillion.", "GIRL":"Graph Information Retrieval Language. A language for handling directed graphs.", "GIS":"Geographical Information System", "GIYF":"chat, web Google Is Your Friend. See STFW.", "GKS":"Graphical Kernel System", "GL":"Graphics Language. A graphics package from Silicon Graphics.", "gl":"networking The country code for Greenland.", "Glammar":"A pattern transformation language for text-to-text translation. Used for compiler writing and linguistics.", "glark":"/glark/ To figure something out from context. The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context. Interestingly, the word was originally glork; the context was This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his Metamagical Themas column in the January 1981 Scientific American. It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to glark because glork was already an established jargon term.", "GLASS":"General LAnguage for System Semantics.", "glass":"IBM silicon.", "glassfet":"/glas'fet/ [Analogy with MOSFET] or firebottle A humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.", "GLB":"greatest lower bound", "glibc":"GNU C Library", "Glish":"Glish is an interpretive language for building loosely-coupled distributed systems from modular, event-oriented programs.", "Glisp":"Generalized LISP. D.C. Smith, Aug 1990. A coordinated set of high-level syntaxes for Common LISP. Contains Mlisp, Plisp and ordinary LISP, with an extensible framework for adding others. Written in Plisp.", "glitch":"/glich/ [German glitschen to slip, via Yiddish glitshen, to slide or skid] 1. Electronics When the inputs of a circuit change, and the outputs change to some random value for some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value. If another circuit inspects the output at just the wrong time, reading the random value, the results can be very wrong and very hard to debug a glitch is one of many causes of electronic heisenbugs.", "glob":"file system, programming /glob/ A mechanism that returns a list of pathnames that match a pattern containing wild card characters. Globbing was available in early versions of Unix and, in more limited form, in Microsoft Windows.", "globalisation":"internationalisation", "glork":"/glork/ 1. Used as a name for just about anything.", "GLOS":"Graphics Language Object System.", "GLOW":"language A POP-11 variant with lexical scope.", "GLS":"Guy Lewis Steele, Jr.", "GLU":"language A practical coarse grain implementation of the Lucid dataflow language for networks.", "glue":"jargon A generic term for any interface logic or protocol that connects two component blocks. For example, Blue Glue is IBM's SNA protocol, and hardware designers call anything used to connect large VLSI's or circuit blocks glue logic.", "glyph":"character An image used in the visual representation of characters; roughly speaking, how a character looks. A font is a set of glyphs.", "Glypnir":"1966. An ALGOL-like language with parallel extensions.", "gm":"networking The country code for Gambia.", "GMAP":"GCOS Macro Assembler Program", "GMD":"company Full name: GMD - Forschungszentrum Informationstechnik GmbH German National Research Center for Information Technology.", "GMT":"Universal Time 1", "gn":"networking The country code for Guinea.", "gnarly":"jargon /nar'lee/ Both obscure and hairy. Yow! - the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly! From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang.", "Gnat":"language, tool An Ada compiler written in Ada using the gcc code generator to allow easy porting to a variety of platforms. Gnat is the only Ada compiler that completely implements the Ada standard, including all the annexes.", "GNATS":"GNU Problem Report Management System", "GNN":"Global Network Navigator", "GNOME":"GNU Network Object Model Environment", "GNU":"body, project /g*noo/ 1. A recursive acronym: GNU's Not Unix!. The Free Software Foundation's project to provide a freely distributable replacement for Unix. The GNU Manifesto was published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal but the GNU project started a year and a half earlier when Richard Stallman was trying to get funding to work on his freely distributable editor, Emacs.", "GNUMACS":"/gnoo'maks/ [contraction of GNU Emacs] Often-heard abbreviated name for the GNU project's flagship tool, Emacs. Used especially in contrast with GOSMACS.", "Gnuplot":"tool A command-driven interactive graphing program. Gnuplot can plot two-dimensional functions and data points in many different styles points, lines, error bars; and three-dimensional data points and surfaces in many different styles contour plot, mesh. It supports complex arithmetic and user-defined functions and can label title, axes, and data points. It can output to several different graphics file formats and devices. Command line editing and history are supported and there is extensive on-line help.", "GNUS":"tool, networking GNU news.", "GNUStep":"operating system A GNU implementation of OpenStep. Work has started on an implementation using an existing library written in Objective-C. Much work remains to be done to bring this library close to the OpenStep specifications. Adam Fedor is head of the project.", "Go":"games, application A thinking game with an oriental origin estimated to be around 4000 years old. Nowadays, the game is played by millions of people in most notably China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In the Western world the game is practised by a yearly increasing number of players. On the Internet Go players meet, play and talk 24 hours/day on the Internet Go Server IGS.", "goal":"programming In logic programming, a predicate applied to its arguments which the system attempts to prove by matching it against the clauses of the program. A goal may fail or it may succeed in one or more ways.", "gobble":"jargon", "Godzillagram":"networking /god-zil'*-gram/ From Japan's national hero and datagram 1. A network packet that in theory is a broadcast to every machine in the universe. The typical case is an IP datagram whose destination IP address is [255.255.255.255]. Fortunately, few gateways are foolish enough to attempt to implement this case!", "Goedel":"language After the mathematician Kurt Gödel A declarative, general-purpose language for artificial intelligence based on logic programming. It can be regarded as a successor to Prolog. The type system is based on many-sorted logic with parametric polymorphism.", "Gofer":"language A lazy functional language designed by Mark Jones mpj@cs.nott.ac.uk at the Programming Research Group, Oxford, UK in 1991. It is very similar to Haskell 1.2. It has lazy evaluation, higher order functions, pattern matching, and type classes, lambda, case, conditional and let expressions, and wild card, as and irrefutable patterns. It lacks modules, arrays and standard classes.", "Goffin":"language A definitional constraint language for declarative parallel programming. Goffin systematically integrates equational constraints and functions within a uniform framework of concurrent programming.", "GOL":"General Operating Language. Subsystem of DOCUS. [Sammet 1969, p.678].", "golden":"[Probabaly from folklore's golden egg] When used to describe a magnetic medium e.g. golden disk, golden tape, describes one containing a tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship software version. Compare platinum-iridium.", "GOM":"Good Old MAD.", "gonk":"jargon /gonk/ 1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth beyond any reasonable recognition. In German the term is mythically gonken; in Spanish the verb becomes gonkar.", "gonkulator":"/gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ From Hogan's Heroes, the TV series A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favourite piece of computer hardware.", "GOOD":"Graph-Oriented Object Database", "Google":"web The web search engine that indexes the greatest number of web pages - over two billion by December 2001 and provides a free service that searches this index in less than a second.", "googol":"mathematics The number represented in base-ten by a one with a hundred zeroes after it.", "googolplex":"mathematics The number represented in base-ten by a one with a googol zeroes after it.", "gopher":"networking, protocol A distributed document retrieval system which started as a Campus Wide Information System at the University of Minnesota, and which was popular in the early 1990s.", "Gopherspace":"networking The sum of all files that can be reached using gopher.", "gorets":"/gor'ets/ The unknown ur-noun, fill in your own meaning.", "gorp":"/gorp/ CMU, perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good Old Raisins and Peanuts Another metasyntactic variable, like foo and bar.", "GOSIP":"Government OSI Profile", "GOSMACS":"/goz'maks/ Gosling Emacs. The first Emacs implementation in C, predating but now largely eclipsed by GNU Emacs.", "Gosperism":"/gos'p*r-izm/ A hack, invention, or saying due to arch-hacker R. William Bill Gosper. This notion merits its own term because there are so many of them. Many of the entries in HAKMEM are Gosperisms.", "GOSPL":"Graphics-Oriented Signal Processing Language. A graphical DSP language for simulation.", "gotcha":"jargon, programming A misfeature of a system, especially a programming language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because it both enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected and/or unreasonable in its outcome.", "goto":"programming Or GOTO, go to, GO TO, JUMP, JMP A construct and keyword found in several higher-level programming languages e.g. Fortran, COBOL, BASIC, C to cause an unconditional jump or transfer of control from one point in a program to another. The destination of the jump is usually indicated by a label following the GOTO keyword.", "gov":"networking The top-level domain for US government bodies.", "governance":"information technology governance", "GP":"Early system on UNIVAC I or II. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "gp":"networking The country code for Guadeloupe.", "GPF":"General Protection failure/fault", "GPIB":"IEEE 488", "GPL":"1. General Purpose Language.", "GPM":"General Purpose Macro-generator", "GPRS":"General Packet Radio Service", "GPS":"Global Positioning System", "GPSS":"General Purpose Systems Simulator. Geoffrey Gordon, 1960.", "GPV":"General Public Virus", "GPX":"Early system on UNIVAC II. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "gq":"networking The country code for Equatorial Guinea.", "gr":"networking The country code for Greece.", "GRAAL":"Grail General Recursive Applicative and Algorithmic Language. FP with polyadic combinators. Graal: A Functional Programming System with Uncurryfied Combinators and its Reduction Machine, P. Bellot in ESOP 86, G. Goos ed, LNCS 213, Springer 1986.", "GRAF":"GRaphic Additions to Fortran.", "Graffiti":"Handwriting recognition software for the Newton and Zoomer which recognises symbols that aren't necessarily letters.", "GRAIL":"Graphical Input Language.", "GRAIN":"A pictorial query language.", "grain":"granularity", "GRAM":"An extension of BNF used by the SIS compiler generator.", "grammar":"language A formal definition of the syntactic structure the syntax of a language.", "granularity":"jargon, parallel The size of the units of code under consideration in some context. The term generally refers to the level of detail at which code is considered, e.g. You can specify the granularity for this profiling tool.", "Grapes":"A Modula-like system description language.", "Grapevine":"A distributed system project.", "graph":"1. mathematics A collection of nodes and edges.", "graphics":"graphics Any kind of visible output including text, images, movies, line art and digital photographs; stored in bitmap or vector graphic form.", "GRAPPLE":"GRAPh Processing LanguagE. 1968.", "GRAS":"A public domain graph-oriented database system for software engineering applications from RWTH Aachen.", "GRASPIN":"An Esprit project to develop a personal software engineering environment to support the construction and verification of distributed and non-sequential software systems.", "grault":"/grawlt/ Yet another metasyntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the GOSMACS documentation.", "Gray":"A parser generator written in Forth by Martin Anton Ertl anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at. Gray takes grammars in an extended BNF and produces executable Forth code for recursive descent parsers. There is no special support for error handling. Version 3 runs under Tile Forth Release 2 by Mikael Patel.", "GRE":"Generic Routing Encapsulation", "greek":"1. text, graphics To display text as abstract dots and lines in order to give a preview of layout without actually being legible. This is faster than drawing the characters correctly which may require scaling or other transformations. Greeking is particularly useful when displaying a reduced image of a document where the text would be too small to be legible on the display anyway.", "greeking":"greek", "Green":"language A language proposed by Cii Honeywell-Bull to meet the DoD Ironman requirements which led to Ada. This language won in 1979.", "grep":"tool, information science tool A Unix command for searching files for lines matching a given regular expression RE. Named after the qed/ed editor subcommand g/re/p, where re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it. There are two other variants, fgrep which searches only for fixed strings and egrep which accepts extended REs but is usually the fastest of the three.", "GRG":"A computer algebra system for differential geometry, gravitation and field theory. Version 3.1 works with PSL-based REDUCE 3.3 or 3.4.", "GRIB":"GRid In Binary.", "grick":"/grik/ WPI, first used by Tim Haven to describe grick trigonometry, a shortcut method of determing attack angles in grid-based games like Star Trek Any integral increment of measurement. E.g. Please turn the stereo up a few gricks.", "grilf":"Girl-friend.", "GRIND":"GRaphical INterpretive Display.", "grind":"1. MIT and Berkeley To prettify hardcopy of code, especially LISP code, by reindenting lines, printing keywords and comments in distinct fonts if available, etc. This usage was associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare; prettyprint was and is the generic term for such operations.", "GRIP":"Graph Reduction In Parallel.", "gripenet":"[IBM] A wry and thoroughly unofficial name for IBM's internal VNET system, deriving from its common use by IBMers to voice pointed criticism of IBM management that would be taboo in more formal channels.", "gritch":"/grich/ 1. A complaint often caused by a glitch.", "grix":"/griks/ WPI A meta-number, said to be an integer between 6 and 7. Used either alone or with flib or suffixes such as -ty, -teen, etc. to denote an arbitrary integer see N.", "groff":"GNU roff.", "grok":"/grok/, /grohk/ From the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally to drink and metaphorically to be one with", "gronk":"/gronk/ Popularised by Johnny Hart's comic strip B.C. but the word apparently predates that.", "gronked":"1. Broken. The teletype scanner was gronked, so we took the system down.", "group":"A group G is a non-empty set upon which a binary operator * is defined with the following properties for all a,b,c in G:", "Groupware":"CSCW", "Groupwise":"software, networking A workgroup application suite offering electronic mail and diary scheduling from Novell, Inc.. It can operate on a number of platforms.", "grovel":"1. To work interminably and without apparent progress. Often used transitively with over or through. The file scavenger has been groveling through the /usr directories for 10 minutes now. Compare grind and crunch. Emphatic form: grovel obscenely.", "grunge":"/gruhnj/ 1. That which is grungy, or that which makes it so.", "gry":"human language The suffix referred to in the following puzzle:", "GS":"Group Separator", "gs":"networking The country code for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.", "GSBL":"language", "GSI":"Gensym Standard Interface", "GSL":"Grenoble System Language. M. Berthaud, IBM, Grenoble. GSL Language Reference Manual, M. Berthaud et al, March 1973. A MOL-Based Software Construction System, M. Berthaud et al, in Machine Oriented Higher Level Languages, W. van der Poel, N-H 1974, pp.151-157.", "GSM":"Global System for Mobile Communications", "GSPL":"language Greenberg's System Programming Language.", "GSS":"storage Group-Sweeping Scheduling.", "gt":"networking The country code for Guatemala.", "gtg":"chat Got to go. The user is about to stop chatting.", "GTL":"Gunning Transceiver Logic", "gu":"networking The country code for Guam.", "guard":"programming 1. In functional programming, a Boolean expression attached to a function definition specifying when for what arguments that definition is appropriate.", "gubbish":"jargon /guhb'*sh/ A portmanteau of garbage and rubbish which may have originated with SF author Philip K. Dick Garbage; crap; nonsense. What is all this gubbish? The opposite portmanteau rubbage is also reported.", "GUI":"Graphical User Interface", "GUIDE":"Graphical User Interface Development Environment from Sun.", "Guide":"A hypertext system from the University of Kent GB and OWL for displaying on-line documentation.", "guiltware":"/gilt'weir/ 1. A piece of freeware decorated with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on it and intimating that one is a no-good freeloader if one does not immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money.", "gun":"jargon ITS, from the :GUN command To forcibly terminate a program or job computer, not career. Some idiot left a background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunned it.", "gunch":"/guhnch/ jargon TMRC To push, prod, or poke at a device that has almost but not quite produced the desired result.", "gunzip":"tool, compression The decompression utility corresponding to gzip. In operating systems with links, gunzip is just a link to gzip and its function can be invoked by passing a -d flag to gzip.", "gurfle":"exclamation /ger'fl/ An expression of shocked disbelief.", "guru":"job An expert, especially in Unix guru. Implies not only wizard skill but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, used with a qualifier for other experts on other systems, as in VMS guru.", "GVL":"Graphical View Language. A visual language for specifying interactive graphical output by T.C.N. Graham & J.R. Cordy, Queen's University, Canada.", "gw":"networking The country code for Guinea-Bissau.", "gweep":"/gweep/ To hack, usually at night, or one who does so. At WPI, from 1977 onward, gweeps could often be found at the College Computing Center punching cards or crashing the PDP-10 or, later, the DEC-20. The term has survived the demise of those technologies, however, and is still alive in late 1991. I'm going to go gweep for a while. See you in the morning. I gweep from 8 PM till 3 AM during the week.", "GWHIS":"web A commercial version of NCSA Mosaic for MS Windows 3.x and Windows for Workgroups. GWHIS was released by Quadralay Corporation on 30 September 1994.", "GWM":"Generic Window Manager. An extensible window manager for the X Window System. It is built on top of an interpreter for the WOOL language.", "gy":"networking The country code for Guyana.", "Gypsy":"Specification and verification of concurrent systems software. Message passing using named mailboxes.", "gz":"gzip", "gzip":"tool, compression GNU compression utility. Gzip reduces the size of the named files using Lempel-Ziv LZ77 compression. Whenever possible, each file is replaced by one with the filename extension .gz. Compressed files can be restored to their original form using gzip -d or gunzip or zcat.", "h":"1. A simple markup language intended for quick conversion of existing text to hypertext.", "Habitat":"networking, graphics The original term for on-line graphical virtual communities or worlds. Created at Lucasfilm in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar.", "hack":"jargon 1. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.", "hackathon":"jargon A planned hacking run that is intended to last for about a week with lots of hackers. The term was used in 2005 by the Apache Foundation and the OpenBSD Project, among others.", "hacker":"person, jargon Originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.", "Hackintosh":"1. jargon, computer An Apple Lisa that has been hacked into emulating a Macintosh also called a Mac XL.", "hackish":"jargon /hak'ish/ 1. Said of something that is or involves a hack.", "hackishness":"jargon The quality of being or involving a hack. This term is considered mildly silly.", "hackitude":"jargon An even sillier word for hackishness.", "hair":"[back-formation from hairy] The complications that make something hairy. Decoding TECO commands requires a certain amount of hair. Often seen in the phrase infinite hair, which connotes extreme complexity. Also in hairiferous tending to promote hair growth: GNUMACS elisp encourages lusers to write complex editing modes. Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all right. Or just: Hair squared!", "hairball":"pub/js/hairball.html", "hairy":"1. Annoyingly complicated. DWIM is incredibly hairy.", "HAKMEM":"publication /hak'mem/ MIT AI Memo 239 February 1972. A legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere. The title of the memo really is HAKMEM, which is a 6-letterism for hacks memo. Some of them are very useful techniques, powerful theorems, or interesting unsolved problems, but most fall into the category of mathematical and computer trivia.", "hakspek":"jargon /hak'speek/ A shorthand method of spelling found on many British academic bulletin boards and chat systems.", "HAL":"1. computer HAL 9000, the murdering computer on the spaceship in the science fiction classic 2001, A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark.", "halftone":"graphics The reproducion of greyscale images using dots of a single shade but varying size to simulate the different shades of grey.", "HALGOL":"language A simple language from Hewlett-Packard for communicating with devices such as modems and X.25 PADs.", "HALMAT":"Intermediate language used by HAL/S.", "Hamilton":"William Hamilton", "hammer":"Commonwealth hackish synonym for bang on.", "hamster":"1. programming From Fairchild A particularly slick little piece of code that does one thing well; a small, self-contained hack. The image is of a hamster happily spinning its exercise wheel.", "HAND":"chat Have A Nice Day. Often used sarcastically and in connection with HTH, as in:", "Handel":"language An imperative language with primitives for controlling parallel programs.", "handle":"1. programming, operating system A simple item of data that identifies a resource. For example, a Unix file handle identifies an open file and associated data such as whether it was opened for read or write and the current read/write position. On the Macintosh, a handle is a pointer to a pointer to some dynamically-allocated memory. The extra level of indirection allows on-the-fly memory compaction or garbage collection without invalidating application program references to the allocated memory.", "handoff":"handover", "handover":"communications HO, or handoff the mechanism by which an on-going cellular connection between a mobile terminal MT, typically a mobile phone or mobile host MH and a corresponding terminal or host is transferred from one point of access of the fixed network to another.", "handshake":"handshaking", "handshaking":"1. Predetermined hardware or software activity designed to establish or maintain two machines or programs in synchronisation. Handshaking often concerns the exchange of messages or packets of data between two systems with limited buffers. A simple handshaking protocol might only involve the receiver sending a message meaning I received your last message and I am ready for you to send me another one. A more complex handshaking protocol might allow the sender to ask the receiver if he is ready to receive or for the receiver to reply with a negative acknowledgement meaning I did not receive your last message correctly, please resend it e.g. if the data was corrupted en route.", "handwave":"[possibly from gestures characteristic of stage magicians] To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a possibly actually valid point with blatantly faulty logic.", "hang":"1. To wait for an event that will never occur. The system is hanging because it can't read from the crashed drive. See wedged, hung.", "hanja":"Han characters", "Hanoi":"Towers of Hanoi", "hanzi":"Han characters", "happily":"Of software, used to emphasise that a program is unaware of some important fact about its environment, either because it has been fooled into believing a lie, or because it doesn't care. The sense of happy here is not that of elation, but rather that of blissful ignorance. The program continues to run, happily unaware that its output is going to /dev/null.", "Happy":"tool A dyslexic acronym for A Yacc-like Haskell Parser generator.", "haptics":"interface The science of applying tactile sensation to human interaction with computers.", "haque":"spelling, jargon /hak/ Usenet A variant spelling of hack, used only for the noun form and connoting an elegant hack.", "hardcopy":"jargon A paper printout of data displayed on a screen.", "hardware":"hardware The physical, touchable, material parts of a computer or other system. The term is used to distinguish these fixed parts of a system from the more changeable software or data components which it executes, stores, or carries.", "hardwarily":"/hard-weir'*-lee/ In a way pertaining to hardware. The system is hardwarily unreliable. The adjective hardwary is *not* traditionally used, though it has recently been reported from the U.K.", "Harvest":"tool, networking A highly scalable, customisable system for discovering resources on the Internet.", "hash":"1. character hash character.", "hashing":"hash coding", "Haskell":"language Named after the logician Haskell Curry A lazy purely functional language largely derived from Miranda but with several extensions. Haskell was designed by a committee from the functional programming community in April 1990. It features static polymorphic typing, higher-order functions, user-defined algebraic data types, and pattern-matching list comprehensions. Innovations include a class system, systematic operator overloading, a functional I/O system, functional arrays, and separate compilation.", "HASL":"language SASL plus conditional unification.", "HASP":"Houston Automatic Spooling Program", "hat":"A common spoken name for the circumflex ^, ASCII 94 character.", "Hayes":"A modem manufacturer.", "Haze":"graphics An X Window System window manager designed to be light-weight and look like MacOS. Haze is based on mlvwm. It support virtual desktops, configurable menu bar and shaded windows.", "HBOOK":"A histogramming package in the CERN program library.", "hc":"The compiler for the h hyperbook language.", "HCF":"1. operating system Host Command Facility.", "HCI":"1. Human-Computer Interaction.", "HCLP":"Hierarchical CLP.", "HCPRVR":"HCPRVR: An Interpreter for Logic Programs, D. Chester in Proc First Natl Conf on AI, Stanford, 1980.", "HCS":"Heterogeneous Computer System", "HD":"high density", "HDA":"Head Disk Assembly", "HDC":"Disk Controller", "HDD":"hard disk drive", "HDF":"Hierarchical Data Format", "HDFL":"A single assignment language.", "HDL":"Hardware Description Language", "HDLC":"High-level Data Link Control", "HDM":"Hierarchical Design Methodology", "HDMI":"High-Definition Multimedia Interface", "HDSL":"High bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line", "HDTV":"High Definition Television", "hdx":"half-duplex", "header":"1. The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses, error checking and other fields.", "heap":"1. programming An area of memory used for dynamic memory allocation where blocks of memory are allocated and freed in an arbitrary order and the pattern of allocation and size of blocks is not known until run time. Typically, a program has one heap which it may use for several different purposes.", "heartbeat":"1. networking The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the collision-detection circuit is still connected.", "heatseeker":"person, jargon IBM A customer who can be relied upon to buy, without fail, the latest version of an existing product not quite the same as a member of the lunatic fringe. A 1993 example of a heatseeker is someone who, owning a 286 PC and Windows 3.0, goes out and buys Windows 3.1 which offers no worthwhile benefits unless you have a 386. If all customers were heatseekers, vast amounts of money could be made by just fixing the bugs in each release n and selling it to them as release n+1.", "heavyweight":"High-overhead; baroque; code-intensive; featureful, but costly. Especially used of communication protocols, language designs, and any sort of implementation in which maximum generality and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at the expense of mundane considerations such as speed, memory use and startup time. Emacs is a heavyweight editor; X is an *extremely* heavyweight window system. This term isn't pejorative, but one hacker's heavyweight is another's elephantine and a third's monstrosity.", "heisenbug":"jargon /hi:'zen-buhg/ From Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics A bug that disappears or alters its behaviour when one attempts to probe or isolate it. This usage is not even particularly fanciful; the use of a debugger sometimes alters a program's operating environment enough that buggy code, such as that which relies on the values of uninitialised memory, behaves quite differently.", "Helix":"A hardware description language from Silvar-Lisco.", "hello":"hello, world", "HELP":"1. language, robotics DEA. A Language for industrial robots.", "Helvetica":"text One of the most widely used sans-serif typefaces, developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, it was renamed Helvetica for the international market. Helvetica is very similar to the common Arial typeface. The name is Latin for Swiss.", "henry":"unit H The SI unit of inductance: one henry is the inductance of a closed loop in which the induced voltage is one volt if the current flowing through it changes by one ampere each second, i.e., 1 H = 1 Vs/A. Named after the American physicist Joseph Henry 1797-1878.", "HENSA":"Higher Education National Software Archive", "HEP":"High Energy Particle Physics.", "HEPDB":"A database management system for HEP.", "HEPiX":"A recently formed collaboration among various HEP institutes aiming at providing compatible versions of the Unix operating system at their sites.", "HEPnet":"An association concerned with networking requirements for high energy physicists.", "HEPVM":"A collaboration among various HEP institutes to implement compatible versions of IBM's VM-CMS operating system at their sites.", "HEQS":"E. Derman. Constraint language for financial modelling. Uses an extension of the equation solver in IDEAL. A Simple Equation Solver and Its Application to Financial Modeling, E. Derman et al, Soft Prac & Exp 1412:1169-1181 Dec 1984.", "HERA":"An electron-proton collider at DESY, W. Germany.", "HERAKLIT":"language A distributed object-oriented language.", "Hermes":"language An experimental, very high level, integrated language and system from the IBM Watson Research Centre, produced in June 1990. It is designed for implementation of large systems and distributed applications, as well as for general-purpose programming. It is an imperative language, strongly typed and is a process-oriented successor to NIL.", "Hesiod":"project The name server of the Athena project.", "heterogeneous":"Composed of unrelated parts, different in kind.", "heterogenous":"spelling It's spelled heterogeneous.", "heuristic":"1. programming A rule of thumb, simplification, or educated guess that reduces or limits the search for solutions in domains that are difficult and poorly understood. Unlike algorithms, heuristics do not guarantee optimal, or even feasible, solutions and are often used with no theoretical guarantee.", "hex":"1. hexadecimal.", "hexadecimal":"mathematics Or hex Base 16. A number representation using the digits 0-9, with their usual meaning, plus the letters A-F or a-f to represent hexadecimal digits with values of decimal 10 to 15. The right-most digit counts ones, the next counts multiples of 16, then 16^2 = 256, etc.", "hexidecimal":"spelling Mis-spelling of hexadecimal.", "hexit":"jargon /hek'sit/ A hexadecimal digit 0-9, and A-F or a-f. Used by people who claim that there are only *ten* digits, sixteen-fingered human beings being rather rare, despite what some keyboard designs might seem to imply see space-cadet keyboard.", "HFC":"1. networking Hybrid Fiber Coax.", "HHCP":"Host Host Copy", "HHOJ":"chat ha ha only joking.", "HHOK":"ha ha only kidding. See ha ha only serious.", "HHOS":"ha ha only serious", "hi":"hmake interactive", "HIBOL":"language A variant of DIBOL, used in Infotec computers.", "HID":"Human Interface Device", "hierarchy":"An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and with several things below each other thing. An inverted tree structure. Examples in computing include a directory hierarchy where each directory may contain files or other directories; a hierarchical network see hierarchical routing, a class hierarchy in object-oriented programming.", "HIGZ":"High Level Interface to Graphics and Zebra. Part of the PAW system.", "HiLog":"A higher-order logic programming language. An extension of normal logic programming where predicate symbols may be variable or structured. This allows unification to be performed on the predicate symbols themselves in addition to their arguments.", "HIMEM":"software, storage An IBM PC extended memory manager, part of MS-DOS version 5.00 or higher. HIMEM can also act as an A20 handler.", "Hindenbug":"humour A catastrophic, data-destroying bug, after the 1937 Hindenburg airship disaster.", "hing":"IRC Fortuitous typo for hint, now in wide intentional use among players of initgame.", "HINT":"Hierarchical Information NeTs.", "HiPAC":"An active DBMS from Xerox Advanced Information Technology.", "HIPPI":"High Performance Parallel Interface", "hiragana":"Japanese The cursive formed Japanese kana syllabary.", "hirsute":"Occasionally used as a humorous synonym for hairy.", "HISTORIAN":"A source code management system sold by OPCODE, Inc.", "history":"1. history Virginia Tech history of computing http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/index.html. IT Rentals computing timeline http://www.itrentals.com/historyofcomputing/.", "hit":"1. architecture cache hit.", "HITL":"Human Interface Technology Laboratory", "hk":"networking The country code for Hong Kong.", "HLISP":"Monocopy and Associative Algorithms in an Extended Lisp, E. Goto, U Tokyo May 1974.", "HLL":"high-level language", "HLLAPI":"High Level Language Application Programming Interface", "hlp":"filename extension A Microsoft Windows filename extension for hypertext WinHelp files. These are in a proprietary format, and are compiled from source files written in a dialect of RTF.", "hm":"networking The country code for the Heard and McDonald Islands.", "HMA":"High Memory Area", "HMAC":"Keyed-Hashing Message Authentication", "hmake":"programming A compilation manager for Haskell. hmake recompiles a given module or program by extracting dependencies between source modules and issuing appropriate compiler commands to rebuild only changed modules. hmake can use whatever Haskell compilers and preprocessors you have installed.", "HMD":"head-mounted display", "HMP":"hybrid multiprocessing", "HMSL":"Hierarchical Music Specification Language", "HMTL":"spelling Do you mean HTML?", "hn":"networking The country code for Honduras.", "HNAP":"Home Network Administration Protocol", "HNC":"High-speed Net Connect", "HO":"handover", "Hobbit":"A Scheme to C compiler by Tanel Tammet tammet@cs.chalmers.se. Hobbit attempts to retain most of the original Scheme program structure, making the output C program readable and modifiable. Hobbit is written in Scheme and is able to self-compile. Hobbit release 1 works together with the scm release scm4b3. Future releases of scm and hobbit will be coordinated.", "hobbit":"High order bit. The most significant bit of a byte. Also known as the meta bit or high bit.", "hog":"jargon A term used to describe programs, hardware or people that use more than their share of a system's resources, especially those which noticeably degrade interactive response.", "HOL":"Higher Order Logic. A proof-generating system for higher order logic based on LCF. Implementations include HOL-88 and HOL-90.", "hole":"1. electronics In the hole model of current flow, the absence of an electron, e.g. in a semiconductor material. In the electron model, a hole can be thought of as an incomplete outer electron shell in a doping substance. Considering holes as positive charge carriers is a useful abstraction.", "Hollywired":"Siliwood", "home":"1. file system home directory.", "HomePNA":"Home Phoneline Networking Alliance", "homogeneous":"Or homogenous Of uniform nature, similar in kind.", "homogenous":"homogeneous", "homomorphism":"mathematics A map f between groups A and B is a homomorphism of A into B if", "Honeywell":"company A US company known for its mainframes and operating systems.", "HOOD":"Hierarchical Object Oriented Design", "HOOK":"? Object Oriented Kernel. Delphia. An object-oriented extension of Delphia Prolog.", "hook":"programming A software or hardware feature included in order to simplify later additions or changes by a user.", "hop":"1. messaging One point-to-point transmission in a series required to get a message from point A to point B on a store and forward network. On such networks including UUCPNET and FidoNet, an important inter-machine metric is the hop count of the shortest path between them. This can be more significant than their geographical separation.", "Hope":"language A functional programming language designed by R.M. Burstall, D.B. MacQueen and D.T. Sanella at University of Edinburgh in 1978. It is a large language supporting user-defined prefix, infix or distfix operators. Hope has polymorphic typing and allows overloading of operators which requires explicit type declarations. Hope has lazy lists and was the first language to use call-by-pattern.", "hose":"1. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in performance.", "hosed":"jargon A somewhat humorous variant of down, used primarily by Unix hackers. Hosed implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to reverse. It is also widely used of people in the mainstream sense of in an extremely unfortunate situation. The term was popularised by fighter pilots refering to being hosed by machine gun fire date?.", "host":"1. networking A computer connected to a network.", "hosting":"web hosting", "hostname":"1. Or sitename. The unique name by which a computer is known on a network, used to identify it in electronic mail, Usenet news, or other forms of electronic information interchange.", "HotJava":"web A modular, extensible web browser from Sun Microsystems that can execute programs written in the Java programming language. These programs, known as applets, can be included like images in HTML pages. Because Java programs are compiled into machine independent bytecodes, applets can run on any platform on which HotJava runs - currently December 1995 SPARC/Solaris 2 and Intel 80x86/Windows 95, Windows NT.", "Hotline":"1. company Hotline Communications Ltd..", "hotlink":"A mechanism for sharing data between two application programs where changes to the data made by one application appear instantly in the other's copy.", "hotlist":"web From hypertext hot spot A document on the web or a user's browser configuration file containing hypertext links, often unorganised and undocumented, to notable pages on the Web.", "Hotmail":"messaging A web mail service bought by Microsoft.", "HOTT":"Hot Off The Tree An Internet-based electronic magazine edited by David Scott Lewis d.s.lewis@ieee.org and distributed by electronic mail.", "HP":"Hewlett-Packard", "HPCC":"High Performance Computing and Communications", "HPcode":"Stack-based intermediate language used by HP in many of its compilers for RISC and stack-based architectures. Supports Fortran, Ada, Pascal, COBOL and C++. Descended from Stanford's U-code.", "HPF":"High Performance Fortran", "HPFS":"High Performance File System", "HPL":"Language used in HP9825A/S/T Desktop Calculators, 1978? and ported to the early Series 200 family 9826 and 9836, 68000. Fairly simple and standard, but with extensive I/O support for data acquisition and control BCD, Serial, 16 bit custom and IEEE 488 interfaces, including interrupt handling. Currently owned by Structured Software Systems.", "HPLOT":"A graphical output facility for HBOOK.", "HPPI":"High Performance Parallel Interface", "HPR":"High Performance Routing", "hqx":"binhex", "hr":"networking The country code for Croatia.", "href":"web hypertext reference The attribute of an HTML a anchor or link tag, whose value gives the URL of the web page or other resource that the link points to.", "hs":"Haskell", "HSB":"hue, saturation, brightness", "HSC":"High Speed Connect", "HSCSD":"High Speed Circuit Switched Data", "HSM":"Hierarchical Storage Management", "HSRP":"Hot Standby Routing Protocol", "HSSI":"high speed serial interface", "HSV":"hue, saturation, value", "HT":"horizontal tabulation", "ht":"networking The country code for Haiti.", "HTH":"chat Hope This Helps. Often used sarcastically, see HAND.", "HTLM":"Do you mean HTML?", "HTML":"Hypertext Markup Language", "HTTL":"Do you mean HTTP or HTML?", "HTTP":"Hypertext Transfer Protocol", "HTTPd":"web Hypertext transfer protocol daemon.", "HTTPS":"HyperText Transmission Protocol, Secure", "hu":"networking The country code for Hungary.", "hub":"networking By analogy with the hub of a wheel A device connected to several other devices.", "Hubnet":"networking A 50 Mb/s optical fibre network developed at Toronto University. Network topology is a rooted tree with a maximum of 65536 hosts with maximum separation of 2 km.", "hubs":"hub", "hue":"graphics Or tint The coordinate in the HSB colour model that determines the frequency of light or the position in the spectrum or the relative amounts of red, green and blue. Hue corresponds to the common definition of colour, e.g. red, orange, violet etc. The other coordinates are saturation and brightness.", "huff":"compression To compress data using Huffman coding.", "Huffman":"Huffman coding", "HUGO":"A bytecode-interpreted transaction handler from Geac.", "HUGS":"Haskell User's Gofer System", "humma":"chat A filler word used on various chat and talk programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was important to say something.", "humor":"hacker humour", "humour":"hacker humour", "hung":"[hung up] Equivalent to wedged, but more common at Unix/C sites. Not generally used of people. Synonym with locked up, wedged; compare hosed. See also hang. A hung state is distinguished from crashed or down, where the program or system is also unusable but because it is not running rather than because it is waiting for something.", "hungus":"jargon /huhng'g*s/ Perhaps related to slang humongous Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable. E.g. TCP is a hungus piece of code.", "Hurd":"operating system The GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels such as Linux. The GNU C Library provides the Unix system call interface, and calls the Hurd for services it can't provide itself.", "HVD":"High Voltage Differential", "Hybrid":"A concurrent object-oriented language.", "hydrofluorocarbon":"hardware HFC A suggested replacement for the chlorofluorocarbon CFC coolant gas used in chillers and air conditioners.", "HyperBase":"database An experimental active multi-user database for hypertext systems from the University of Aalborg, written in C++. It is built on the client-server model enabling distributed, concurrent, and shared access from workstations in a local area network.", "HyperCard":"A software package by Bill Atkinson for storage and retrieval of information on the Macintosh. It can handle images and is designed for browsing. The powerful customisable interactive user interface allows new applications to be easily constructed by manipulating objects on the screen, often without conventional programming, though the language HyperTalk can be used for more complex tasks.", "hypercube":"A cube of more than three dimensions. A single 2^0 = 1 point or node can be considered as a zero dimensional cube, two 2^1 nodes joined by a line or edge are a one dimensional cube, four 2^2 nodes arranged in a square are a two dimensional cube and eight 2^3 nodes are an ordinary three dimensional cube. Continuing this geometric progression, the first hypercube has 2^4 = 16 nodes and is a four dimensional shape a four-cube and an N dimensional cube has 2^N nodes an N-cube. To make an N+1 dimensional cube, take two N dimensional cubes and join each node on one cube to the corresponding node on the other. A four-cube can be visualised as a three-cube with a smaller three-cube centred inside it with edges radiating diagonally out in the fourth dimension from each node on the inner cube to the corresponding node on the outer cube.", "Hyperion":"computer An MS-DOS personal computer that was manufactured in Kanata near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in the mid-1980s. It received considerable government subsidies and, while it was considered well-designed and manufactured and a real threat to the Compaq Portable, the Ottawa firm that designed it was unable to beat Compaq.", "hyperlink":"hypertext link", "hypermedia":"hypertext", "HyperNeWS":"A Hypertext system from the Turing Institute Glasgow, based on NeWS.", "Hyperscript":"Informix. The object-based programming language for Wingz, used for creating charts, graphs, graphics, and customised data entry.", "hyperspace":"/hi:'per-spays/ A memory location that is *far* away from where the program counter should be pointing, often inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. Compare jump off into never-never land.", "HyperSPARC":"processor The successor to the SuperSPARC processor, based on the SPARC ISA. The HyperSPARC has smaller caches than the SuperSPARC: 8kb on-chip and 256kb off-chip compared with 36kb and 1Mb. The HyperSPARC's memory management is optimised for more efficient out-of-cache addressing which means quicker access to external slower, cheaper memory.", "Hyperstrict":"A function which is hyperstrict in some argument will fully evaluate that argument. To fully evaluate an object, evaluate it to WHNF and if it is a constructed data object e.g. a list or tuple then fully evaluate every component and so on recursively. Thus a hyperstrict function will fail to terminate if its argument or any component or sub-component of its argument fails to terminate i.e. if its argument is not total.", "HyperTalk":"A verbose semicompiled language by Bill Atkinson and Dan Winkler, with loose syntax and high readability.", "hypertext":"hypertext A term coined by Ted Nelson around 1965 for a collection of documents or nodes containing cross-references or links which, with the aid of an interactive browser program, allow the reader to move easily from one document to another.", "hyperware":"hypertext Software that implements or uses hypertext.", "hypotenuse":"mathematics The side of a right-angled triangle opposite the right angle.", "Hytelnet":"networking A hypertext database of publicly accessible Internet sites created and maintained by Peter Scott scottp@moondog.usask.ca. Hytelnet currently lists over 1400 sites, including Libraries, Campus-Wide Information Systems, Gopher, WAIS, WWW and Freenets.", "HyTime":"Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language: an emerging ANSI/ISO Standard from the SGML Users' Group's Special Interest Group on Hypertext and Multimedia SIGhyper. A hypermedia extension of SGML.", "IA":"Information Appliance", "IAB":"Internet Architecture Board", "IAD":"A dynamic analyser from IBM giving information on run-time performance and code use.", "IAL":"ALGOL 58", "IAM":"Interactive Algebraic Manipulation. Interactive symbolic mathematics for PDP-10.", "IANA":"Internet Assigned Numbers Authority", "IANAL":"chat I Am Not A Lawyer but my legal opinion is....", "IAP":"Internet Access Provider", "IAR":"Instruction Address Register.", "IAS":"1. computer The first modern computer. It had main registers, processing circuits, information paths within the central processing unit, and used Von Neumann's fetch-execute cycle.", "IAW":"chat inactive window.", "IAYSDAH":"chat I acknowledge your strangely depressing attempt at humour.", "IBEX":"language The command language for Honeywell's CP-6 operating system.", "IBM":"International Business Machines", "Iburg":"A program by Christopher W. Fraser cwf@research.att.com, David R. Hanson drh@princeton.edu and Todd A. Proebsting todd@cs.arizona.edu that generates a fast tree parser.", "IC":"1. hardware integrated circuit.", "ICA":"Independent Computing Architecture", "ICAM":"Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing", "ICANN":"Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers", "ICE":"1. electronics in-circuit emulator.", "icebreaker":"security, jargon A program designed for cracking security on a system.", "ICES":"Integrated Civil Engineering System. Subsystems include COGO, STRUDL, BRIDGE, LEASE, PROJECT, ROADS and TRANSET. Internal languages include ICETRAN and CDL. An Integrated Computer System for Engineering Problem Solving, D. Roos, Proc SJCC 272, AFIPS Spring 1965. Sammet 1969, pp.615-620.", "ICETRAN":"An extension of Fortran IV and a component of ICES.", "ICI":"language An extensible, interpretated language by Tim Long with syntax similar to C. ICI adds high-level garbage-collected associative data structures, exception handling, sets, regular expressions, and dynamic arrays.", "ICL":"International Computers Limited.", "ICMP":"Internet Control Message Protocol", "iCOMP":"Intel Comparative Microprocessor Performance index", "Icon":"language A descendant of SNOBOL4 with Pascal-like syntax, produced by Griswold in the 1970's. Icon is a general-purpose language with special features for string scanning. It has dynamic types: records, sets, lists, strings, tables. If has some object oriented features but no modules or exceptions. It has a primitive Unix interface.", "icon":"graphics A small picture intended to represent something a file, directory, or action in a graphical user interface.", "Iconicode":"1990-1992. Visual dataflow language, token-based with hierarchical, recursive and iterative constructs. Version: IDF with extensions for image processing.", "ICQ":"chat 1. Abbreviation for I seek you.", "ICSI":"International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley, CA.", "ICT":"1. education Information and Communication Technology.", "ICW":"Interactive CourseWare", "ICWS":"International Core War Society.", "Id":"Irvine Dataflow", "id":"networking The country code for Indonesia.", "IDAMS":"A pictorial retrieval language implemented in APL.", "IDD":"international direct dialing", "IDE":"1. storage Integrated Drive Electronics, see Advanced Technology Attachment.", "IDEA":"1. language Interactive Data Entry/Access.", "IDEAL":"1. Ideal DEductive Applicative Language. A language by Pier Bosco and Elio Giovannetti combining Miranda and Prolog.", "ideal":"theory In domain theory, a non-empty, downward closed subset which is also closed under binary least upper bounds.", "IDEF":"ICAM Definition.", "idempotent":"1. A function f : D - D is idempotent if", "identifier":"1. programming, operating system A formal name used in source code to refer to a variable, function, procedure, package, etc. or in an operating system to refer to a process, user, group, etc.", "ideogram":"text, graphics A symbol representing a concept. Nearly all ideograms are pictograms - pictures of the thing represented, others are merely conventional. An example of non-pictorial ideogram might be the degree symbol a superfix circle when used for temperature.", "idk":"chat I don't know.", "IDL":"language", "IDMS":"1. language, database A pictorial query language, an extension of Sequel2.", "IDMSX":"database IDMS extended.", "IDOL":"Icon-Derived Object Language. An object-oriented preprocessor for Icon.", "IDSN":"ISDN", "IDSS":"Intelligent Decision Support Systems", "IE":"Internet Explorer", "ie":"networking The country code for Ireland.", "IEC":"International Electrotechnical Commission", "IEEE":"Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers", "IEF":"Advantage Gen", "IEN":"Internet Experiment Note", "IEPG":"Internet Engineering and Planning Group", "IESG":"Internet Engineering Steering Group", "IETF":"Internet Engineering Task Force", "IFAC":"International Federation of Automatic Control, involved in informatics related to control systems.", "IFC":"Internet Foundation Classes", "IFDL":"language Independent Form Description Language.", "IFF":"1. file format Interchange File Format.", "iff":"mathematics, logic if and only if, i.e. necessary and sufficient. For example, two figures are congruent iff one can be placed over the other so that they coincide.", "IFIP":"1. International Federation for Information Processing.", "IFP":"Illinois Functional Programming", "IFS":"1. operating system internal field separators.", "IFX":"[Type Reconstruction with First-Class Polymorphic Values, J. O'Toole et al, SIGPLAN Notices 247:207-217 Jul 1989].", "IGC":"Institute for Global Communications", "IGES":"Initial Graphics Exchange Specification: an ASME/ANSI standard for the exchange of CAD data.", "IGL":"Interactive Graphic Language. Used primarily by Physics Dept at Brooklyn Poly, uses numerical methods on vectors to approximate continuous function problems that don't have closed form solutions.", "IGMP":"Internet Group Management Protocol", "IGP":"Interior Gateway Protocol", "IGPL":"Interest Group in Pure and Applied Logics", "IGS":"Internet Go Server.", "IGU":"chat I Give Up. Often found appended to documents, e-mail, programs that don't work, etc.", "IHS":"Integrated Home System", "IHV":"Independent Hardware Vendor", "IIcx":"Apple IIcx", "IIL":"Integrated Injection Logic", "IINREN":"Interagency Interim National Research and Education Network", "IIOP":"Internet Inter-ORB Protocol", "IIR":"Infinite Impulse Response", "IIRC":"chat If I recall/remember correctly.", "IIS":"1. web Internet Information Server.", "IIT":"Integrated Information Technology", "IITF":"Information Infrastructure Task Force", "IITRAN":"Simple PL/I-like language for students, on IBM 360.", "il":"networking The country code for Israel.", "ILBM":"interleaved bit-map", "ILF":"Independent Logical File", "ILIAD":"language, real-time A real-time language.", "ILISP":"A somewhat LISP Machine-like interface to lisp listeners from Emacs.", "ILLIAC":"Assembly language for the ILLIAC computer. Listed in CACM 25:16, May 1959 p.16.", "ILOC":"Rice U. Register-oriented intermediate language targeted to PC/RT. Source languages include Fortran and Russell.", "iMac":"computer One of the trademark/brand names that Apple Inc use for their Mac family of personal computers.", "image":"1. data, graphics Data representing a two-dimensional scene.", "imaging":"graphics The production of graphic images, either from a video camera or from digitally generated data see visualisation, or the recording of such images on microfilm, videotape or laser disk.", "imake":"A tool which generates Makefiles from a template, a set of cpp macros, and a per-directory input file called an Imakefile. This allows machine dependencies such has compiler options, alternate command names, and special make rules to be kept separate from the descriptions of the various items to be built.", "IMAO":"IMHO", "IMAP":"Internet Message Access Protocol", "imc":"language A REXX interpreter for SunOS.", "IMD":"intermodulation distortion", "IMHO":"chat From SF fandom via Usenet In My Humble Opinion.", "IML":"Initial Microprogram Load", "IMNSHO":"IMHO", "IMO":"IMHO", "IMP":"1. language IMProved Mercury autocode.", "impedance":"electronics, physics Opposition to flow of alternating current. Impedance consists of resistance plus reactance capacitive or inductive. Measured in Ohms.", "imperative":"imperative language", "implication":"implies", "implies":"logic = or a thin right arrow A binary Boolean function and logical connective. A = B is a true implication unless A is true and B is false. The truth table is", "imply":"implies", "import":"data To read data that is not in the native format of the application. For example, a web browser will have its own way of storing bookmarks but it will usually provide a function to import bookmarks from Internet Explorer. The alternative is to provide an independent external conversion utility but this is usually less convenient for the user.", "IMR":"Internet Monthly Report", "IMS":"Information Management System", "Imsai":"company One of the companies that made very early microprocessor systems.", "IMSE":"Integrated Modelling Support Environment", "IMTC":"International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium", "in":"1. networking The country code for India.", "InARP":"Inverse Address Resolution Protocol", "inc":"/ink/ increment, i.e. increase by one. Especially used by assembly programmers, as many assembly languages have an inc mnemonic.", "incantation":"Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documented that they must be learned from a wizard. This compiler normally locates initialised data in the data segment, but if you mutter the right incantation they will be forced into text space.", "include":"[Usenet] 1. To duplicate a portion or whole of another's message typically with attribution to the source in a reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.", "inclusive":"theory In domain theory, a predicate P : D - Bool is inclusive iff", "incomparable":"mathematics Two elements a, b of a set are incomparable under some relation = if neither a = b, nor b = a.", "indent":"indentation", "indentation":"text, programming Space and/or tab characters added at the beginning of a line to indicate structure, e.g. indenting a quotation to make it stand out or indenting a block of code controlled by an if statement.", "index":"Plural indices or indexes", "IndexedDB":"database A transactional, JavaScript-based object-oriented database for use in web browsers. IndexedDB stores and retrieves objects that are indexed with a key. Using the structured clone algorithm, it can serialise complex data structures that may contain cyclic references.", "indices":"spelling A plural of index.", "indirection":"programming Manipulating data via its address. Indirection is a powerful and general programming technique. It can be used for example to process data stored in a sequence of consecutive memory locations by maintaining a pointer to the current item and incrementing it to point to the next item.", "induction":"logic A method of proving statements about well-ordered sets. If S is a well-ordered set with ordering , and we want to show that a property P holds for every element of S, it is sufficient to show that, for all s in S,", "inetd":"networking, tool Berkeley daemon program that listens for connection requests or messages for certain ports and starts server programs to perform the services associated with those ports. Sometimes known as netd.", "inews":"messaging, application A Unix program for posting Usenet news articles, written by Rich $alz rsalz@uunet.uu.net for InterNetNews. inews reads an article perhaps with headers from a file or standard, adds some headers and possibly a signature, and, if the article passes some consistency checks too much quoting, non-existent newsgroup then inews sends the article to the local news server for distribution.", "inference":"logic The logical process by which new facts are derived from known facts by the application of inference rules.", "infimum":"greatest lower bound", "infinite":"mathematics 1. Bigger than any natural number. There are various formal set definitions in set theory: a set X is infinite if", "infinity":"1. mathematics The size of something infinite.", "inflate":"deflate", "INFN":"Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare: an Italian State research organisation.", "Infobahn":"After the German Autobahn Information Superhighway.", "infobot":"chat A bot that serves as a common database of information often noteworthy URLs for users on a chat system.", "information":"data, data processing The result of applying data processing to data, giving it context and meaning.", "Informix":"A relational DBMS vendor.", "InfoSeek":"company A company providing InfoSeek Net Search, a free web search service which, in August 1995, indexed the full text of over 400,000 web pages. Net Search was rated as the fourth most popular site on the web by Interactive Age magazine.", "infotainment":"application Interactive services or software that provides some combination of information and entertainment.", "infrared":"electronics IR Electromagnetic waves in the frequency range just below visible light corresponding to radiated heat.", "infrastructure":"systems Basic support services for computing, particularly national networks.", "Inglish":"games An English-like language used for Adventure games like The Hobbit. Inglish could distinguish between take the rope and axe and take the money and run.", "INGRES":"A relational DBMS vendor.", "inheritance":"programming, object-oriented In object-oriented programming, the ability to derive new classes from existing classes. A derived class or subclass inherits the instance variables and methods of the base class or superclass, and may add new instance variables and methods. New methods may be defined with the same names as those in the base class, in which case they override the original one.", "initgame":"games /in-it'gaym/ [IRC] An IRC version of the venerable trivia game 20 questions, in which one user changes his nick to the initials of a famous person or other named entity, and the others on the channel ask yes or no questions, with the one to guess the person getting to be it next. As a courtesy, the one picking the initials starts by providing a 4-letter hint of the form sex, nationality, life-status, reality-status. For example, MAAR means Male, American, Alive, Real as opposed to fictional. Initgame can be surprisingly addictive. See also hing.", "initialise":"programming To give a variable its first value. This may be done automatically by some languages or it may require explicit code by the programmer. Some languages allow initialisation to be combined with variable definition, e.g. in C:", "initiator":"SCSI initiator", "injection":"1. mathematics A function, f : A - B, is injective or one-one, or is an injection, if and only if", "inline":"programming Or unfold To replace a function call with an instance of the function's body. Actual argument expressions are substituted for formal parameters as in beta reduction. Inlining is usually done as a compile-time transformation.", "InnovAda":"An object-oriented extension to Ada, said to be Lisp-like. Implemented as an Ada preprocessor.", "inode":"A data structure holding information about files in a Unix file system. There is an inode for each file and a file is uniquely identified by the file system on which it resides and its inode number on that system. Each inode contains the following information: the device where the inode resides, locking information, mode and type of file, the number of links to the file, the owner's user and group ids, the number of bytes in the file, access and modification times, the time the inode itself was last modified and the addresses of the file's blocks on disk. A Unix directory is an association between file leafnames and inode numbers. A file's inode number can be found using the -i switch to ls.", "inout":"programming A type or mode of function parameter that passes information in both directions - from the caller to the function and back to the caller, combining the in and out modes. An inout parameter might be used where the function needs to read and update some data belonging to the caller as a side effect of its main purpose.", "Input":"ALPHA", "input":"architecture Data transferred from the outside world into a computer system via some kind of input device.", "INRIA":"Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique", "INSIGHT":"A simulation and modelling language especially for health care problems.", "inspection":"testing A formal evaluation technique in which software requirements, design, or code are examined in detail by a person or group other than the author to detect faults, violations of development standards, and other problems.", "installer":"operating system A utility program to ease the installation of another, probably larger, application. It is also possible for hardware to have an installer accompany it, to install any low level device drivers required.", "instance":"programming An individual object of a certain class.", "instantiate":"instantiation", "instantiation":"programming Producing a more defined version of some object by replacing variables with values or other variables.", "instruction":"machine instruction", "instrument":"programming To install devices or instructions into hardware or software to monitor the operation of a system or component.", "int":"1. programming A common name for the integer data type.", "INTCODE":"language A low-level interpreted language used in bootstrapping the BCPL compiler. The INTCODE machine has six control registers and eight functions. OCODE was used as the intermediate language.", "integer":"mathematics Or whole number One of the numbers in the set", "integration":"programming Combining software or hardware components or both into an overall system.", "integrity":"1. data data integrity.", "Intel":"Intel Corporation", "INTELLECT":"language A query language written by Larry Harris in 1977, close to natural English.", "IntelliMouse":"Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer", "Intelsat":"company, communications A private satellite communications company that provides telephony, corporate network, video and Internet solutions around the globe via capacity on 25 geosynchronous satellites.", "intensional":"philosophy A description of properties, e.g. intensional equality, that relate to how an object is implemented as opposed to extensional properties which concern only how its output depends on its input.", "INTERACTIVE":"A network simulation language.", "interactive":"programming A term describing a program whose input and output are interleaved, like a conversation, allowing the user's input to depend on earlier output from the same run.", "InterBase":"A commercial active DBMS.", "INTERCAL":"language, humour /in't*r-kal/ Said by the authors to stand for Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym.", "INTERCOM":"language The assembly language for the G-15.", "Interdata":"company A computer manufacturer. Interdata became Perkin-Elmer, then Concurrent.", "interesting":"In hacker parlance, this word has strong connotations of annoying, or difficult, or both. Hackers relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out of the ancient Chinese curse May you live in interesting times.", "interface":"jargon A boundary across which two systems communicate. An interface might be a hardware connector used to link to other devices, or it might be a convention used to allow communication between two software systems. Often there is some intermediate component between the two systems which connects their interfaces together. For example, two EIA-232 interfaces connected via a serial cable.", "interlace":"progressive coding", "interlacing":"1. hardware A video display system which builds an image on the VDU in two phases, known as fields, consisting of even and odd horizontal lines.", "Interlan":"A brand of Ethernet card.", "Interleaf":"A document preparation system for Sun, VAX, Apollo and other workstations.", "interleave":"interleaving", "interleaving":"sector interleave", "INTERLINK":"A commercial product comprising hardware and software for file transfer between IBM and VAX computers.", "Interlisp":"language A dialect of Lisp developed in 1967 by Bolt, Beranek and Newman Cambridge, MA as a descendant of BBN-Lisp. It emphasises user interfaces. It is currently[?] supported by Xerox PARC.", "Intermedia":"hypertext A hypertext system developed by a research group at IRIS Brown University to support education and research.", "intermercial":"interstitial", "internationalisation":"programming i18n, globalisation, enabling, software enabling The process and philosophy of making software portable to other locales.", "internationalization":"internationalisation", "Internaut":"jargon, web From Internet + astronaut A person who explores the Internet or cyberspace, normally searching for information.", "Internet":"networking", "internetworking":"The interconnection of two or more networks, usually local area networks so that data can pass between hosts on the different networks as though they were one network. This requires some kind of router or gateway.", "InterNIC":"Internet Network Information Center", "interoperability":"The ability of software and hardware on multiple machines from multiple vendors to communicate.", "interpolation":"extrapolation", "Interpress":"Interpreted FORTH-like graphics language, possibly the first page description language, predating PostScript. Both are descendants of JaM. Used on Xerox printers.", "interpreted":"interpreter", "interpreter":"programming A program which executes other programs. This is in contrast to a compiler which does not execute its input program the source code but translates it into executable machine code also called object code which is output to a file for later execution. It may be possible to execute the same source code either directly by an interpreter or by compiling it and then executing the machine code produced.", "interrupt":"programming 1. An asynchronous event that suspends normal processing and temporarily diverts the flow of control through an interrupt handler routine.", "interrupts":"interrupt", "interstitial":"web A web page that appears before the expected content page. Interstitials can be used for advertising intermercial, transition ad or to confirm that the user is old enough to view the requested page, etc..", "Intertec":"company The computer manufacturer that built the Superbrain.", "interupt":"spelling It's spelled interrupt.", "interval":"mathematics A set of real numbers bounded by two real numbers - the endpoints or bounds. The set may or may not include either endpoint, leading to four possibilities:", "InterViews":"An object-oriented toolkit developed at Stanford University for building graphical user interfaces. It is implemented in C++ and provides a library of objects and a set of protocols for composing them.", "interworking":"standard Systems or components, possibly from different origins, working together to perform some task. Interworking depends crucially on standards to define the interfaces between the components. The term implies that there is some difference between the components which, in the absence of common standards, would make it unlikely that they could be used together. For example, software from different companies, running on different hardware and operating systems can interwork via standard network protocols.", "intranet":"networking Any network which provides similar services within an organisation to those provided by the Internet outside it but which is not necessarily connected to the Internet. The commonest example is the use by a company of one or more web servers on an internal TCP/IP network for distribution of information within the company.", "Intrinsics":"operating system, graphics A library package on top of Xlib, extending the basic functions of the X Window System. It provides mechanisms for building widget sets and application environments.", "introspection":"programming, philosophy A feature of some programming languages that allows a running program to obtain information about its own implementation.", "Intuition":"operating system The Amiga windowing system a shared-code library.", "intuitionism":"intuitionistic logic", "invariant":"programming A rule, such as the ordering of an ordered list or heap, that applies throughout the life of a data structure or procedure. Each change to the data structure must maintain the correctness of the invariant.", "inverse":"mathematics Given a function, f : D - C, a function g : C - D is called a left inverse for f if for all d in D, g f d = d and a right inverse if, for all c in C, f g c = c and an inverse if both conditions hold. Only an injection has a left inverse, only a surjection has a right inverse and only a bijection has inverses. The inverse of f is often written as f with a -1 superscript.", "IO":"humour, abuse Idiotic operator.", "io":"networking The country code for British Indian Ocean territory.", "IOI":"International Olympiad in Informatics", "IOS":"Internetworking Operating System", "Iota":"language, specification A specification language.", "IOW":"chat in other words.", "IP":"Internet Protocol", "IPA":"International Phonetic Alphabet", "iPad":"computer A tablet computer announced by Apple Computer, Inc. on 2010-01-27 to be released in March 2010. The iPad runs iPhone OS 3.2, providing multi-touch interaction and multimedia processing. Like Apple's iPhone and iPod, it uses a virtual keyboard for text input and runs most iPhone apps. It adds the iBooks application for reading text in ePub format.", "IPARS":"International Programmable Airline Reservation System", "IPC":"Inter-Process Communication", "ipconfig":"networking A Microsoft Windows program to display information about the the computer's Internet Protocol settings, including IP address, DHCP lease information, network card Ethernet address, and DNS information.", "IPCP":"Internet Protocol Control Protocol", "IPE":"Integrated Programming Environment", "Iperf":"networking, tool A tool to measure maximum TCP bandwidth, allowing the tuning of various parameters and UDP characteristics. Iperf reports bandwidth, delay jitter, and datagram loss. An IPv6 version is also available.", "IPL":"1. Information Processing Language.", "IPng":"Internet Protocol Version 6", "IPS":"A threaded language.", "IPSE":"Integrated Project Support Environment", "IPsec":"networking, protocol, security IP Secure? A protocol that provides security for transmission of sensitive information over unprotected networks such as the Internet. IPsec acts at the network layer, protecting and authenticating IP packets between participating devices peers, such as Cisco routers.", "IPT":"IP Telephony", "IPX":"Internetwork Packet eXchange", "IPXCP":"networking Internetwork Packet eXchange Control Protocol.", "IQ":"Pictorial query language, implemented in Ratfor.", "iq":"networking The country code for Iraq.", "IQL":"An object-oriented deductive language/database system.", "IR":"1. networking Internet Registry.", "ir":"networking The country code for Iran.", "IrBUS":"IrDA Control", "IRC":"Internet Relay Chat", "ircop":"messaging /*r'-kop/ IRC + op, but with the, presumably intentional, alternate analysis IRC + cop Someone who is endowed with privileges on IRC, not limited to a particular channel. These privileges include channel op privileges in any channel, but also notably include the ability to disconnect a user from the IRC network.", "IrDA":"Infrared Data Association", "IRDATA":"robotics Industrial Robot DATA. A standardised robot control code. IRDATA, Industrial Robot Data, DIN 66313, Beuth-Verlag 1991.", "IRDP":"ICMP Router Discovery Protocol", "IRDS":"Information Resource Dictionary System. A set of ISO standards for CASE repositories. It governs the definition of data dictionaries to be implemented on top of relational databases see repository, data dictionary.", "IRET":"Return from interrupt", "IRIS":"body Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship of Brown University Providence RI.", "Iris":"An object-oriented DBMS.", "IRISA":"INRIA", "IRIX":"operating system /ir'iks/ The main operating system used by Silicon Graphics workstations and servers. IRIX is multiprocessor and multi-threaded. It incorporates substantial functionality from UNIX System V, Release 4.1 and 4.2.", "IRL":"1. jargon, chat In real life. Generally synonymous with f2f.", "IRM":"Information Resource Management", "iron":"Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of mainframe class with big metal cabinets housing relatively low-density electronics but the term is also used of modern supercomputers. Often in the phrase big iron. Oppose silicon.", "Ironman":"HOLWG, DoD, Jan 1977, revised Jul 1977. Fourth of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada. Department of Defense Requirements for High Order Computer Programming Languages, SIGPLAN Notices 1212:39-54 Dec 1977. Revised Ironman Requirements for High Order Computer Programming Languages, US Dept of Defense, Jul 1977. See Strawman, Woodenman, Tinman, Steelman.", "ironmonger":"[IBM] A hardware specialist derogatory. Compare sandbender, polygon pusher.", "IRQ":"interrupt request", "irrefutable":"The opposite of refutable.", "IRSG":"Internet Research Steering Group", "IRTF":"Internet Research Task Force", "IRUS":"Irvine Research Unit in Software", "IS":"1. standard International Standard.", "is":"networking The country code for Iceland.", "ISA":"1. architecture Integrated Systems Architecture.", "Isabelle":"theory, tool A generic theorem prover with support for several object-logics, developed by Lawrence C. Paulson Larry.Paulson@cl.cam.ac.uk in collaboration with Tobias Nipkow http://in.tum.de/~nipkow/ at the Technical University of Munich.", "ISAKMP":"Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol", "ISAM":"Indexed Sequential Access Method", "ISAPI":"Internet Server Application Programming Interface", "ISBL":"language A mathematical query language.", "ISDE":"Integrated Software Development Environment: equivalent to an IPSE.", "ISDN":"Integrated Services Digital Network", "ISE":"Interactive Software Engineering", "ISEE":"Integrated Software Engineering Environment - equivalent to SEE.", "ISETL":"Interactive SETL by Gary Levin gary@clutx.clarkson.edu.", "ISF":"Information Systems Factory", "ISINDEX":"web An HTML tag which tells the browser to display a text entry box on the current page. Any text entered in the box by the user is appended as a URL-encoded query string to the current URL and sent to the server using a GET method.", "ISIS":"1. A toolkit for implementing fault-tolerant distributed systems, developed at Cornell and now available commercially", "ISL":"Interface Specification Language. Xerox PARC. Interface description language used by the ILU Inter-Language Unification system. Includes descriptions of multiple inheritance, exceptions and garbage collection.", "ISLisp":"International Standard Lisp.", "ISMAP":"web An attribute of the HTML tag IMG inline image which specifies that if the image is selected, the browser will generate a request indicating the coordinates of the point which was clicked. This request is then interpreted by the server by mapping certain regions of the image to certain actions.", "ISO":"International Organization for Standardization", "ISOC":"Internet Society", "isochronous":"communications /i:-sok'rn-*s/ A form of multiplexing that guarantees to provide a certain minimum data rate, as required for time-dependent data such as video or audio.", "ISODE":"ISO Development Environment", "isolated":"compact", "isometry":"mathematics A mapping of a metric space onto another or onto itself so that the distance between any two points in the original space is the same as the distance between their images in the second space. For example, any combination of rotation and translation is an isometry of the plane.", "isomorphic":"mathematics Two mathematical objects are isomorphic if they have the same structure, i.e. if there is an isomorphism between them. For every component of one there is a corresponding component of the other.", "isomorphism":"mathematics A bijective map between two objects which preserves, in both directions, any structure under consideration. Thus a `group isomorphism' preserves group structure; an order isomorphism between posets preserves the order relation, and so on. Usually it is clear from context what sort of isomorphism is intended.", "ISP":"1. Internet Service Provider.", "ISPBX":"Integrated Services Digital Network PBX.", "ISPF":"Interactive System Productivity Facility", "ISPL":"Instruction Set Processor Language. The original ISP language, written in BLISS ca 1971.", "ISPS":"Instruction Set Processor Specifications. Operational hardware specification language. Successor to ISPL.", "IST":"company Imperial Software Technology.", "ISTAR":"programming, tool An experimental IPSE from Imperial Software Technology.", "ISTM":"chat It seems to me.", "ISV":"Independent Software Vendor not a hardware manufacturer.", "ISWIM":"language If You See What I Mean An influential but unimplemented computer programming language described in the article by Peter J. Landin cited below. Landin attempted to capture all known programming language concepts, including assignment and control operators such as goto and coroutines, within a single lambda calculus based framework.", "IT":"1. business, jargon Information Technology.", "it":"networking The country code for Italy.", "ITAR":"International Traffic in Arms Regulation", "iteration":"programming Repetition of a sequence of instructions. A fundamental part of many algorithms. Iteration is characterised by a set of initial conditions, an iterative step and a termination condition.", "iterator":"programming An object or routine for accessing items from a list, array or stream one at a time.", "Iternet":"spelling It's spelled Internet.", "ITHACA":"project An Esprit project to put a 4th generation object-oriented system to practical use in an industrial environment. The ITHACA environment offered an application support system incorporating advanced technologies in the fields of object-oriented programming, programming languages, databases, user interfaces and software development tools.", "ITIL":"Information Technology Infrastructure Library", "ITP":"Intent to Package", "ITS":"1. Incompatible time-sharing System", "ITSP":"Internet Telephony Service Providers", "ITU":"International Telecommunications Union", "Ivan":"A Diana-like language making up part of VHDL.", "IVR":"Interactive Voice Response", "ivs":"INRIA Videoconferencing System.", "IVTRAN":"Parallel Fortran for the Illiac IV. 1966.", "IVY":"A language with a more pleasant syntax than Perl, tcl or Lisp. It has nice features like low punctuation count, blocks indicated by indentation, and similarity to normal procedural languages. This language started out as an idea for an extension language for the editor JOE.", "IWay":"Information Superhighway", "IWBNI":"It Would Be Nice If.", "IXC":"IntereXchange Carrier", "IXO":"Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol", "IYFEG":"Usenet Insert Your Favourite Ethnic Group.", "J":"A derivative and redesign of APL with added features and control structures. J is purely functional with lexical scope and more conventional control structures, plus several new concepts such as function rank and function arrays. J was designed and developed by Kennneth E. Iverson and Roger Hui hui@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.com. J uses only the ASCII character set but has a spelling scheme that retains the advantages of APL's special alphabet. J is a conventional procedural programming language but can be used as a purely functional language.", "jabber":"networking When a network node transmits a packet longer than the maximum permissible length, usually due to a fault condition.", "JACAL":"JAffer's Canonical ALgebra", "jaccl":"tool An LR1 grammar parser generator written by Dave Jones at Megatest.", "JAD":"Joint Application Design", "JADE":"James' DSSSL Engine", "Jade":"1. U Washington, late 80's. A strongly-typed language, object-oriented but without classes. For type research. The compiler output is Smalltalk. [Submitter claimed that Jade has exactly one user!]", "jadeTeX":"text, tool A program which uses TeX as a back-end for producing DVI or PDF printable output from James' DSSSL Engine.", "jaggies":"graphics /jag'eez/ Or staircase The staircase effect observable when an edge especially a linear edge of very shallow or steep slope is rendered on a bitmap display as opposed to a vector display. The effect is even more pronounced when a bitmap image or text in a bitmap font is enlarged. Outline fonts and anti-aliasing are two techniques used to solve this problem with text.", "JaM":"John and Martin. An interpreted FORTH-like graphics language by John Warnock and Martin Newell, Xerox PARC, 1978. JaM was the forerunner of both Interpress and PostScript. It is mentioned in PostScript Language reference Manual, Adobe Systems, A-W 1985.", "jam":"A condition on a network where two nodes transmitting simultaneously detect the collision and continue to transmit for a certain time 4 to 6 bytes on Ethernet to ensure that the collision has been detected by all nodes involved.", "JANET":"Joint Academic NETwork", "Janus":"1. Distributed language with an ask/tell constraint system.", "japh":"programming A Perl program which prints Just another Perl hacker using extremely obfuscated methods, typically ones based on obscure behaviours of sometimes rarely-used functions, in the spirit of the Obfuscated C Contest.", "jar":"Java archive", "jargon":"human language, jargon Language specific to some field of human endeavour, in this case, computing, that might not be understood by those outside that area.", "Java":"programming, language An object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, architecture-neutral, portable, multithreaded, dynamic, buzzword-compliant, general-purpose programming language developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s initially for set-top television controllers and released to the public in 1995.", "JavaBeans":"programming A component architecture for the Java programming language, developed initially by Sun, but now available from several other vendors. JavaBeans components are called beans.", "JavaScript":"language Formerly LiveScript Netscape's simple, cross-platform, web scripting language, only very vaguely related to Java which is a Sun trademark.", "JAZ":"language An early system on the LGP-30.", "Jaz":"Jaz Drive", "JAZELLE":"database A data management system for High Energy Physics from Stanford Linear Accelerator.", "JBIG":"Joint Bi-level Image Experts Group", "JBOD":"Just a Bunch Of Disks", "JBOPS":"business, jargon A nickname for the major ERP and enterprise software application companies: JD Edwards, Baan, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP.", "jc":"language Version 1.50 alpha", "JCL":"Job Control Language", "JCOOL":"language A version of the COOL C++ class library that uses real C++ templates.", "JCP":"Java Community Process", "JDBC":"Java Database Connectivity", "JDK":"Java Development Kit", "JEAN":"language A dialect of JOSS.", "JEDR":"person, abuse, humour Synonymous with IYFEG. At one time, people in the Usenet newsgroup news:rec.humor.funny tended to use JEDR instead of IYFEG or ethnic; this stemmed from a public attempt to suppress the group once made by a loser with initials JEDR after he was offended by an ethnic joke posted there. The practice was retconned by expanding these initials as Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race. After much sound and fury JEDR faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise. JEDR's only permanent effect on the net.culture was to discredit sensitivity arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate and near-universal rejection.", "JES":"job entry system", "JFCL":"/jif'kl/, /jaf'kl/, /j*-fi'kl/ obsolete To cancel or annul something. Why don't you jfcl that out? The fastest do-nothing instruction on older models of the PDP-10 happened to be JFCL, which stands for Jump if Flag set and then CLear the flag; this does something useful, but is a very fast no-operation if no flag is specified. Geoff Goodfellow, one of the jargon-1 co-authors, had JFCL on the licence plate of his BMW for years. Usage: rare except among old-time PDP-10 hackers.", "JFDI":"chat Just fucking do it.", "JFET":"Junction Field Effect Transistor", "JFGI":"chat, web Just Fucking Google It. See STFW.", "JFIF":"JPEG File Interchange Format", "jiffy":"1. The duration of one tick of the computer's system clock. Often one AC cycle time 1/60 second in the US and Canada, 1/50 most other places, but more recently 1/100 sec has become common.", "Jini":"networking /jee'nee/ Sun's Java-based system for networking home appliances, desktop computers and other kinds of consumer electronics.", "JIPS":"JANET IP Service", "JIT":"dynamic translation", "jitter":"Random variation in the timing of a signal, especially a clock.", "jm":"networking The country code for Jamaica.", "JMHO":"chat Just My Humble Opinion.", "JMS":"Java Message Service", "JNI":"Java Native Interface", "jo":"networking The country code for Jordan.", "job":"operating system All activities involved in completing any project on a computer from start to finish. A job may involve several processes and several programs.", "Jobs":"Steve Jobs", "jock":"1. A programmer who is characterised by large and somewhat brute-force programs.", "joe":"jargon, security A computer account whose user name and password are the same. Joes are considered harmful, as are any passwords which are easy to guess.", "Johnniac":"computer A mainframe computer based on a design by John von Neuman built at the Institute for Advanced Study, USA.", "join":"1. database inner join common or outer join less common.", "Joliet":"standard, storage An extension of the ISO 9660:1988 ISO standard file system for CD-ROMs that allows Unicode characters in file names and other enhancements. Version 1 of Joliet was released on 1995-05-22.", "jolix":"386BSD", "JOLT":"Java Open Language Toolkit", "JOOP":"Journal of Object-Oriented Programming", "JOSS":"JOHNNIAC Open Shop System", "Jossle":"language A type checked language with separate compilation using a program library.", "journal":"operating system An on-going record of transactions, such as database updates, file system writes, procedure calls or message transmissions. A journal differs from a simple log in that the contents of the journal can be used to reconstruct the state of the system after a failure by re-applying the transactions in the journal to a snapshot of the system previous state.", "journalling":"journal", "jove":"Jonathan's Own Version Of Emacs.", "JOVIAL":"language Jule's Own Version of IAL A version of IAL produced by Jules I. Schwartz in 1959-1960. JOVIAL was based on ALGOL 58, with extensions for large scale real-time programming. It saw extensive use by the US Air Force. The data elements were items, entries records and tables.", "Joy":"language A functional programming language by Manfred von Thun. Joy is unusual because it is not based on lambda calculus, but on the composition of functions. Functions take a stack as argument, consume any number of parameters from it, and return it with any number of results on it. The concatenation of programs denotes the composition of functions. One of the datatypes of Joy is that of quoted programs, of which lists are a special case.", "Joyce":"A distributed language based on Pascal and CSP, by Per Brinch Hansen.", "joystick":"hardware, games A device consisting of a hand held stick that pivots about one end and transmits its angle in two dimensions to a computer. Joysticks are often used to control games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer. Most I/O interface cards for IBM PCs have a joystick game control port.", "jp":"networking The country code for Japan.", "JPEG":"Joint Photographic Experts Group", "jpg":"JPEG", "JPL":"language JAM Programming Language.", "JPLDIS":"Jet Propulsion Laboratory Display Information System. Query system for UNIVAC 1108 [or PDP's?] written in Fortran, based on Tymshare's Retrieve. Indirectly led to Vulcan which led to dBASE II. Jack Hatfield, George Masters, W. Van Snyder, Jeb Long et al, JPL.", "JRE":"Java Run-Time Environment", "JRL":"J. Random Loser. The names JRL and JRN were sometimes used as example names when discussing a kind of user ID used under TOPS-10 and WAITS. They were understood to be the initials of fictitious programmers named J. Random Loser and J. Random Nerd. For example, if one said To log in, type log one comma jay are en that is, log 1,JRN, the listener would have understood that he should use his own computer ID in place of JRN.", "JRMP":"Java Remote Method Protocol", "JS":"language 1. JavaScript.", "JSA":"Japanese Standards Association", "JSDK":"Java Servlet Development Kit", "JSF":"JavaServer Faces", "JSON":"JavaScript Object Notation", "JSP":"JavaServer Pages", "JSTL":"JSP Standard Tag Library", "JTAG":"Joint Test Action Group", "JTB":"jump trace buffer", "JTC":"standard, body Joint Technical Committee.", "JTS":"A simple dialect of JOVIAL.", "Jughead":"Jughead is a tool for Gopher administrators to get menu information from various gopher servers, and is an acronym for: Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display. Jughead was written in ANSI C. Gopher: gopher.cc.utah.edu, About U of U Gopher/Gopher Tools/jughead.", "jukebox":"hardware, storage A hardware mechanism for allowing access to one of a group of discs, especially CD-ROMs or other optical media.", "jump":"programming Or branch The term for a goto instruction, usually in a context of machine languages. Branch may be synonymous with jump, or may refer to jumps that depend on a condition.", "jumper":"hardware A removable wire or small plug whose presence or absence is used to determine some aspect of hardware configuration.", "Juno":"A numerical constraint-oriented language for graphics applications. It solves its constraints using Newton-Raphson relaxation. It was inspired partly by Metafont.", "jupiter":"To kill an IRC robot or user and then take its place by adopting its nick so that it cannot reconnect. Named after a particular IRC user who did this to NickServ, the robot in charge of preventing people from inadvertently using a nick claimed by another user.", "JVM":"Java Virtual Machine", "Jym":"A predecessor to Graal by Patrick Bellot, France.", "K":"unit kilo-, a kilobyte. Used both as a spoken word and a written suffix, like meg and gig for megabyte and gigabyte.", "KADS":"Knowledge Analysis and Design System", "kahuna":"person /k*-hoo'n*/ From the Hawaiian title for a shaman An IBM synonym for wizard or guru.", "Kaleidoscope":"language An object-oriented language which mixes imperative programming and constraint-oriented features.", "Kali":"A data parallel language.", "kana":"Japanese The two Japanese syllabaries, hiragana and katakana.", "kanji":"human language, character /kahn'jee/ From the Japanese kan - the Chinese Han dynasty, and ji - glyph or letter of the alphabet. Not capitalised. Plural kanji The Japanese word for a Han character used in Japanese. Kanji constitute a part of the writing system used to represent the Japanese language in written, printed and displayed form.", "KAOS":"Kent Applicative Operating System", "KAP":"Kernel Andorra Prolog. The predecessor of AKL.", "Karel":"Language featured in Karel the Robot: A Gentle Introduction to Computer Programming, Richard E. Pattis, Wiley 1981.", "katakana":"Japanese The square-formed Japanese kana syllabary.", "KB":"kilobyte", "KBMS":"An expert system.", "kbps":"kilobits per second", "KBS":"Knowledge-Based System", "KCL":"Kyoto Common Lisp", "ke":"networking The country code for Kenya.", "KEE":"Knowledge Engineering Environment. Frame-based expert system.", "ken":"/ken/ 1. Ken Thompson", "Kerberos":"security The authentication system of MIT's Project Athena. It is based on symmetric key cryptography.", "Kermit":"communications A popular packet-oriented protocol from Columbia University for transferring text files and binary files on both full-duplex and half-duplex 8 bit and 7-bit serial connections in a system- and medium-independent fashion, and implemented on hundreds of different computer and operating system platforms. On full-duplex connections a sliding window protocol with selective retransmission provides excellent performance and error recovery characteristics. On 7-bit connections, locking shifts provide efficient transfer of 8-bit data.", "kern":"kerning", "kernal":"kernel", "kernel":"Note: NOT kernal.", "kerning":"text In typography, the process of adjusting the spacing between certain pairs of characters to improve the appearance of the text. Roughly speaking, this can be thought of as equalising the area of space between adjacent characters. Each character of a proportional font has a width that includes some space on either side so that adjacent letters don't touch. Some pairs of characters such as A and V, look better if the spaces overlap slightly, bringing the characters closer together but still not touching. In most cases, kerning reduces the spacing negative kerning but some pairs like r and y look better with extra space positive kerning.", "Kevo":"language A prototype-based object-oriented language written for Macintosh by Antero Taivalsaari at UTA, Finland.", "key":"1. database A value used to identify a record in a database, derived by applying some fixed function to the record. The key is often simply one of the fields a column if the database is considered as a table with records being rows, see key field. Alternatively the key may be obtained by applying some function, e.g. a hash function, to one or more of the fields. The set of keys for all records forms an index. Multiple indexes may be built for one database depending on how it is to be searched.", "keyboard":"hardware A hardware device consisting of a number of mechanical buttons keys which the user presses to input characters to a computer.", "keypad":"hardware An input device with a small array of push buttons labeled with numbers or other symbols, designed to allow rapid entry of characters from a small set, e.g. decimal digits 0-9 or, historically, hexadecimal digits.", "keypal":"The electronic mail equivalent of a pen pal - someone with whom to exchange electronic mail for the simple joy of communicating.", "KeySpell":"text, tool, education A spell checker and teaching aid from UK company KeySpell Limited for Microsoft Windows. KeySpell offers a selection of phonetically similar words, phrases, confusable terms, and examples in context. Even correctly spelt homophones can be checked.", "keyword":"1. One of a fixed set of symbols built into the syntax of a language. Typical keywords would be if, then, else, print, goto, while, switch. There are usually restrictions about reusing keywords as names for user-defined objects such as variables or procedures. Languages vary as to what is provided as a keyword and what is a library routine, for example some languages provide keywords for input/output operations whereas in others these are library routines.", "KFX":"language The kernel language of FX-87.", "kg":"networking The country code for Kyrgyzstan.", "kgbvax":"kremvax", "kh":"networking The country code for Cambodia formerly Kampuchea.", "Khornerstone":"A multipurpose benchmark from Workstation Labs used in various periodicals. The source is not free. Results are published in UNIX Review.", "Khwarizmi":"Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi", "ki":"networking The country code for Kiribati.", "kibibyte":"unit The official ISO[?] name for 1024 bytes, to distinguish it from 1000 bytes which they call a kilobyte.", "KIBO":"/ki:'boh/ 1. [acronym] Knowledge In, Bullshit Out. A summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an organisation or person that deliberately or accidentally disregards or ignores its significance. Consider, for example, what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual specifications. Compare GIGO; see also SNAFU principle.", "kiboze":"[Usenet] To grep the Usenet news for a string, especially with the intention of posting a follow-up. This activity was popularised by Kibo.", "kick":"[IRC] To cause somebody to be removed from a IRC channel, an option only available to CHOPs. This is an extreme measure, often used to combat extreme flamage or flooding, but sometimes used at the chop's whim. Compare gun.", "Kid":"Kernel language for Id. A refinement of P-TAC, used as an intermediate language for Id. Lambda-calculus with first-class let-blocks and I-structures.", "kilobaud":"unit 1000 baud.", "kilobit":"unit 2^10 = 1024 bits of storage 1 Kb.", "kilobyte":"unit, data KB A unit of data equal to 1000 bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions.", "kiloflops":"unit 1000 FLOPS.", "kiosk":"A stall set up in a public place where one can obtain information, e.g. tourist information. The information may be provided by a human or by a computer. In the latter case, the data may be stored locally e.g. on CD-ROM or accessed via a network using some kind of distributed information retreival system such as Gopher or web.", "KIPS":"/kips/ [by analogy with MIPS] Thousands *not* 1024s of instructions per second. Usage: rare.", "KIS":"Knowbot Information Service", "KISS":"Early system on IBM 650. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "kit":"jargon Usenet, possibly from DEC Slang for a full software distribution, as opposed to a patch or upgrade. A source software distribution that has been packaged in such a way that it can theoretically be unpacked and installed according to a series of steps using only standard Unix tools, and entirely documented by some reasonable chain of references from the top-level README file. The more general term distribution may imply that special tools or more stringent conditions on the host environment are required.", "Klamath":"processor The pre-release code name for Intel's Pentium II microprocessor.", "KLB":"Known Lazy Bastard", "KLOC":"unit, programming Thousand kilo- Lines of code.", "klone":"/klohn/ clone.", "kludge":"jargon /kluhj/ From the old Scots kludgie meaning an outside toilet A Scottish engineering term for anything added in an ad hoc and possibly unhygenic! manner. At some point during the Second World War, Scottish engineers met Americans and the meaning, spelling and pronunciation of kludge became confused with that of kluge.", "kluge":"jargon /klooj/, /kluhj/ From German klug /kloog/ - clever and Scottish kludge 1. A Rube Goldberg or Heath Robinson device, whether in hardware or software.", "km":"networking The country code for Comoros.", "KMODEL":"An ancestor of Model-K. Preliminary Results on the BEHAVIOUR Specifications Language KMODEL-0, BEHAVIOUR Memo 5-91, 1991, GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany", "KMS":"Knowledge Management System", "kn":"networking The country code for Saint Kitts and Nevis.", "KNI":"Streaming SIMD Extensions", "knowbot":"web A kind of bot that collects information by automatically gathering certain specified information from websites.", "knowledge":"artificial intelligence, information science The objects, concepts and relationships that are assumed to exist in some area of interest. A collection of knowledge, represented using some knowledge representation language is known as a knowledge base and a program for extending and/or querying a knowledge base is a knowledge-based system.", "Knuth":"/knooth/ 1. Donald Knuth.", "Kodak":"company The photographic company responsible for Photo CD.", "Kohonen":"T. Kohonen", "KOMPILER":"language An early system on the IBM 701.", "kp":"networking The country code for North Korea.", "KQML":"Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language", "KR":"knowledge representation", "kr":"networking The country code for South Korea.", "KRC":"Kent Recursive Calculator", "kremvax":"/krem-vaks/ Or kgbvax Originally, a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, named like the then large number of Usenet VAXen with names of the form foovax. Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and kgbvax. This was probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on Usenet which has negligible security against them, because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time.", "KRL":"Knowledge Representation Language. A frame-based language.", "KRS":"language A frame-based language built on Common LISP.", "KRYPTON":"language A frame language.", "ksh":"Korn Shell", "KSL":"Knowledge Systems Laboratory", "KSR":"1. Keyboard Send Receive.", "KTH":"Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan", "kthx":"chat OK, thanks. Can be used as a sarcastic prefix, as in plz2stfukthx.", "KUIP":"Kernel User Interface Package", "KUTGW":"chat Keep up the good work.", "Kvikkalkul":"language /kveek`kahl-kool'/ A deliberately cryptic programming language said to have been devised by the Swedish Navy in the 1950s as part of their abortive attempt at a nuclear weapons program. What little is known about it comes from a series of an anonymous posts to Usenet in 1994. The poster described the language, saying that he had programmed in Kvikkalkul when he worked for the Swedish Navy in the 1950s. It is an open question whether the posts were a troll, a subtle parody or truth stranger than fiction could ever be.", "KVM":"Keyboard Video Mouse", "kw":"networking The country code for Kuwait.", "KWIC":"keyword in context", "ky":"networking The country code for the Cayman Islands.", "kyrka":"feature key", "kz":"networking The country code for Kazakhstan.", "la":"networking The country code for Laos.", "label":"1. programming An identifier used to mark a position in a program so that it can be the destination of a goto statement.", "LaborNet":"An IGC network serving groups, unions and labour advocates interested in information sharing and collaboration with the intent of enhancing the human rights and economic justice of workers. Issues covered include workplace and community health and safety issues, trade issues and international union solidarity and collaboration.", "LabVIEW":"Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench", "Lace":"Language for Assembling Classes in Eiffel. Specifies how to assemble an Eiffel system : in which directories to find the clusters, which class to use as the root, permits class renaming to avoid name clashes. Eiffel: The Language, Bertrand Meyer, P-H 1992.", "LADY":"language [Key Concepts in the INCAS Multicomputer Project, J. Nehmer et al IEEE Trans Soft Eng SE-138:913-923 Aug 1987].", "lag":"netlag", "Lakota":"Scripting language, extends existing OS commands.", "LALR":"Look Ahead Left-to-right parse, Rightmost-derivation", "LAMBDA":"A version of typed lambda-calculus, used to describe semantic domains.", "LambdaMOO":"games The most frequently used server software for running a MOO and also the nerve-center of sorts of the MOO community.", "lamer":"jargon A hopelessly clueless luser.", "LAMINA":"A concurrent object-oriented language.", "LAN":"local area network", "LANCE":"Local Area Network Controller for Ethernet.", "language":"1. language, programming programming language.", "LANL":"Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.", "LANtastic":"networking, product A trademarked name for numerous products of Artisoft, Inc..", "LAP":"LISP Assembly Program. The assembly language embedded into early Lisp. LAP was also used by the Liar compiler for MIT Scheme and MACLISP.", "LAPB":"Link Access Protocol Balanced", "LAPD":"1. Link Access Procedure on the D channel.", "LAPM":"Link Access Protocol for Modems", "LAPSE":"language A single assignment language for the Manchester dataflow machine.", "laptop":"portable computer", "LaQuey":"networking [LaQuey, T. with J. Ryer, The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1992]", "Larch":"The Larch Project develops aids for formal specifications.", "LART":"Luser Attitude Re-adjustment Tool", "lase":"/layz/ To print a given document via a laser printer. OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro calls did the right things.", "laser":"hardware Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation The type of light source used in a laser printer.", "Lasherism":"jargon, algorithm Harvard A program that solves a standard problem such as the Eight Queens Puzzle or implementing the life algorithm in a deliberately nonstandard way.", "LAT":"Local Area Transport", "latch":"A digital logic circuit used to store one or more bits. A latch has a data input, a clock input and an output. When the clock input is active, data on the input is latched or stored and transfered to the output either immediately or when the clock input goes inactive. The output will then retain its value until the clock goes active again.", "latency":"communications 1. The time it takes for a packet to cross a network connection, from sender to receiver.", "LaTeX":"language, text, tool Lamport TeX Leslie Lamport lamport@pa.dec.com's document preparation system built on top of TeX. LaTeX was developed at SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory and was built to resemble Scribe.", "lattice":"theory A partially ordered set in which all finite subsets have a least upper bound and greatest lower bound.", "LAU":"Langage a Assignation Unique. A single assignment language for the LAU dataflow machine, Toulouse.", "laundromat":"jargon, storage Synonym disk farm; see washing machine.", "LAURE":"language A language for knowledge representation combining object-oriented features and logic programming. It has set operations, object-oriented exception handling and a polymorphic type system.", "LAVA":"A language for VLSI that deals with sticks, i.e. wires represented as lines with thickness.", "law":"software law", "LAWN":"wireless local area network", "LAX":"LAnguage eXample.", "layer":"protocol layer", "laziness":"lazy evaluation", "lb":"networking The country code for Lebanon.", "LBA":"Logical Block Addressing", "LBE":"Language-Based Editor", "LBL":"Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.", "LBX":"Low Bandwidth X.", "lc":"networking The country code for Saint Lucia.", "LCC":"Language for Conversational Computing. Written at CMU in the 1960's. Similar to JOSS, with declarations, pointers and block structure from ALGOL 60. Implemented for IBM 360/IBM 370 under TSS.", "lcc":"programming, tool A hand-coded, retargetable compiler for ANSI C written by Dave Hanson drh@cs.princeton.edu. lcc's parser is faster than yacc and the code it generates is as good as GCC.", "LCD":"liquid crystal display", "LCF":"Logic for Computable Functions", "LCL":"1. The Larch interface language for ANSI standard C.", "lclint":"tool, programming A lint-like ANSI C source checker from MIT. If formal specifications are supplied in a separate file, lclint can do more powerful checking to detect inconsistencies between specifications and code. Adding specifications enables further checking, types can be defined as abstract and lclint can detect inconsistent use of global variables; undocumented modification of client-visible state; inconsistent use of an uninitialised formal parameter; or failure to initialise an actual parameter.", "LCP":"Link Control Protocol", "LCS":"Language for Communicating Systems", "ld":"1. programming, tool Load Unix's linker.", "LDAP":"Lightweight Directory Access Protocol", "LDB":"/l*'d*b/ [PDP-10 instruction] To extract from the middle.", "LDL":"[LDL: A Logic-Based Data-Language, S. Tsur et al, Proc VLDB 1986, Kyoto Japan, Aug 1986, pp.33-41].", "LDP":"Linux Documentation Project", "LDT":"Logic Design Translator.", "leading":"text /ledding/ The spacing between lines of text. This is defined when a font is designed but can often be altered in order to change the appearance of the text or for special effects. It is measured in points and is normally 120% of the height of the text.", "LEAF":"language 1. LISP Extended Algebraic Facility.", "leaf":"mathematics, data Or terminal node In a tree, a node which has no daughter.", "leak":"programming With a 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 effectively disappear leak out. This leads to eventual exhaustion as new allocation requests come in.", "Lean":"An experimental language from the University of Nijmegen and University of East Anglia, based on graph rewriting and useful as an intermediate language. Lean is descended from Dactl0.", "LEAP":"Language for the Expression of Associative Procedures.", "leaves":"leaf", "LEC":"Local Exchange Carrier", "LECOM":"Version of COMIT on GE 225 ca. 1966. Sammet 1969, p.419.", "LED":"electronics Light-Emitting Diode.", "LEDA":"Library of Efficient Data types and Algorithms", "Leda":"language A multi-paradigm language supporting imperative programming, declarative programming, procedural programming, functional programming, logic programming and object-oriented programming developed by Tim Budd budd@cs.orst.edu at Oregon State University in 1990-1993.", "leech":"networking Someone who downloads files but provides nothing for others to download. The term is common on BitTorrent, which relies on having multiple sources for files to improve download speed.", "leet":"elite", "LeFun":"Logic, Equations and Functions. An integration of logic programming and functional programming by H. Ait-Kaci et al of MCC, Austin TX.", "legacy":"legacy system", "legal":"Loosely used to mean in accordance with all the relevant rules, especially in connection with some set of constraints defined by software. The older =+ alternate for += is no longer legal syntax in ANSI C. This parser processes each line of legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed. Hackers often model their work as a sort of game played with the environment in which the objective is to maneuver through the thicket of natural laws to achieve a desired objective.", "legalese":"Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language description, product specification, or interface standard; text that seems designed to obfuscate and requires a language lawyer to parse it.", "LEGOL":"Application of MP/3 to the Design and Implementation of LEGOL, A Legally Oriented Language, S.H. Mandil et al, Intl Symp Programming, Paris 1974.", "lemma":"logic A result already proved, which is needed in the proof of some further result.", "LEO":"Low Earth Orbit", "Leo":"1. language A general-purpose systems language, syntactically like Pascal and Y, semantically like C.", "LER":"1. networking Label Edge Router.", "LERP":"/lerp/ vi., Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a verb or noun for the operation. Bresenham's algorithm lerps incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.", "LessTif":"library The Hungry Programmers' version of OSF/Motif.", "letterbomb":"messaging 1. An e-mail message containing live data intended to do nefarious things to the recipient's computer or terminal. It is possible, for example, to send letterbombs that will lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are viewed, so thoroughly that the user must turn the terminal off to unwedge it. Under Unix, a letterbomb can also try to get part of its contents interpreted as a shell command. The results of this could range from silly to tragic.", "Lex":"1. tool A lexical analyser generator for Unix and its input language. There is a GNU version called flex and a version written in, and outputting, SML/NJ called ML-lex.", "lexeme":"grammar A minimal lexical unit of a language. Lexical analysis converts strings in a language into a list of lexemes. For a programming language these word-like pieces would include keywords, identifiers, literals and punctuation. The lexemes are then passed to the parser for syntactic analysis.", "lexer":"lexical analyser", "lexiphage":"graphics /lek'si-fayj/ A notorious word chomper, implemented and named by John Doty in late 1972 on and HP calculator and later on ITS. The lexiphage program would draw on a selected victim's bitmapped terminal the words THE BAG in ornate letters, followed a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off.", "LF":"Line Feed", "LFIB":"Label Forwarding Information Base", "LG":"Simple language for analytic geometry, with graphic output.", "LGDF":"Large-Grain DataFlow.", "LGEN":"A logic language for VLSI implementation by S.C. Johnson of Bell Labs.", "LGN":"Linear Graph Notation", "lha":"1. filename extension The filename extension for a file produced by the shareware compression and archive software LHARC.", "LHARC":"compression, algorithm A compression program developed by Rahul Dhesi. LHARC was later replaced with LHA, which produces files with extension .lzh.", "lhs":"filename extension The filename extension for literate Haskell source files.", "li":"networking The country code for Liechtenstein.", "Liana":"language A C-like, interpretive, object-oriented programming language, class library, and integrated development environment designed specifically for development of application programs for Microsoft Windows and Windows NT. Designed by Jack Krupansky Jack@BaseTechnology.com of Base Technology, Liana was first released as a commercial product in August 1991. The language is designed to be as easy to use as BASIC, as concise as C, and as flexible as Smalltalk.", "Liar":"MIT Scheme", "lib":"operating system Library. In Unix, the directories /lib and /usr/lib traditionally contain files with filename extension .lib that are special archives containing modules of standard object code. In modern Unixes the same directories contain .so shared object files, which are similar except that the object code they contain is designed to be loaded once and shared by all application code that needs it, thus saving memory.", "library":"programming, library A collection of subroutines and functions stored in one or more files, usually in compiled form, for linking with other programs. Libraries are one of the earliest forms of organised code reuse. They are often supplied by the operating system or software development environment developer to be used in many different programs.", "librery":"spelling It's spelled library.", "LIDO":"An input language for the attribute evaluator generator LIGA a successor of GAG and a subsystem of the Eli compiler-compiler. LIDO is derived from GAG's input language ALADIN.", "LiE":"A symbolic mathematics package aimed at Lie groups.", "LIF":"1. hardware Low Insertion Force.", "life":"1. simulation Conway's Game of Life.", "LIFIA":"Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale et d'Intelligence Artificielle.", "LIFO":"stack", "LIGHT":"LIfecycle Global HyperText.", "Lila":"Patrick Salle'salle@geocub.greco-prog.fr. A small assembly-like language used for implementation of Actor languages. [Plasma perhaps?].", "Lilith":"computer The workstation for which Modula-2 was developed as the system language.", "lilo":"1. operating system Linux Loader.", "Lily":"LIsp LibrarY A C++ class library by Roger Sheldon sheldon@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov which gives C++ programmers the capability to write Lisp-style code. Lily's garbage collection mechanism is not sufficient for commercial use however and the documentation is incomplete. It is distributed under the GNU Library General Public License.", "LIMDEP":"A linear programming language used by economists.", "LIMP":"[Messages in Typed Languages, J. Hunt et al, SIGPLAN Notices 141:27-45 Jan 1979].", "Linc":"1. language A Burroughs/Unisys 4GL designed in New Zealand.", "LINCtape":"storage A formatted, block-oriented, high-reliability, random access tape system used on the Laboratory Instrument Computer. The tape was 3/4 wide.", "Linda":"language A coordination language from Yale, providing a model for concurrency with communication via a shared tuple space. Linda is usually implemented as a subroutine library for a specific base language, as in C-Linda, Fortran-Linda, LindaLISP and Prolog-Linda. It is available from Scientific Computing Associates, Inc. [What is?]", "LindaLISP":"Linda for Lisp.", "line":"1. hardware An electrical conductor. For distances larger than a breadbox, a single line may consist of two electrical conductors in twisted, parallel, or concentric arrangement used to transport one logical signal.", "Lingo":"An animation scripting language.", "LINGOL":"LINguistics Oriented Language. Natural language processing.", "link":"1. file system hard link or symbolic link.", "linker":"programming, tool link editor, linkage editor, link loader A program that combines one or more files containing object code from separately compiled program modules into a single file containing loadable or executable code", "links":"link", "LINPACK":"1. A package of linear algebra routines.", "lint":"A Unix C language processor which carries out more thorough checks on the code than is usual with C compilers.", "Linux":"operating system Linus Unix /li'nuks/ but see below An implementation of the Unix kernel originally written from scratch with no proprietary code.", "LIPL":"Linear IPL.", "LIS":"Langage Implementation Systeme.", "LISA":"1. computer Local Integrated Software Architecture.", "Lisp":"language LISt Processing language.", "Lispkit":"language A functional programming language designed by Peter Henderson with Lisp syntax. Designed for portability.", "Lisptalk":"Concurrent Programming Language Lisptalk, C. Li, SIGPLAN Notices 234:71-80 Apr 1988.", "LispView":"CLOS based windowing system on OpenWindows.", "list":"data A data structure holding many values, possibly of different types, which is usually accessed sequentially, working from the head to the end of the tail - an ordered list. This contrasts with a one-dimensional array, any element of which can be accessed equally quickly.", "listless":"programming In functional programming, a property of a function which allows it to be combined with other functions in a way that eliminates intermediate data structures, especially lists.", "Listproc":"A mailing list processor owned and developed by BITNET which runs under Unix.", "lists":"list", "Listserv":"messaging An automatic mailing list server, initially written to run under IBM's VM operating system by Eric Thomas.", "Liszt":"A Franz Lisp compiler in C which emits C, by Jeff W. Dalton jeff@festival.ed.ac.uk.", "lite":"spelling Misspelling of light, when used to mean lightweight A suffix denoting a scaled-down or crippled product, often designed to be distributed without charge, e.g. on a magazine coverdisk. An example is pklite.", "literal":"programming A constant made available to a process, by inclusion in the executable text. Most modern systems do not allow texts to modify themselves during execution, so literals are indeed constant; their value is written at compile-time and is read-only at run time.", "literature":"The literature. Computer-science journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the speaker believes is trivial. Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying It's in the literature. Oppose Knuth, which has no connotation of triviality.", "LITHE":"Object-oriented with extensible syntax.", "LitProg":"literate programming", "LITTLE":"A typeless language used to produce machine-independent software. LITTLE has been used to implement SETL.", "livelock":"parallel /li:v'lok/ When two or more processes continuously change their state in response to changes in the other processes without doing any useful work.", "LiveScript":"JavaScript", "liveware":"/li:v'weir/ 1. A less common synonym for wetware", "lk":"networking The country code for Sri Lanka.", "LKA":"Lan Kanal Adapter", "LL":"grammar A class of language grammars, which can be parsed without backtracking. The first L stands for Left-to-right scan, the second for Leftmost derivation.", "LLC":"Logical Link Control", "LLGen":"tool A BNF-based LL1 parser generator by Fischer and LeBlanc. It conforms to a subset of FMQ.", "LLNL":"Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory", "LLP":"Lower Layer Protocol", "LMAO":"chat laughed my ass off. Seen on Compuserve.", "LMDS":"Local Multipoint Distribution System", "LML":"1. Lazy ML.", "LMTP":"Local Mail Transfer Protocol", "LNF":"[A Fully Lazy Higher Order Purely Functional Programming Language With Reduction Semantics, K.L. Greene, CASE Center TR 8503, Syracuse U 1985].", "LO":"Linear Objects. A concurrent logic programming language based on linear logic, an extension of Horn logic with a new kind of OR-concurrency.", "load":"1. To copy data often program code to be run into memory, possibly parsing it somehow in the process.", "lobotomy":"1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke.", "LOC":"lines of code", "locale":"programming A geopolitical place or area, especially in the context of configuring an operating system or application program with its character sets, date and time formats, currency formats etc.", "localisation":"programming l10n Adapting a product to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market locale.", "localised":"localisation", "locality":"1. In sequential architectures programs tend to access data that has been accessed recently temporal locality or that is at an address near recently referenced data spatial locality. This is the basis for the speed-up obtained with a cache memory.", "locals":"The users on one's local network as opposed, say, to people one reaches via public Internet or UUCP connections. The marked thing about this usage is how little it has to do with real-space distance. I have to do some tweaking on this mail utility before releasing it to the locals.", "LocalTalk":"networking An Apple Computer network standard using Apple Computer's own networking hardware.", "location":"memory location", "Locus":"A distributed system project supporting transparent access to data through a network-wide file system.", "log":"1. mathematics, programming logarithm.", "LogC":"A C extension incorporating rule-oriented programming, for AI application programs. Production rules are encapsulated into functional components called rulesets. LogC uses a search network algorithm similar to RETE.", "logic":"1. philosophy, logic A branch of philosophy and mathematics that deals with the formal principles, methods and criteria of validity of inference, reasoning and knowledge.", "logical":"From the technical term logical device, wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary logical name Having the role of. If a person say, Les Earnest at SAIL who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the logical Les Earnest. This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.", "LOGIN":"1. An object-oriented deductive language and database system integrating logic programming and inheritance.", "LOGISCOPE":"Software quality analysis tools from Verilog SA, used to evaluate the quality of software, both statically based on software metrics and dynamically.", "Loglan":"human language An artificial human language designed by James Cooke Brown in the late 1950s.", "LOGLISP":"A version of Prolog implemented by Robinson in Lisp which allows Prolog programs to call Lisp and vice versa.", "LOGO":"language, education A Lisp-like language for teaching programming, noted for its turtle graphics used to draw geometric shapes. LOGO was developed in 1966-1968 by a group at Bolt, Beranek & Newman now BBN Technologies headed by Wally Fuerzeig fuerzeig@bbn.com who still works there in 2003 and including Seymour Papert seymour@media.mit.edu.", "LOGOL":"Strings are stored on cyclic lists or 'tapes', which are operated upon by finite automata. J. Mysior et al, LOGOL, A String manipulation Language, in Symbol Manipulations Languages and Techniques, D.G. Bobrow ed, N-H 1968, pp.166-177.", "logon":"1. jargon login.", "Lojban":"human language /lozh'bahn/ A language for humans developed by former members of the Loglan project.", "LOL":"chat laughing out loud, or lots of love or luck.", "LOLITA":"Language for the On-Line Investigation and Transformation of Abstractions", "Lolli":"language Named after the lollipop operator -o An interpreter for logic programming based on linear logic, written by Josh Hodas hodas@saul.cis.upenn.edu.", "LOM":"language, data processing A programming language developed in Toulouse in the early 1980s for data processing.", "LOOK":"A specification language.", "LOOKS":"[LOOKS: Knowledge-Representation System for Designing Expert Systems in a Logical Programming Framework, F. Mizoguchi, Proc Intl Conf 5th Gen Comp Sys, ICOT 1984].", "loop":"programming A sequence of instructions in a program that the processor repeats, either until some condition is met, or indefinitely an infinite loop.", "LOOPN":"language, simulation A compiler, simulator, and associated source control for an object-oriented Petri net language developed by Charles Lakos Charles.Lakos@adelaide.edu.au at the University of Tasmania. In LOOPN, a Petri net is an extension of a coloured timed Petri net. The extension means firstly that token types are classes. In other words, they consist of both data fields and functions, they can be declared by inheriting from other token types, and they can be used polymorphically. The object-oriented extensions also mean that module or subnet types are classes.", "LOOPS":"Lisp Object-oriented Programming System", "LOP":"A language based on first-order logic.", "Lore":"1. Object-oriented language for knowledge representation.", "LORIA":"Laboratoire lorrain de recherche en informatique et ses applications", "lose":"jargon MIT 1. To fail. A program loses when it encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the expected manner.", "loser":"jargon An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. Even winners can lose occasionally. Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows not. Emphatic forms are real loser, total loser, and complete loser but not **moby loser, which would be a contradiction in terms.", "losing":"jargon Said of anything that is or causes a lose or lossage.", "loss":"jargon Something not a person that loses; a situation in which something is losing. Emphatic forms include moby loss, and total loss, complete loss. Common interjections are What a loss! and What a moby loss! Note that moby loss is OK even though **moby loser is not used; applied to an abstract noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to a person it implies substance and has positive connotations.", "lossage":"jargon /los'*j/ The result of a bug or malfunction. This is a mass or collective noun. What a loss! and What lossage! are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter implies a continuing lose of which the speaker is currently a victim. Thus for example a temporary hardware failure is a loss, but bugs in an important tool like a compiler are serious lossage.", "lossless":"algorithm, compression A term describing a data compression algorithm which retains all the information in the data, allowing it to be recovered perfectly by decompression.", "lossy":"algorithm A term describing a data compression algorithm which actually reduces the amount of information in the data, rather than just the number of bits used to represent that information. The lost information is usually removed because it is subjectively less important to the quality of the data usually an image or sound or because it can be recovered reasonably by interpolation from the remaining data.", "LOTIS":"LOgic, TIming, Sequencing. A language which describes a computer via its data flow.", "LOTOS":"Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification", "LotusScript":"language A Visual BASIC-like scripting language for Lotus Notes and Lotus SmartSuite. LotusScript is object-oriented and can be used for complex Notes programming, although Java is also available.", "loudspeaker":"audio, hardware An electromechanical device for converting an electrical signal into sound.", "Lout":"Lout is a batch text formatting system and an embedded language by Jeffrey H. Kingston jeff@cs.su.oz.au. The language is procedural, with Scribe-like syntax.", "love":"humour What some users feel for computers.", "LOWL":"language The abstract machine for bootstrapping ML/1, developed by P.J. Brown of the University of Kent at Canterbury.", "LPAC":"1. audio, compression Lossless Predictive Audio Compression.", "LPC":"language A variant of C designed ca 1988 to program LP MUDs.", "LPF":"League for Programming Freedom", "LPG":"1. Linguaggio Procedure Grafiche Italian for Graphical Procedures Language. dott. Gabriele Selmi. Roughly a cross between Fortran and APL, with graphical-oriented extensions and several peculiarities. Underlies the products of CAD.LAB Spa. Graphical Procedure Language User's Guide and Reference Manual, CAD.LAB, Bologna, Italy, 1989, order code GO89/9.", "LPI":"language A PL/I interpreter for IBM PCs and workstations.", "LPL":"List Programming Language. LISP-like language with ALGOL-like syntax, for IBM 360. LPL - LISP Programming Language, F.W. Blair et al, RC 3062, IBM TJWRC, Sep 1970.", "lpm":"lines per minute", "lpr":"Line printer. The Unix print command. This does not actually print files but rather copies or links them to a spool area from where a daemon copies them to the printer.", "LPS":"Sets with restricted universal quantifiers.", "LPT":"/L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ Line printer. Rare under Unix, more common among hackers who grew up with ITS, MS-DOS, CP/M and other operating systems that were strongly influenced by early DEC conventions.", "lr":"networking The country code for Liberia.", "LRC":"Longitudinal Redundancy Check", "LRLTRAN":"Lawrence Radiation Laboratory TRANslator.", "LRU":"Least Recently Used", "ls":"1. file system, tool The Unix command for listing a directory.", "LSA":"Link State Advertisement", "LSB":"1. Least Significant Bit.", "LSE":"Language Sensitive Editor", "LSL":"1. Larch Shared Language. An assertion language. See Larch.", "LSML":"Lazy Standard ML", "LSP":"Label Switched Path", "LSR":"1. networking Label Switching Router.", "LSSD":"level-sensitive scan design", "LSYD":"Language for SYstems Development.", "lt":"networking The country code for Lithuania.", "LTL":"Linear Temporal Logic", "LTPS":"Low Temperature Polysilicon", "LTR":"Langage Temps-Réel.", "lu":"networking The country code for Luxembourg.", "lub":"least upper bound", "LUCID":"1. Early query language, ca. 1965, System Development Corp, Santa Monica, CA. [Sammet 1969, p.701].", "Lucinda":"language A language which combines Russell-like polymorphism with Linda-like concurrency. Lucinda is implemented as a threaded interpreter written in C, for a Sun network and a Meiko Computing Surface.", "Lucy":"language A distributed constraint programming language, which is an actor subset of Janus.", "LUG":"Linux User Group", "luminance":"brightness", "LUN":"Logical Unit Number", "lurk":"lurking", "lurker":"lurking", "lurking":"messaging, jargon The activity of one of the silent majority in a electronic forum such as Usenet; posting occasionally or not at all but reading the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: Oh, I'm just lurking. Often used in the lurkers, the hypothetical audience for the group's flamage-emitting regulars.", "luser":"jargon, abuse /loo'zr/ A user; especially one who is also a loser. luser and loser are pronounced identically. This word was coined around 1975 at MIT.", "LUSTRE":"A French acronym for Synchronous real-time Lucid. Real-time dataflow language for synchronous systems, especially automatic control and signal processing. A Lucid subset, plus timing operators and user-defined clocks.", "lv":"networking The country code for Latvia.", "lvalue":"programming A reference to a location, an expression which can appear as the destination of an assignment operator indicating where a value should be stored. For example, a variable or an array element are lvalues but the constant 42 and the expression i+1 are not. A constant string may or may not be an lvalue it usually is in C.", "LVD":"Low Voltage Differential", "LWP":"programming light-weight process.", "ly":"networking The country code for Libya.", "LYaPAS":"Russian acronym for Logical Language for the Representation of Synthesis Algorithms", "Lycos":"web A web index, served by Carnegie Mellon University. It allows you to search on document title and content for a list of keywords. Lycos is probably the biggest such index on the web. By April 1995, the Lycos database contained 2.95 million unique documents.", "lylafklc":"chat Love you like a fat kid loves cake.", "lynix":"spelling Misspelling of Linux the Unix clone, or possibly lynx the web browser.", "LYNX":"A language for large distributed networks, using remote procedure calls, developed by the University of Wisconsin in 1984.", "Lynx":"1. A WWW browser from the University of Kansas for use on cursor-addressable, character cell terminals or terminals emulators under Unix or VMS. Lynx is a product of the Distributed Computing Group within Academic Computing Services of The University of Kansas. Lynx was originally developed by Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe and Charles Rezac. Garrett Blythe created DosLynx and later joined the Lynx effort as well. Foteos Macrides ported much of Lynx to VMS and is now maintaining it.", "LynxOS":"A POSIX compliant real-time operating system from Lynx Real-Time Systems. It has a Unix-like interface to application programs.", "LYRIC":"Language for Your Remote Instruction by Computer. A CAI language implemented as a Fortran preprocessor.", "lzexe":"An executable file compression utility for MS-DOS. It adds a minimal header to the executable to decompress it when it is executed. See also pklite.", "lzh":"filename extension The filename extension for a file produced by the LHA program.", "M":"1. Alternative name for MUMPS.", "ma":"networking The country code for Morocco.", "MAC":"1. Media Access Control.", "Mac":"computer The line of computers manufactured by Apple Inc.", "MACA":"Multiple Access with Colision Avoidance", "MACAnalyst":"An analysis CASE tool for the Macintosh from Excel Software, Inc.", "Macaulay":"A symbolic mathematics package for commutative algebra, algebraic geometry and cohomology, written in C by Mike Stillman mike@mssun7.msi.cornell.edu and Dave Bayer bayer@cUnixa.columbia.edu in 1977. Version 3 runs on Sun, Macintosh and Amiga.", "MacBinary":"file format An eight-bit wide representation of the data and resource forks of an Macintosh file and of relevant Finder information. MacBinary files are recognised as special by several MacIntosh terminal emulators. These emulators, using Kermit or XMODEM or any other file transfer protocol, can separate the incoming file into forks and appropriately modify the Desktop to display icons, types, creation dates, and the like.", "MACDesigner":"A design CASE tool for the Mac from Excel Software, Inc.", "macdink":"/mak'dink/ To make many incremental and unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Often the subject of the macdinking would be better off without them. The Macintosh is said to encourage such behaviour.", "MACE":"A concurrent object-oriented language.", "Mach":"An operating system kernel under development at Carnegie-Mellon University to support distributed and parallel computation. Mach is designed to support computing environments consisting of networks of uniprocessors and multiprocessors. Mach is the kernel of the OSF/1.", "Machiavelli":"An extension of Standard ML developed by Peter Buneman & Atsushi Ohori of the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, based on orthogonal persistence.", "machinable":"Machine-readable. Having the softcopy nature.", "machine":"Common term for computer, usually when considered at the hardware level. The Turing Machine, an early example of this usage, was however neither hardware nor software, but only an idea.", "machoflops":"/mach'oh-flops/ A pun on megaflops referring to the inflated performance figures often quoted by computer manufacturers. Real application programs are lucky to get half the quoted speed.", "Macintosh":"computer One of the trademark/brand names that Apple Inc use for their Mac family of personal computers.", "Macintoy":"/mak'in-toy/ The Apple Macintosh, considered as a toy.", "Macintrash":"/mak'in-trash/ The Apple Macintosh, as described by a hacker who doesnt appreciate being kept away from the *real computer* by the interface. The term maggotbox has been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Compare Macintoy.", "MACL":"Macintosh Allegro CL.", "MacLisp":"language A dialect of Lisp developed at MIT AI Lab in 1966, known for its efficiency and programming facilities.", "MacMinix":"operating system The Macintosh version of MINIX.", "MacPPP":"networking An implementation of PPP for the Macintosh developed by Larry J. Blunk and others at Merit Network, Inc.", "MACRO":"1. Assembly language for VAX/VMS.", "macro":"A name possibly followed by a formal argument list that is equated to a text or symbolic expression to which it is to be expanded possibly with the substitution of actual arguments by a macro expander.", "macrology":"/mak-rol'*-jee/ 1. Set of usually complex or crufty macros, e.g. as part of a large system written in Lisp, TECO, or less commonly assembler.", "Macromedia":"company A company supplying multimedia and interactive television services and digital arts software tools in the US and worldwide. They produce products for Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh including: Macromedia FreeHand, a tool for design and illustration; Macromedia Director, an animation and authoring tool for multimedia production; Authorware Professional, a multiplatform authoring tool for interactive learning; MacroModel, a 3D modelling tool for multimedia, graphics and product design; SoundEdit 16, a digital sound recording and editing system; Fontographer, a typeface editing programme; and Action!, a multimedia presentation application.", "macrotape":"storage /mak'roh-tayp/ An industry-standard reel of magnetic tape, as opposed to a microtape.", "MACSYMA":"Project MAC's SYmbolic MAnipulator. The first comprehensive symbolic mathematics system, written in Lisp by Joel Moses moses@larch.lcs.mit.edu of MIT in 1969, later Symbolics, Inc.", "MacTCP":"networking Part of earlier versions of MacOS that provided access to TCP/IP services. Apple removed MacTCP from MacOS in revision 7.5.3 in favor of the new OpenTransport OT TCP/IP stack. However, MacTCP lives on as a community development effort.", "MacX":"A package allowing the Macintosh to be used as an X server.", "MAD":"language 1. Michigan Algorithm Decoder.", "Madaline":"A structure of many ADALINE units.", "MADCAP":"Math and set problems, for the Maniac II and CDC 6600.", "MADTRAN":"Early preprocessor that translated Fortran to MAD, for gain in speed.", "maggotbox":"abuse /mag'*t-boks/ An even more derogatory term than Macintrash.", "MAGIC":"An early system on the Midac computer.", "magic":"1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain; compare automagically and Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law:", "Magma":"symbolic mathematics, tool A program used for heavy duty algebraic computation in many branches of mathematics. Magma, developed by John Cannon and associates at the University of Sydney, succeeded Cayley. It runs at several hundred sites.", "MagmaLISP":"language The predecessor of Magma2.", "MAGNUM":"A database language for DEC-10's, used internally by Tymshare, Inc.. MAGNUM was designed in the late 1970's by Dale Jordan, Rich Strauss and Dave McQuoid originally, and was written in BLISS-10. It was the world's first commercial relational database. It was in the process of being written in 1976.", "Magritte":"A constraint language for interactive graphical layout by J. Gosling. It solves constraints using algebraic transformations.", "mail":"messaging 1. electronic mail.", "mailbox":"1. messaging A file belonging to a particular user on a particular computer in which received electronic mail messages are stored ready for the user to read them. A mailbox may be just an electronic mail address to which messages are sent and may not actually correspond to a file if the messages are processed automatically, e.g. a mail server or mailing list.", "main":"programming The name of the subroutine called by the run-time system RTS when it executes a C program. The RTS passes the program's command-line arguments to main as a count and an array of pointers to strings. If the main subroutine returns then the program exits.", "MAINBOL":"language MAcro ImplementatioN of SNOBOL4.", "mainframe":"computer A term originally referring to the cabinet containing the central processor unit or main frame of a room-filling Stone Age batch machine. After the emergence of smaller minicomputer designs in the early 1970s, the traditional big iron machines were described as mainframe computers and eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than interactive use, though possibly with an interactive time-sharing operating system retrofitted onto it; it is especially used of machines built by IBM, Unisys and the other great dinosaurs surviving from computing's Stone Age.", "MAINSAIL":"MAchine INdependent SAIL.", "maintainer":"software The person responsible for coordinating changes to a package of software and arranging the distribution of updates. The term usually applies only to free software where the maintainer often the author is doing it as a free public service.", "maintenance":"programming The modification of a software product, after delivery, to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a changed environment.", "Maisie":"A C-based parallel programming language by Wen-Toh Liao wentoh@may.CS.UCLA.EDU. Maisie extends C with asynchronous typed message passing and lightweight processes. Programs can define, create and destroy processes, send and receive messages and manipulate the system clock.", "Majordomo":"messaging, tool A popular freeware mailing list processor written in Perl which runs under Unix.", "Make":"programming, tool The Unix tool to automate the recompilation, linking etc. of programs, taking account of the interdependencies of modules and their modification times.", "Makedoc":"A program from Carleton University, Ottawa that generates documentation for Objective C programs. It will also generate a class hierarchy diagram. The output format is similar to that used by StepStone.", "makefile":"A script which tells the Unix program make how to build a particular computer program or set of programs. A makefile contains variable assignments and rules of the form", "MAL":"Micro Assembly Language", "Malamud":"publication The book:", "MALI":"A hardware memory device for logic programming computers with real time garbage collection.", "mall":"web A collection of web documents featuring commercial products and services, usually served by one particualr Internet access provider.", "malloc":"C's standard library routine for storage allocation. It takes the number of bytes required and returns a pointer to a block of that size. Storage is allocated from a heap which lies after the end of the program and data areas. Memory allocated with malloc must be freed explicitly using the free routine before it can be re-used.", "malware":"security Any software designed to do something that the user would not wish it to do, hasn't asked it to do, and often has no knowledge of until it's too late. Types of malware include backdoor, virus, worm, Trojan horse.", "MAN":"Metropolitan Area Network", "man":"Unix manual page", "management":"1. Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by their distance from actual productive work and their chronic failure to manage see also suit. Spoken derisively, as in *Management* decided that ....", "Mandala":"language A system based on Concurrent Prolog, developed at ICOT, Japan.", "mandelbug":"jargon, programming /man'del-buhg/ From the Mandelbrot set A bug whose underlying causes are so complex and obscure as to make its behaviour appear chaotic or even nondeterministic. This term implies that the speaker thinks it is a Bohr bug, rather than a heisenbug.", "manged":"/mahnjd/ [probably from the French manger or Italian mangiare, to eat; perhaps influenced by English mange, mangy] Refers to anything that is mangled or damaged, usually beyond repair. The disk was manged after the electrical storm. Compare mung.", "mangle":"Used similarly to mung or scribble, but more violent in its connotations; something that is mangled has been irreversibly and totally trashed.", "mangler":"[DEC] A manager. Compare mango; see also management.", "mango":"jargon /mang'go/ Originally in-house jargon at Symbolics A manager.", "MANIAC":"Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator and Computer", "MANTIS":"language A structured, full-function procedural 4GL and application development system from Cincom. MANTIS enables the developer to design prototypes, create transaction screens and reports, define logical data views, write structured procedures, and dynamically test, correct, document, secure, and release applications for production in a single, integrated, interactive session.", "mantissa":"1. programming The part of a floating point number which, when multiplied by its radix raised to the power of its exponent, gives its value. The mantissa may include the number's sign or this may be considered to be a separate part.", "manularity":"/manyoo-lari-tee/ manual + granularity A notional measure of the manual labor required for some task, particularly one of the sort that automation is supposed to eliminate. Composing English on paper has much higher manularity than using a text editor, especially in the revising stage. Hackers tend to consider manularity a symptom of primitive methods; in fact, a true hacker confronted with an apparent requirement to do a computing task by hand will inevitably seize the opportunity to build another tool see toolsmith.", "MAO":"An early symbolic mathematics system.", "MAP":"1. protocol Manufacturing Automation Protocol.", "map":"1. mathematics function.", "MAPI":"Messaging Application Programming Interface", "Maple":"A symbolic mathematics package by B. Char, K. Geddes, G. Gonnet, M. Monagan and S. Watt of the University of Waterloo, Canada and ETH Zurich, Switzerland in 1980.", "mapping":"function", "marbles":"jargon From the mainstream lost his marbles The minimum needed to build your way further up some hierarchy of tools or abstractions. After a bad system crash, you need to determine if the machine has enough marbles to come up on its own, or enough marbles to allow a rebuild from backups, or if you need to rebuild from scratch. This compiler doesn't even have enough marbles to compile hello, world.", "marginal":"jargon 1. Extremely small. A marginal increase in core can decrease GC time drastically. In everyday terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort through it.", "Maril":"Machine description language used by the Marion code generator.", "marketroid":"/mar'k*-troyd/ Or marketing slime, marketeer, marketing droid, marketdroid A member of a company's marketing department, especially one who promises users that the next version of a product will have features that are not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement, and/or are in violation of the laws of physics; and/or one who describes existing features and misfeatures in ebullient, buzzword-laden adspeak. Derogatory.", "Markov":"See Andrei Markov, Markov chain, Markov model, Markov process.", "Markowitz":"The author of the original Simscript language.", "markup":"text In computerised document preparation, a method of adding information to the text to indicate the logical components of a document, instructions for layout of the text on the page or other information which can be interpreted by some automatic system.", "Marlais":"language A simple-minded interpreter by Brent Benson at Harris for a programming language strongly resembling Dylan.", "Mars":"A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream Gone Wrong. Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10 compatible computers built by Systems Concepts now, The SC Group: the multi-processor SC-30M, the small uniprocessor SC-25M, and the never-built superprocessor SC-40M. These machines were marvels of engineering design; although not much slower than the unique Foonly F-1, they were physically smaller and consumed less power than the much slower DEC KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines. They were also completely compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10 binaries including the operating system with no modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a KL10.", "marshaling":"spelling Alternative US spelling of marshalling.", "marshalling":"communications US -ll- or -l- The process of packing one or more items of data into a message buffer, prior to transmitting that message buffer over a communication channel.", "MARSYAS":"MARshall SYstem for Aerospace Simulation.", "Martian":"Packets that turn up unexpectedly on the wrong network because of bogus routing entries. Also a packet which has an altogether bogus non-registered or ill-formed internet address, such as the test loopback interface [127.0.0.1].", "MARVIN":"U Dortmund, 1984. Applicative language based on Modula-2, enhanced by signatures grammars terms trees and attribute couplings functions on trees. Used for specification of language translators.", "Mary":"language An extensible, machine-oriented superset of ALGOL68 developed by Mark Rain.", "MAS":"Modula-2 Algebra System. Runs on IBM PC, Atari, Amiga.", "MASCOT":"Modular Approach to Software Construction Operation and Test: a method for software design aimed at real-time embedded systems from the Royal Signals and Research Establishment, UK.", "MASM":"Microsoft Assembler for MS-DOS.", "masquerading":"1. networking NAT Linux kernel name.", "massage":"Vague term used to describe smooth transformations of a data set into a different form, especially transformations that do not lose information. Connotes less pain than munch or crunch. He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF format. Compare slurp.", "master":"botmaster", "Matchmaker":"A language for specifying and automating the generation of multi-lingual interprocess communication interfaces. MIG is an implementation of a subset of Matchmaker.", "Mathcad":"A symbolic mathematics environment.", "Mathematica":"tool, mathematics A popular symbolic mathematics and graphics system, developed in 1988 by Stephen Wolfram and sold by Wolfram Research. The language emphasises rules and pattern-matching. The name was suggested by Steve Jobs.", "MathJax":"mathematics, web A JavaScript library for rendering mathematical symbols in web browsers using CSS with web fonts or SVG. Input can be in MathML, TeX or ASCIImath.", "MATHLAB":"Symbolic math system, MITRE, 1964. Later version: MATHLAB 68 PDP-6, 1967.", "MathWorks":"The MathWorks, Inc.", "MATLAB":"mathematics, language, application A high-level language and interactive program from The MathWorks for numeric computation and visualisation. MATLAB supports numerical analysis, matrix computation, signal processing, linear algebra, statistics, Fourier analysis, filtering, optimisation and numerical integration. It can output two and three dimensional graphics and can be integrated with C, C++, Fortran, Java, COM and Microsoft Excel.", "Matrix":"[FidoNet] 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call FidoNet.", "MAU":"Media Access Unit", "mawk":"language, tool An faster implementation of nawk written by Mike Brennan at Boeing in 1991 and distributed under GPL but distinct from GNU's gawk.", "maximin":"minimax", "MAXIMOP":"Job Control Languages: MAXIMOP and CAFE, J. Brandon, Proc BCS Symp on Job Control Languages--Past Present and Future, NCC, Manchester, ENgland 1974.", "MB":"unit Or Mb megabytes or megabits. When referring to the size or data transfer rate of a storage device which is accessed in multiples of eight bits e.g. RAM, hard disk this almost certainly means megabytes, but when referring to the data transfer rate of a communications system it probably means megabits. Some years ago, it is claimed, MB always meant megabytes and Mb meant megabits but recently this useful distinction has been lost.", "MBASIC":"Microsoft BASIC.", "MBONE":"Virtual Internet Backbone for Multicast IP.", "MBps":"megabytes per second", "mbps":"megabits per second", "MBS":"mobile broadband services", "MC":"language An extension of C with modules. Symbols in other modules can be referenced using a dot notation.", "mc":"networking The country code for Monaco.", "MCA":"Micro Channel Architecture", "MCAD":"Microsoft Certified Application Developer", "MCC":"1. Mosaic Communications Corporation.", "MCDBA":"Microsoft Certified Database Administrator", "MCDST":"Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician", "MCGA":"Multi-Color Graphics Array", "MCI":"company A United States long-distance telecommunications company. Recently bought from British Telecom [by ?].", "MCL":"Macintosh Common LISP", "MCP":"motion compensated prediction", "MCPD":"Microsoft Certified Professional Developer", "MCS":"Meta Class System", "MCSA":"education 1. Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator.", "MCSD":"Microsoft Certified Solution Developer", "MCSE":"1. education Microsoft Certified System Engineer.", "mcvax":"mcvax.cwi.nl used to be the international backbone node of EUnet, the European Unix network. It was located in Amsterdam, Netherlands and belonged to Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science which is an institute belonging to a foundation called Mathematisch Centrum. Since the first mcvax was on of the first VAXen in Europe and one of it's first uucp connections was to a machine called decvax it was quickly christened mcvax. Some also say this was done to give Jim McKie a nice mail address: mcvax!mckie. But this is certainly not true at all. The function of EUnet international backbone moved to another VAX later but the name moved with it, because in those days of mainly uucp based mail and before widespread use of pathalias it was simply not feasible to rename the machine to europa as was suggested at one stage.", "mcvert":"tool A Unix program for reading and writing Apple Computer Macintosh binary files. It was written by Doug Moore, now at Rice University Jan 1990.", "MD":"1. audio, storage Mini Disk.", "md":"networking The country code for Moldova.", "MDA":"Monochrome Display Adapter", "MDAC":"Microsoft Data Access Components", "MDCT":"Modified Discrete Cosine Transform", "MDF":"Main Distribution Frame", "MDI":"Multiple Document Interface", "MDL":"Originally Muddle. C. Reeve, Carl Hewitt and Gerald Sussman, Dynamic Modeling Group, MIT ca. 1971. Intended as a successor to Lisp, and a possible base for Planner-70.", "measure":"testing To ascertain or appraise by comparing to a standard; to apply a metric.", "measurement":"testing The act or process of measuring; a figure, extent, or amount obtained by measuring.", "meatspace":"jargon The physical world as opposed virtual reality where you might spend facetime with the carbon community.", "meatware":"Less common synonym for wetware.", "media":"1. data Any kind of data including graphics, images, audio and video, though typically excluding raw text or executable code.", "meeces":"jargon /mees'*z/ TMRC Occasional furry visitors who are not urchins; that is, mice. This may no longer be in live use. According to ESR it derives from the refrain of the early-1960s cartoon character Mr. Jinx: I hate meeces to *pieces*!", "Meet":"greatest lower bound", "meg":"megabyte", "megabyte":"unit, data MB, colloquially meg A Unit of data equal to one million bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions.", "megaflop":"unit Etymologically incorrect singular of megaflops.", "megaflops":"unit One million floating-point operations per second. A common unit of measurement of performance of computers used for numerical work.", "MegaHertz":"MHz Millions of cycles per second. The unit of frequency used to measure the clock rate of modern digital logic, including microprocessors.", "megapenny":"/meg'*-penee/ $10,000 1 cent * 10^6. Used semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost and performance figures.", "MEGO":"/megoh/ or /mee'goh/ [My Eyes Glaze Over, often Mine Eyes Glazeth sic Over, attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn] Also MEGO factor. 1. A handwave intended to confuse the listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does not want to admit to not understanding what is going on. MEGO is usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a high proportion of TLAs.", "Mei":"library A set of class libraries by Atsushi Aoki aoki@sra.co.jp and others for Objectworks Smalltalk Release 4.1. Mei includes: Grapher Library for drawing diagrams; Meta Grapher Library grapher to develop grapher; Drawing tools and painting tools structured diagram editors and drawing editors; GUI builder; Lisp interpreter; Prolog interpreter; Pluggable gauges; Extended browser; package, history, recover, etc.", "Mel":"The story of Mel", "MELD":"A concurrent, object-oriented, dataflow, modular and fault-tolerant language! MELD is comparable to SR.", "MELDC":"A reflective object-oriented concurrent programming language developed in 1990 by the MELD Project of the Programming Systems Laboratory at Columbia University.", "Melinda":"[Melinda: Linda with Multiple Tuple Spaces, S. Hupfer, hupfer-susanne@yale.edu YALEU/DCS/RR-766, Yale U Feb 1990].", "Mellor":"Schlaer-Mellor", "meltdown":"network meltdown", "meme":"philosophy /meem/ [By analogy with gene] Richard Dawkins's term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating them much as viruses do.", "memetics":"philosophy /me-met'iks/ The study of memes.", "Memex":"hypertext Vannevar Bush's original name for hypertext, which he invented in the 1930s.", "memoisation":"memo function", "memoization":"memo function", "memory":"storage These days, usually used synonymously with Random Access Memory or Read-Only Memory, but in the general sense it can be any device that can hold data in machine-readable format.", "MEMS":"microelectromechanical system", "Mentat":"language After the human computers in Frank Herbert's SF classic, Dune An object-oriented distributed language developed at the University of Virginia some time before Dec 1987. Mentat is an extension of C++ and is portable to a variety of MIMD architectures.", "MENTOR":"CAI language. Computer Systems for Teaching Complex Concepts, Report 1742, BBN, Mar 1969.", "menu":"operating system A list from which the user may select an operation to be performed. This is often done with a mouse or other pointing device under a graphical user interface but may also be controlled from the keyboard.", "menuitis":"/menyoo-i:tis/ A notional disease suffered by software with an obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape.", "MERISE":"Methode d'Etude et de Realisation Informatique pour les Systemes d'Enteprise.", "Merlin":"OS/2", "MEROON":"language An object-oriented system built on Scheme.", "Mesa":"Xerox PARC, 1977. System and application programming for proprietary hardware: Alto, Dolphin, Dorado and Dandelion.", "mesh":"character The INTERCAL name for hash.", "message":"In object-oriented programming sending a message to an object to invoke a method is equivalent to calling a procedure in traditional programming languages, except that the actual code executed may only be selected at run time depending on the class of the object. Thus, in response to the message drawSelf, the method code invoked would be different if the target object were a circle or a square.", "META":"language The assembly language for the CYBER 200, developed at CDC ca 1977.", "meta":"philosophy /me't*/ or /may't*/ or Commonwealth /mee't*/ A prefix meaning one level of description higher. If X is some concept then meta-X is data about, or processes operating on, X.", "MetaCard":"A commercial human interface and hypertext system for Unix and the X Window System, similar to Hypercard.", "metaclass":"programming The class of a class in an object-oriented programming language. A metaclass is a class whose instances are themselves classes. Typically there will only be one metaclass, called Class or similar, which is the class of all classes including itself. In some languages there will be no metaclass.", "metadata":"data, data processing /me't*-day`t*/, or combinations of /may'-/ or Commonwealth /mee'-/; /-dah`t*/ Or meta-data Data about data. In data processing, metadata is definitional data that provides information about or documentation of other data managed within an application or environment.", "metafile":"graphics, file format 1. An image file format for transport between different machines, often as a device independent bitmap.", "METAFONT":"A system for the design of raster-based alphabets by Donald Knuth. A companion to TeX.", "metaheuristic":"algorithm, complexity, computability A top-level general strategy which guides other heuristics to search for feasible solutions in domains where the task is hard.", "metainformation":"metadata", "METAL":"1. Mega-Extensive Telecommunications Applications Language.", "metalanguage":"1. [theorem proving] A language in which proofs are manipulated and tactics are programmed, as opposed to the logic itself the object language. The first ML was the metalanguage for the Edinburgh LCF proof assistant.", "metaphone":"algorithm, text An algorithm for encoding a word so that similar sounding words encode the same. It's similar to soundex in purpose, but as it knows the basic rules of English pronunciation it's more accurate. The higher accuracy doesn't come free, though, metaphone requires more computational power as well as more storage capacity, but neither of these requirements are usually prohibitive. It is in the public domain so it can be freely implemented.", "metaprogram":"A program which modifies or generates other programs. A compiler is an example of a metaprogram: it takes a program as input and produces another compiled one as output.", "metasyntax":"grammar Syntax used to describe syntax. The best known example is BNF and its variants such as EBNF.", "METEOR":"A version of COMIT with Lisp-like syntax, written in MIT Lisp 1.5 for the IBM 7090. METEOR - A List Interpreter for String Transformation, D.G. Bobrow in The Programming Language LISP and its Interpretation, E.D. and D.G. Bobrow eds, 1964.", "meter":"spelling US spelling of metre.", "method":"programming In object-oriented programming, a function that can be called on an object of a given class. When a method is called or invoked method invocation on an object, the object is passed as an implicit argument to the method, usually referred to by the special variable this. If the method is not defined in the object's class, it is looked for in that class's superclass, and so on up the class hierarchy until it is found. A subclass thus inherits inheritance all the methods of its superclasses.", "methodology":"1. programming An organised, documented set of procedures and guidelines for one or more phases of the software life cycle, such as analysis or design. Many methodologies include a diagramming notation for documenting the results of the procedure; a step-by-step cookbook approach for carrying out the procedure; and an objective ideally quantified set of criteria for determining whether the results of the procedure are of acceptable quality.", "Methods":"language A line-oriented Smalltalk for PC's, produced by Digitalk ca 1985. Methods was the predecessor of Smalltalk/V.", "metre":"unit US meter The fundamental SI unit of length.", "metric":"software metric", "MFC":"Microsoft Foundation Class", "MFE":"maximal free expression", "MFLOPS":"1. unit megaflops.", "MFM":"Modified Frequency Modulation", "MFTL":"My Favourite Toy Language", "mg":"networking The country code for Madagascar.", "MGCP":"Media Gateway Control Protocol", "mh":"networking The country code for Marshall Islands.", "MHDL":"1. MIMIC Hardware Description Language.", "MHEG":"Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group", "MHS":"message handling system", "MHz":"MegaHertz", "MIB":"Management Information Base", "MIC":"Many Integrated Core Architecture", "MICE":"Multimedia Integrated Conferencing for European Researchers", "mice":"mouse", "mickey":"unit, humour The unit of resolution of mouse movement.", "MICR":"Magnetic Ink Character Recognition", "micro":"microprocessor", "microarray":"A technique for performing many DNA experiments in parallel.", "microcentury":"One CS professor used to characterise the standard length of his lectures as a microcentury - that is, about 52.6 minutes see also attoparsec, nanoacre, and especially microfortnight.", "microcode":"programming A technique for implementing the instruction set of a processor as a sequence of microcode instructions microinstructions, each of which typically consists of a large number of bit fields and the address of the next microinstruction to execute. Each bit field controls some specific part of the processor's operation, such as a gate which allows some functional unit to drive a value onto the bus or the operation to be performed by the ALU. Several microinstructions will usually be required to fetch, decode and execute each machine code instruction macroinstruction. The microcode may also be responsible for polling for hardware interrupts between each macroinstruction. Writing microcode is known as microprogramming.", "microcomputer":"A computer based on a microprocessor.", "microcontroller":"processor A microprocessor on a single integrated circuit intended to operate as an embedded system. As well as a CPU, a microcontroller typically includes small amounts of RAM and PROM and timers and I/O ports.", "MicroDroid":"[Usenet] A Microsoft employee, especially one who posts to various operating-system advocacy newsgroups. MicroDroids post follow-ups to any messages critical of Microsoft's operating systems, and often end up sounding like visiting Mormon missionaries.", "MicroEmacs":"uemacs A simple, portable text editor with versions for most microcomputers and many other computers. It is both relatively easy for the novice to use, but also very powerful in the hands of an expert. MicroEmacs can be extensibly customised.", "microfloppies":"3.5-inch floppies, as opposed to 5.25-inch vanilla or mini-floppies and the now-obsolete 8-inch variety. This term may be headed for obsolescence as 5.25-inchers pass out of use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy standard. See stiffy, minifloppies.", "microfortnight":"One millionth of the fundamental unit of time in the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of measurement; 1.2096 sec.", "MicroGnuEmacs":"text, tool mg A Public Domain Emacs-style editor modified from MicroEmacs to be more compatible with GNU Emacs. mg is essentially free, it is not associated with the GNU project, and does not have the GNU copyright restrictions.", "microkernel":"operating system An approach to operating system design emphasising small modules that implement the basic features of the system kernel and can be flexibly configured.", "microLenat":"/mi:-kroh-len-*t/ The unit of bogosity, written uL; the consensus is that this is the largest unit practical for everyday use. The microLenat, originally invented by David Jefferson, was promulgated as an attack against noted computer scientist Doug Lenat by a tenured graduate student at CMU. Doug had failed the student on an important exam for giving only AI is bogus as his answer to the questions. The slur is generally considered unmerited, but it has become a running gag nevertheless. Some of Doug's friends argue that *of course* a microLenat is bogus, since it is only one millionth of a Lenat. Others have suggested that the unit should be redesignated after the grad student, as the microReid.", "microlog":"architecture A section of non-volitile memory used to record state information. Often used for retaining crash information after a reboot in embedded systems.", "micrometre":"unit Or micron One millionth of a metre. The symbol is a Greek letter mu followed by m.", "Micron":"Micron Electronics, Inc.", "micron":"micrometre", "microperation":"processor An elementary operation performed on data stored in registers or in memory. Microperations are classified as transfer, arithmetic, logic, or shift/rotate.", "microphone":"hardware, audio Any electromechanical device designed to convert sound into an electrical signal.", "microPLANNER":"A subset of PLANNER, implemented in Lisp by Gerald Sussman et al at MIT. Its important features were goal-oriented, pattern-directed procedure invocation, an embedded knowledge base, and automatic backtracking.", "microprocesor":"spelling It's spelled microprocessor.", "microprocessor":"architecture Or micro A computer whose entire CPU is contained on one or a small number of integrated circuits.", "microprogramming":"microcode", "microReid":"/mi:'kroh-reed/ See bogosity.", "microsecond":"unit One millionth 10^-6 of a second.", "Microserf":"jargon Wired magazine's term for a Microsoft employee.", "Microslop":"company, abuse A derisive synonym for Microsoft Corporation. It refers to the sloppy, bug-ridden x.0 versions of MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products.", "Microsoft":"Microsoft Corporation", "MicroStation":"application A full-featured 2-D and 3-D CAD program for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and Unix workstations from Bentley Systems, Inc. Created in 1984, MicroStation is a high-end package used worldwide in environments where many designers work on large, complex projects. MicroStation Modeler is a superset of MicroStation that provides solid modelling, and MasterPiece is MicroStation's rendering and animation program.", "microtape":"hardware, storage /mi:'kroh-tayp/ Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a macrotape.", "MIDAS":"A digital simulation language.", "Midas":"A Motif-based toolkit for interactive data analysis by T. Johnson, SLAC. The basis for the Midas-WWW browser.", "middleware":"Software that mediates between an application program and a network. It manages the interaction between disparate applications across the heterogeneous computing platforms.", "MIDI":"Musical Instrument Digital Interface", "MIF":"Maker Interchange Format", "MIG":"Mach Interface Generator", "MIGRAINES":"tool A graphical user interface for evaluating and interacting with the Aspirin neural network simulation.", "MII":"1. body A consortium of Microsoft, IBM, and Intel.", "MIIS":"language /Meese/ An interpreted language with one-letter keywords.", "MIKE":"Micro Interpreter for Knowledge Engineering", "mil":"networking The top-level domain for entities affiliated with US armed forces.", "Milarepa":"tool A Perl BNF parser generator by Jeffrey Kegler jeffrey@netcom.com. Milarepa takes a source grammar written in a mixture of BNF and Perl and generates Perl source, which, when enclosed in a simple wrapper, parses the language described by the grammar. Milarepa is not restricted to LRn grammars, and the parse logic follows directly from the BNF. It handles ambiguous grammars, ambiguous tokens tokens which were not positively identified by the lexer and allows the programmer to change the start symbol. The grammar may not be left recursive. The input must be divided into sentences of a finite maximum length. There is no fixed distinction between terminals and non-terminals, that is, a symbol can both match the input AND be on the left hand side of a production. Multiple Marpa grammars are allowed in a single Perl program.", "MILITRAN":"A discrete simulation system for military applications produced by the Sys Res Group at ONR in 1964.", "mill":"Arithmetic and Logic Unit", "millihelen":"unit, humour The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.", "milliLampson":"/mil'*-lampsn/ A unit of talking speed, abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200 milliLampsons. The eponymous Butler Lampson a CS theorist and systems implementor highly regarded among hackers goes at 1000. A few people speak faster. This unit is sometimes used to compare the sometimes widely disparate rates at which people can generate ideas and actually emit them in speech. For example, noted computer architect C. Gordon Bell designer of the PDP-11 is said, with some awe, to think at about 1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is frequently reduced to fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to keep up with his speeding brain.", "millisecond":"unit ms One thousandth of a second, one thousand microseconds. A long time for a modern computer.", "MILNET":"Military Network. Part of the Defense Data Network DDN and of the Internet. Managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency DISA.", "MIMD":"Multiple Instruction/Multiple Data", "MIME":"Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions", "mimencode":"Originally distributed as mmencode. A replacement for uuencode for use in electronic mail and news. Part of MIME. uuencode uses characters that dont translate well across all mail gateways particularly those which convert between ASCII and EBCDIC. Also, different variants of uuencode encode data in different and incompatible ways, with no standard. Finally, few uuencode variants work well in a pipe. Mimencode implements the encodings which were defined for MIME as uuencode replacements, and should be considerably more robust for e-mail use. Written by Nathaniel S. Borenstein of Bell Communications Research, Inc. Bellcore in 1991.", "MIMIC":"language An early language designed by J.H. Andrews of the NIH in 1967 for solving engineering problems such as differential equations that would otherwise have been done on an analog computer.", "MIMOLA":"Operational hardware specification language.", "minicomputer":"computer A computer built between about 1963 and 1987, smaller and less powerful than a mainframe, typically about the size and shape of a wardrobe, mounted in a single tall rack.", "minifloppy":"storage 5.25-inch vanilla floppy disks, as opposed to 3.5-inch or microfloppies and the now-obsolescent 8-inch variety.", "minimax":"games An algorithm for choosing the next move in a two player game. A player moves so as to maximise the minimum value of his opponent's possible following moves. If it is my turn to move, I give a value to each legal move I might make.", "MINIX":"operating system /MIN-ix/ A small operating system that is very similar to UNIX. MINIX was written for educational purposes by Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.", "MINT":"Mint Is Not TRAC", "MiNT":"operating system MinT is not TOS - a recursive acronym A freeware, open source operating system for the Atari ST range of computers. MiNT was originally based on a port of BSD to Atari ST computers by Eric R. Smith. MiNT gave the Atari access to BSD's many network applications. A short 1992-94 romance between MiNT and Atari Corp., who decided to convert the system to the MultiTOS kernel, produced a unique TOS/Unix hybrid, which provides simultaneous access to both GEM and BSD application libraries.", "Minuet":"networking Minnesota Internet Users Essential Tool.", "MINUIT":"A program for function minimisation and error analysis.", "minus":"-", "MIPS":"1. unit, benchmark Million instructions per second.", "Miracula":"An implementation of a subset of Miranda by Stefan Kahrs smk@ed.ac.uk, LFCS, no modules or files. Can be interactively switched between eager and lazy evaluation.", "Miranda":"language From the Latin for admirable, also the heroine of Shakespeare's Tempest A lazy purely functional programming language and interpreter designed by David Turner of the University of Kent in the early 1980s and implemented as a product of his company, Research Software Limited. Miranda combines the main features of KRC and SASL with strong typing similar to that of ML.", "MIRFAC":"Mathematics in Recognizable Form Automatically Compiled", "mirror":"1. hardware, storage Writing duplicate data to more than one device usually two hard disks, in order to protect against loss of data in the event of device failure. This technique may be implemented in either hardware sharing a disk controller and cables or in software. It is a common feature of RAID systems.", "mirroring":"mirror", "MIS":"Management Information System", "misbug":"/mis-buhg/ [MIT] An unintended property of a program that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a bug but turns out to be a feature. Usage: rare. Compare green lightning. See miswart.", "misfeature":"/mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'feechr/ A feature that eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate for a new situation that has evolved. Since it results from a deliberate and properly implemented feature, a misfeature is not a bug. Nor is it a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies that the feature in question was carefully planned, but its long-term consequences were not accurately or adequately predicted which is quite different from not having thought ahead at all. A misfeature can be a particularly stubborn problem to resolve, because fixing it usually involves a substantial philosophical change to the structure of the system involved.", "MISHAP":"language An early system on the IBM 1130.", "missing":"Missing definition", "miswart":"/mis-wort/ [By analogy with misbug] A feature that superficially appears to be a wart but has been determined to be the Right Thing. For example, in some versions of the Emacs text editor, the transpose characters command exchanges the character under the cursor with the one before it on the screen, *except* when the cursor is at the end of a line, in which case the two characters before the cursor are exchanged. While this behaviour is perhaps surprising, and certainly inconsistent, it has been found through extensive experimentation to be what most users want. This feature is a miswart.", "MIT":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology", "MITI":"SQRIBE", "MITILAC":"language An early system on the IBM 650.", "MITS":"Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems", "MIX":"Knuth's hypothetical machine, used in The Art of Computer Programming v.1, Donald Knuth, A-W 1969.", "MIXAL":"MIX Assembly Language.", "MJS":"language An early system on the UNIVAC I or II.", "mk":"networking The country code for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.", "ML":"1. robotics Manipulator Language. IBM language for handling robots.", "ml":"networking The country code for Mali.", "MLAB":"Modeling LABoratory. An interactive mathematical modelling system.", "MLISP":"1. M-expression LISP.", "MLL":"Medium-Level Language.", "mm":"networking The country code for Myanmar Burma.", "Mma":"A fast Mathematica-like system, in Allegro CL by R. Fateman, 1991.", "mmap":"The Unix system call which establishes a mapping between a range of addresses in a user process's address space and a portion of some memory object typically a file, one of the special devices /dev/mem or /dev/kmem or some memory-mapped peripheral. This allows the process to access a file at random byte offsets without using the seek system call or to access physical addresses or kernel's virtual address space. It can also be used as an alternative to writing a device driver since it is usually simpler to code and faster to use.", "MMCD":"storage MultiMedia Compact Disc.", "MMDF":"Multi-channel Memorandum Distribution Facility", "MMI":"1. Man-Machine Interface.", "MML":"Human-Machine Language.", "MMO":"Massively Multiplayer Online Game", "MMOG":"Massively Multiplayer Online Game", "MMORPG":"Massively Multiplayer Online Game", "MMS":"Multimedia Messaging Services", "MMU":"Memory Management Unit", "MMX":"Matrix Math eXtensions", "mn":"networking The country code for Mongolia.", "mnemonic":"programming A word or string which is intended to be easier to remember than the thing it stands for. Most often used in instruction mnemonic which are so called because they are easier to remember than the binary patterns they stand for.", "MNP":"Microcom Networking Protocol", "mo":"networking The country code for Macau.", "mobo":"motherboard", "moby":"jargon /moh'bee/ From MIT, seems to have been in use among model railroad fans years ago. Derived from Melville's Moby Dick, some say from Moby Pickle 1. Large, immense, complex, impressive. A Saturn V rocket is a truly moby frob. Some MIT undergrads pulled off a moby hack at the Harvard-Yale game.", "mockingbird":"Software that intercepts communications especially login transactions between users and hosts and provides system-like responses to the users while saving their responses especially account IDs and passwords. A special case of Trojan horse.", "Mockingboard":"hardware A sound and speech board for the Apple II computer, on sale in 1978.", "mod":"1. filename extension, application, file format, music module The filename extension for a sampled music file format that originated on the Commodore Amiga. A .MOD file is composed of digitised sound samples, arranged in patterns to create a song. There are .MOD players for most personal computers including Amiga, Archimedes, IBM PC, and Macintosh.", "modal":"1. Of an interface Having modes. Modeless interfaces are generally considered to be superior because the user does not have to remember which mode he is in.", "modam":"spelling Do you mean modem?", "MODCAL":"A version of HP-PASCAL enhanced with system programming constructs, used internally by HP.", "Mode":"language An object-oriented language.", "mode":"1. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. Use of the word mode rather than state implies that the state is extended over time, and probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is being carried out. No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode.", "MODEF":"Pascal-like language with polymorphism and data abstraction.", "MODEL":"language A Pascal-like language with extensions for large-scale system programming and interface with Fortran applications. MODEL includes generic procedures, and a static macro-like approach to data abstraction. It produces P-code and was used to implement the DEMOS operating system on the Cray-1.", "model":"1. simulation A description of observed or predicted behaviour of some system, simplified by ignoring certain details. Models allow complex systems, both existent and merely specified, to be understood and their behaviour predicted. A model may give incorrect descriptions and predictions for situations outside the realm of its intended use. A model may be used as the basis for simulation.", "modeling":"spelling US spelling of modelling.", "modelling":"model", "Modelsim":"simulation A simulation tool for programming VLSI ASICs, FPGAs, CPLDs, and SoCs.", "modem":"hardware, communications Modulator/demodulator An electronic device for converting between serial data typically EIA-232 from a computer and an audio signal suitable for transmission over a telephone line connected to another modem. In one scheme the audio signal is composed of silence no data or one of two frequencies representing zero and one.", "moderator":"A person, or small group of people, who manages a moderated mailing list or Usenet newsgroup. Moderators are responsible for determining which email submissions are passed on to the list or newsgroup.", "modifier":"programming An operation that alters the state of an object. Modifiers often have names that begin with set and corresponding selector functions whose names begin with get.", "MODSIM":"language A general-purpose, modular, block-structured language from CACI, which provides support for object-oriented programming and discrete event simulation.", "Modula":"MODUlar LAnguage", "module":"1. programming An independent piece of software which forms part of one or more larger programs. Different languages have different concepts of a module but there are several common ideas.", "Modulex":"Based on Modula-2. Mentioned by M.P. Atkinson & J.W. Schmidt in a tutorial in Zurich, 1989.", "modulo":"/mod'yu-loh/", "monad":"theory, functional programming /mo'nad/ A technique from category theory which has been adopted as a way of dealing with state in functional programming languages in such a way that the details of the state are hidden or abstracted out of code that merely passes it on unchanged.", "monadic":"1. programming unary, when describing an operator or function. The term is part of the dyadic, niladic sequence.", "moniter":"spelling It's spelled monitor.", "monitor":"1. A cathode-ray tube and associated electronics connected to a computer's video output. A monitor may be either monochrome black and white or colour RGB. Colour monitors may show either digital colour each of the red, green and blue signals may be either on or off, giving eight possible colours: black, white, red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow or analog colour red, green and blue signals are continuously variable allowing any combination to be displayed. Digital monitors are sometimes known as TTL because the voltages on the red, green and blue inputs are compatible with TTL logic chips.", "Mono":"programming An open source .NET framework for Unix.", "monochrome":"graphics Literally one colour. Usually used for a black and white or sometimes green or orange monitor as distinct from a color monitor. Normally, each pixel on the display will correspond to a single bit of display memory and will therefore be one of two intensities. A grey-scale display requires several bits per pixel but might still be called monochrome.", "monoid":"An operator * and a value x form a monoid if * is associative and x is its left and right identity.", "monotonic":"In domain theory, a function f : D - C is monotonic or monotone if", "MONSTR":"language A term graph rewriting language from Manchester University?, designed to be easily implementable on distributed architectures and featuring limited synchronisation facilities.", "Montage":"An object-relational database management system from Montage Software, the commercialisation of POSTGRES.", "monty":"programming, abuse /mon'tee/ Any program with a ludicrously complex user interface that performs a trivial task. An example would be a menu-driven, button clicking, pulldown, pop-up windows program for listing directories. The original monty was a weather reporting program, Monty the Amazing Weather Man, written at the USGS. Monty had a widget-packed X-window interface with over 200 buttons; and all it actually *did* was FTP files off the network.", "MOO":"MUD Object Oriented", "Moof":"/moof/ [MAC users] 1. A semi-legendary creature, also called the dogcow, that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh Technical Notes Hypercard stack V3.1; specifically, the full story of the dogcow is told in technical note #31 the particular Moof illustrated is properly named Clarus.", "MooZ":"language, specification An object-oriented extension of Z.", "Mops":"Like Yerk, Mops is descended from the ex-commercial object-oriented language Neon. It was developed by Michael Hore mikeh@kralizec.zeta.org.au. Mops features an optimising native-code compiler; it is much faster than Yerk, but less compatible with Neon. Mops includes extensions such as multiple inheritance.", "MORAL":"Mentioned in An Overview of Ada, J.G.P. Barnes, Soft Prac & Exp 10:851-887 1980.", "more":"tool The standard Unix pager program.", "moria":"games /mor'ee-*/ Like nethack and rogue, one of the large PD Dungeons and Dragons-like simulation games, available for a wide range of machines and operating systems.", "morphing":"graphics The animated transformation of one image into another by gradually distorting the first image so as to move certain chosen points to the position of corresponding points in the second image.", "MORTRAN":"A public domain Fortran preprocessor for structured programming.", "MOS":"Metal Oxide Semiconductor", "Mosaic":"web, tool NCSA's browser client for the web.", "MOSFET":"Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor", "Mosiac":"Do you mean Mosaic?", "motd":"message of the day", "mother":"parent", "motherboard":"hardware mobo The main printed circuit board in an electronic device, particularly a computer, which may contain sockets that accept additional boards daughter-boards.", "Motif":"The standard graphical user interface and window manager from OSF, running on the X Window System.", "Motorola":"Motorola, Inc.", "mount":"file system To make a file system available for access.", "Mouse":"A mighty small macro language developed by Peter Grogono in 1975.", "mouse":"hardware, graphics The most commonly used computer pointing device, first introduced by Douglas Engelbart in 1968.", "mouso":"jargon /mow'soh/ By analogy with typo An error in mouse usage resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic garbage on the screen.", "Moxie":"language, music A language for real-time computer music synthesis, written in XPL.", "Mozilla":"web, open source The open source web browser, designed for standards-compliance, performance, and portability, whose development is coordinated by the Mozilla Foundation.", "mp":"networking The country code for the Northern Mariana Islands.", "MPC":"1. operating system Memory Protection Check.", "MPEG":"Moving Picture Experts Group", "MPEGplus":"compression, algorithm A non-ISO standard compressed audio file format derived from MPEG-1 Layer 2.", "MPG":"jargon Miles per gallon, as in Your MPG may vary, i.e. Your mileage may vary.", "mpg":"filename extension A filename extension for a file in MPEG format.", "MPI":"Message Passing Interface", "MPL":"1. language An early possible name for PL/I.", "MPLS":"Multiprotocol Label Switching", "MPP":"Multiple Parallel Processing MPPE", "MPPL":"language An early possible name for PL/I.", "MPSX":"Mathematical Programming System Extended. Solution strategy for mathematical programming. Mathematical Programming System Extended MPSX Control Language User's Manual, SH20-0932, IBM. Sammet 1978.", "MPV":"An extension of the VRTX real-time operating system to support multi-processing.", "MPX":"Multiplexor Channel", "mq":"networking The country code for Martinique.", "MQG":"Multi-threaded Query Gate", "mr":"networking The country code for Mauritania.", "MRAM":"Magnetic RAM", "MRDA":"Mandy Rice-Davis Applies", "MRDS":"Multics Relational Data Store", "MRI":"1. application Magnetic Resonance Imaging.", "MROC":"Miniature Ruggedized Optical Correlator", "MROM":"Mask Read-Only Memory", "MRP":"Material Requirements Planning", "MRS":"Modifiable Representation System.", "ms":"1. unit millisecond.", "MSAU":"Media Access Unit", "MSB":"Most Significant Bit", "msgGUI":"library A graphical user interface for GNU Smalltalk.", "MSIE":"Internet Explorer", "MSM":"Micronetics Standard MUMPS", "MSN":"The Microsoft Network", "MSS":"maximum segment size", "MswLogo":"language A Microsoft Windows front-end for Berkeley Logo by George Mills george.mills AT softronix DOT com.", "MSX":"Microsoft Extended", "mt":"networking The country code for Malta.", "MTA":"1. messaging Message Transfer Agent.", "MTBF":"Mean Time Between Failures", "mtc":"A Modula-2 to C translator.", "MTOS":"1. operating system A family of real-time operating systems for use in embedded systems. It is developed and marketed by Industrial Programming, Inc..", "MTS":"1. Message Transport System.", "MTTR":"Mean Time To Recovery", "MTU":"Maximum Transmission Unit", "Mu":"character Greek letter.", "mu":"1. networking The country code for Mauritius.", "MUA":"Mail User Agent", "MUCAL":"language, music A language for playing music on the PDP-8.", "MUD":"games Multi-User Dimension or Multi-User Domain.", "muddie":"games Synonym mudhead. More common in Great Britain, possibly because system administrators there like to mutter bloody muddies when annoyed at the species.", "Muddle":"Original name of MDL.", "mudhead":"games A MUD player who eats, sleeps, and breathes MUD.", "muFP":"A functional language for hardware design, a predecessor of Ruby.", "Muieblackcat":"security A bot script, supposedly of Ukrainian origin, that attempts to exploit PHP vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.", "Mule":"text, tool A multi-lingual enhancement of GNU Emacs. Mule can handle not only ASCII characters 7 bit and ISO Latin 1 characters 8 bit, but also 16-bit characters like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Mule can have a mixture of languages in a single buffer.", "multiboot":"dual boot", "multiC":"language A data-parallel version of C from Wavetracer.", "multician":"jargon, person /muhl-ti'shn/ A term coined at Honeywell, ca. 1970 for a competent user of Multics. Perhaps oddly, no one has ever promoted the analogous Unician.", "Multics":"operating system /muhl'tiks/ MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service. A time-sharing operating system co-designed by a consortium including MIT, GE and Bell Laboratories as a successor to MIT's CTSS. The system design was presented in a special session of the 1965 Fall Joint Computer Conference and was planned to be operational in two years. It was finally made available in 1969, and took several more years to achieve respectable performance and stability.", "MultiLisp":"language A parallel extension of Scheme with explicit concurrency. The form future X immediately returns a future, and creates a task to evaluate X. When the evaluation is complete, the future is resolved to be the value.", "multimedia":"multimedia Any collection of data including text, graphics, images, audio and video, or any system for processing or interacting with such data. Often also includes concepts from hypertext.", "multiplexer":"multiplexor", "multiplexing":"1. communications Or multiple access Combining several signals for transmission on some shared medium e.g. a telephone wire. The signals are combined at the transmitter by a multiplexor a mux and split up at the receiver by a demultiplexor. The communications channel may be shared between the independent signals in one of several different ways: time division multiplexing, frequency division multiplexing, or code division multiplexing.", "multiplexor":"multiplexing", "multiprocessing":"parallel processing", "multiprocessor":"parallel processing", "multiprogramming":"multitasking", "multiscan":"hardware A monitor that can synchronise to a variety of horizontal scan rates and refresh rates, allowing it to display images at different resolutions.", "MultiScheme":"An implementation of Multilisp built on MIT's C-Scheme, for the BBN Butterfly.", "multisync":"hardware An NEC trademark term for multiscan. As NEC was the first to manufacture multiscan monitors the term is often used interchangeably with multiscan.", "multitasking":"computer, parallel Or multi-tasking, multiprogramming, concurrent processing, concurrency, process scheduling A technique used in an operating system for sharing a single processor between several independent jobs. The first multitasking operating systems were designed in the early 1960s.", "multithreaded":"multithreading", "multithreading":"parallel Sharing a single CPU between multiple tasks or threads in a way designed to minimise the time required to switch threads. This is accomplished by sharing as much as possible of the program execution environment between the different threads so that very little state needs to be saved and restored when changing thread.", "MultiTOS":"operating system MTOS A new version of TOS. MultiTOS's main advantage was support for pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection. It also supported the latest and far superior versions of GEM. MultiTOS was supplied with the Falcon030 range of computers from Atari.", "MuMath":"mathematics, tool A symbolic mathematics package for the IBM PC, written in MuSimp.", "mumblage":"/muhm'bl*j/ The topic of one's mumbling see mumble. All that mumblage is used like all that stuff when it is not quite clear how the subject of discussion works, or like all that crap when mumble is being used as an implicit replacement for pejoratives.", "mumble":"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 general reluctance to get into a long discussion. Don't you think that we could improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use? Well, mumble ... I'll have to think about it.", "MUMPS":"language Or M Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System.", "munch":"To transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of computation. To trace down a data structure.", "munching":"Exploration of security holes of someone else's computer for thrills, notoriety or to annoy the system manager. Compare cracker. See also hacked off.", "munchkin":"/muhnch'kin/ [Squeaky-voiced little people in L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz] A teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else equally constricted. A term of mild derision - munchkins are annoying but some grow up to be hackers after passing through a larval stage. The term urchin is also used. See also wannabee, bitty box.", "mundane":"jargon Someone outside some group that is implicit from the context, such as the computer industry or science fiction fandom. The implication is that those in the group are special and those outside are just ordinary.", "mung":"/muhng/ MIT, 1960 Mash Until No Good.", "munge":"/muhnj/ 1. A derogatory term meaning to imperfectly transform information.", "MUP":"Multiple Universal naming convention Provider", "Muse":"language OR-parallel logic programming.", "museum":"Museums on the Web http://comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/other/museums.html.", "MUSH":"1. games Multi-User Shared Hallucination.", "Music":"language, music A series of languages for musical sound synthesis from Bell Labs, 1960's. Versions: Music I through Music V.", "Musicam":"audio, compression A name for MPEG-1 Layer 2 used for broadcasting. Common data rates are 192, 224, and 256 kbps.", "MuSimp":"language A Lisp variant used as the programming language for the IBM PC symbolic mathematics package MuMath.", "MUSL":"Manchester University Systems Language", "mutant":"programming Microsoft's term for a mutex which is generally used in user mode but can also be used in kernel mode. According to this terminology a mutex is only used in kernel mode.", "MuTeX":"tool, music An extension of TeX for typesetting music.", "mutex":"parallel A mutual exclusion object that allows multiple threads to synchronise access to a shared resource. A mutex has two states: locked and unlocked. Once a mutex has been locked by a thread, other threads attempting to lock it will block. When the locking thread unlocks releases the mutex, one of the blocked threads will acquire lock it and proceed.", "mutter":"To quietly enter a command not meant for the ears, eyes, or fingers of ordinary mortals. Often used in mutter an incantation.", "mux":"multiplexing", "mv":"1. operating system The Unix command to move or rename files or directories.", "MVC":"1. programming Model-View-Controller.", "MVCC":"Multi-Version Concurrency Control", "MVP":"Model-View-Presenter", "MVS":"Multiple Virtual Storage", "mw":"networking The country code for Malawi.", "MX":"Mail Exchange Record", "mx":"networking The country code for Mexico.", "MXI":"Multisystem eXtention Interface Bus", "MXIbus":"Multisystem eXtention Interface Bus", "my":"networking The country code for Malaysia.", "MYOB":"chat mind your own business.", "MySpace":"web A social networking website based in Beverly Hills, California, USA.", "MySQL":"database /mi: S Q L/ The most popular open source relational database management system. MySQL is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB.", "MYSTIC":"language An early system on the IBM 704, IBM 650, IBM 1103 and 1103A.", "MZ":"standard, file format The file signature of an MS-DOS executable .EXE file 0x4d 5a, always the first two bytes of the file. It was reportedly invented by, and named after, a Microsoft programmer, Mark Zbikowski.", "mz":"networking The country code for Mozambique.", "N":"mathematics, programming, jargon A variable typically used to stand for a number of objects.", "na":"networking The country code for Namibia.", "nadger":"jargon /nad'jr/ [Great Britain] To modify software or hardware in a hidden manner, generally so that it conforms better to some format.", "NAG":"1. Numerical Algorithms Group.", "nagware":"jargon /nag'weir/ A term, originally from Usenet, for the variety of shareware that displays a message on start-up and/or termination reminding you to register, pay or donate see guiltware.", "naive":"Untutored in the perversities of some particular program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive way, rather than the right way in really good designs these coincide, but most designs aren't really good in the appropriate sense. This trait is completely unrelated to general maturity or competence or even competence at any other specific program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed to be experienced user but is really more like cynical user.", "NAK":"Negative Acknowledgement", "named":"networking Name Daemon.", "namespace":"systems The set of all possible identifiers for some kind of object. From the definition of a set, all names in a namespace are unique and there is some rule to determine whether a potential name is an element of the set. For example, the Domain Name System includes rules for determining what constitutes a valid host name.", "NaN":"Not-a-Number", "NAND":"logic Not AND. The Boolean function which is true unless both its arguments are true, the logical complement of AND:", "nanoacre":"unit, humour /nan'oh-aykr/ A unit about 2 mm square of real estate on a VLSI integrated circuit. VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real acres once one allows for design and fabrication setup costs.", "nanobot":"robotics /nanoh-bot/ A robot of microscopic proportions, presumably built by means of nanotechnology. As yet, only used informally and speculatively!. Also called a nanoagent.", "nanocomputer":"architecture /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ A computer with molecular-sized switching elements. Designs for mechanical nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their logic have been proposed. The controller for a nanobot would be a nanocomputer.", "nanofortnight":"jargon Adelaide University 10^-9 fortnights or about 1.2 milliseconds. This unit was used largely by students doing undergraduate practicals.", "nanometre":"unit 10^-9 metres; one thousand millionth part of a metre.", "nanosecond":"unit ns 10^-9 seconds; one thousand millionth part of a second.", "nanotechnology":"/nan'-oh-tek-nol*-jee/ Any fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built by the specification and placement of individual atoms or molecules or where at least one dimension is on a scale of nanometers.", "Napier":"Atkinson & Morrison, St Andrews U; design began ca. 1985, first implementation Napier88, 1988. Based on orthogonal persistence, permits definition and manipulation of namespaces.", "NAPLPS":"North American Presentation-Level-Protocol Syntax. Format for sending text and graphics over communication lines. Used by videotex systems.", "NAPSS":"Numerical Analysis Problem Solving System. Purdue ca. 1965.", "narrowband":"networking A communication channel with a low data rate.", "narrowing":"logic programming Unification followed by unfolding. The left-hand side of a rule is unified with some term, resulting in a set of variable bindings. The term is then replaced by the right-hand side of the rule with values substituted for bound variables.", "NAS":"networking 1. Network Application Support.", "NASI":"NetWare Asynchronous Services Interface", "nastistical":"humour, mathematics A description of a method, thought by the programmer to be correct statistics, but which is not. An example is averaging together several averages of samples of different sizes. The correct way to do this is to average together all of the individual samples.", "NASTRAN":"NAsa STRess ANalysis program. A program for solving large stress analysis problems.", "nastygram":"networking /nas'tee-gram/ 1. A network packet or e-mail message the latter is also called a letterbomb that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things.", "NAT":"Network Address Translation", "NATURAL":"An integrated 4GL from Software AG, Germany. The menu-driven version is SUPER/NATURAL.", "nature":"has the X nature", "NAU":"networking", "navigating":"navigation", "navigation":"web Finding your way around a website.", "Navigator":"Netscape Navigator", "Nawk":"New AWK. AT&T. Pattern scanning and processing language. An enhanced version of AWK, with dynamic regular expressions, additional built-ins and operators, and user-defined functions.", "NB":"C", "NBFCP":"NetBIOS Frames Control Protocol", "NBS":"National Bureau of Standards: part of the US Department of Commerce, now NIST.", "NBT":"NetBios over TCP/IP", "NC":"Network Computer", "nc":"networking The country code for New Caledonia.", "NCD":"Network Computing Devices", "NCP":"networking", "NCRL":"Software Writer's Language", "NCS":"Network Computing System: Apollo's RPC system used by DEC and Hewlett-Packard.The protocol has been adopted by OSF.", "NCSA":"National Center for Supercomputing Applications", "ND":"natural deduction", "NDIS":"Network Device Interface Specification", "NDL":"1. National Database Language.", "NDS":"Netware Directory Services", "ne":"networking The country code for Niger.", "Nebula":"language, data processing An early business-oriented language from ICL for the Ferranti Orion computer.", "NEC":"Nippon Electronics Corporation", "NELIAC":"Navy Electronics Laboratory International ALGOL Compiler.", "Neon":"Charles Duff. An object-oriented extension of FORTH, for the Mac. Inheritance, SANE floating-point, system classes and objects for Mac interfacing, overlays. Sold by Kriya Systems, 1985-1988. Modified, made PD and renamed Yerk.", "neophilia":"/neeoh-fil-ee-*/ The trait of being excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures, including the pro-technology Whole Earth wing of the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap heavily and where evidence is available seem to share characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, music, and oriental food. The opposite tendency is neophobia.", "Neptune":"A hypertext system for computer assisted software engineering, developed at Tektronix.", "nerd":"person A generally pejortive term for any person who is socially inept and studious or demonstrates obsessive knowledge of something. For example, a computer nerd. The term first appeared in print in If I Ran the Zoo, 1950 by Dr. Seuss.", "NERECO":"NEtwork REmote COmmunications.", "NESL":"language A parallel language loosely based on ML, developed at Carnegie Mellon University by the SCandAL project. NESL integrates parallel algorithms, functional languages and implementation techniques from the system's community.", "net":"1. networking network.", "netaddress":"Knowbot Information Service", "NetBEUI":"NetBIOS Extended User Interface. The network transport protocol used by all of Microsoft's network systems and IBM's LAN Server based systems.", "NetBIOS":"An applications programming interface API which activates network operations on IBM PC compatibles running under Microsoft's DOS. It is a set of network commands that the application program issues in order to transmit and receive data to another host on the network. The commands are interpreted by a network control program or network operating system that is NetBIOS compatible. See NetBOLLIX.", "NetBOLLIX":"[bollix: to bungle] IBM's NetBIOS, an extremely brain-damaged network protocol that, like Blue Glue, is used at commercial shops that don't know any better.", "NetBSD":"operating system An open source Unix clone that aims for platform independance by a clean separation between the hardware and the the kernel. It has been ported to many platforms from embedded systems to 64-bit computers.", "netbui":"spelling It's spelled NetBEUI.", "netburp":"networking, chat Or netsplit When netlag gets really bad, and delays between IRC servers exceed a certain threshhold, the network effectively becomes partitioned for a period of time, and large numbers of people seem to be signing off at the same time and then signing back on again when things get better. An instance of this is called a netburp or, sometimes, netsplit.", "netCDF":"Network Common Data Form. A machine-independent, self-describing file format for scientific data.", "netdead":"jargon, chat The state of someone who signs off IRC, perhaps during a netburp, and doesn't sign back on until later. In the interim, he is dead to the net.", "Netfind":"A research prototype that provides a simple Internet white pages user directory. It runs on SunOS 4.0 or more recent systems that are connected to the Internet however, you can run Netfind on one server at your site, and let the others use Netfind on that server. Given the name of a person on the Internet and a rough description of where the person works, Netfind attempts to locate telephone and electronic mailbox information about the person.", "NetHack":"games /net'hak/ Unix A dungeon game similar to rogue but more elaborate, distributed in C source over Usenet and very popular at Unix sites and on PC-class machines nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware dungeon games. The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and later considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called hack. The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a group of hackers originally organised by Mike Stephenson.", "netiquette":"convention, networking /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ Network etiquette.", "NETL":"A semantic network language, for connectionist architectures.", "netlag":"networking A condition that occurs when the delays in the IRC network, a MUD connection, a telnet connection, or any other networked interactive system, become severe enough that servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact, causing messages to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up to a minute. Note that this term has nothing to do with mainstream jet lag.", "NetLingo":"computing An on-line dictionary of more than 3000 terms, started in 1995 and updated monthly. NetLingo contains simple explanations and comprehensive coverage, including chat acronyms and smilies. It is also available in dead tree form.", "netload":"A program to down-load Excelan TCP/IP software. The host's Ethernet address can be specified as", "netmask":"networking A 32-bit bit mask which shows how an Internet address is to be divided into network, subnet and host parts. The netmask has ones in the bit positions in the 32-bit address which are to be used for the network and subnet parts, and zeros for the host part. The mask should contain at least the standard network portion as determined by the address's class, and the subnet field should be contiguous with the network portion.", "NetNanny":"networking A small program for children to block access to certain sites.", "netnews":"/net'n[y]ooz/ 1. The software that makes Usenet run.", "netpipes":"networking A package by Robert Forsman thoth@cis.ufl.edu to manipulate BSD Unix TCP/IP stream sockets. The netpipes package makes TCP/IP streams usable in shell scripts. It can also simplify client-server code by allowing the programmer to skip all the tedious programming related to sockets and concentrate on writing a filter/service.", "netquette":"spelling It's spelled netiquette.", "Netrek":"games A 16-player graphical real-time battle simulation with a Star Trek theme. The game is divided into two teams of eight or less, who dogfight each other and attempt to conquer each other's planets. There are several different types of ships, from fast, fragile scouts up to big, slow battleships; this allows a great deal of variance in play styles. Netrek is played using a client to connect to one of several Netrek servers on the Internet. There is a metaserver which distributes details of games in progress on other servers.", "netrock":"/net'rok/ IBM A flame; used especially on VNET, IBM's internal corporate network.", "Netscape":"1. Netscape Navigator.", "netsplit":"netburp", "netstat":"networking Or rstat A Unix command to give statistics about the network including socket status, interfaces that have been auto-configured, memory statistics, routing tables.", "netter":"1. Loosely, anyone with a network address.", "NetWare":"Novell NetWare", "network":"networking Hardware and software data communication systems.", "networking":"network", "NetX":"company A LukeCo Company that designs web pages and web software. Not to be confused with Net:X.", "neuron":"artificial neural network", "neutrosophic":"Neutrosophy", "Neutrosophy":"philosophy From Latin neuter - neutral, Greek sophia - skill/wisdom A branch of philosophy, introduced by Florentin Smarandache in 1980, which studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as well as their interactions with different ideational spectra.", "newbie":"jargon /n[y]oo'bee/ Sometimes shorted to noob Originally from British public-school and military slang variant of new boy, an inexperienced user.", "newline":"character, jargon /n[y]oo'li:n/ Line feed or other character sequence used to terminate a line of text.", "NEWP":"NEW Programming language", "NeWS":"/nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ Network extensible Window System.", "news":"netnews", "NewsClip":"A very high level language designed for writing netnews filters. It translates into C. It includes support for various newsreaders. Version 1.01 includes a translator from NewsClip to C, examples and documentation.", "newsfroup":"messaging, humour A silly synonym for Usenet newsgroup, originally a typo but now in regular use on Usenet's news:talk.bizarre and other lunatic-fringe groups.", "newsgroup":"messaging One of Usenet's huge collection of topic groups or fora. Usenet groups can be unmoderated anyone can post or moderated submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the results. Some newsgroups have parallel mailing lists for Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group automatically propagated to the list and vice versa.", "newsletter":"publication A periodically published work containing news and announcements on some subject, typically with a small circulation. Newsletters are a common application for DTP and may be distributed by electronic mail.", "Newspeak":"A language inspired by Scratchpad.", "Newsqueak":"A concurrent applicative language with synchronous channels.", "Newton":"1. Named after Isaac Newton 1642-1727. Rapin et al, Swiss Federal Inst Tech, Lausanne 1981. General purpose expression language, syntactically ALGOL-like, with object-oriented and functional features and a rich set of primitives for concurrency. Used for undergraduate teaching at Lausanne EPFL.", "NewWave":"A graphical user interface and object-oriented environment from Hewlett-Packard, based on Windows and available on Unix workstations.", "NewYacc":"A parser generator by Jack Callahan callahan@mimsy.cs.umd.edu. Version 1.0.", "NEXOR":"company A technology company that specialises in providing electronic communication software products and services to a worldwide market. It is also the home of CUSI.", "NEXTSTEP":"operating system The original multitasking operating system that NeXT, Inc. developed to run on its proprietary NeXT computers informally known as black boxes.", "nf":"networking The country code for Norfolk Island.", "NFA":"Finite State Machine", "NFQL":"[NFQL: The Natural Forms Query Language, D. Embley, Trans Database Sys 142:168-211 June 1989].", "NFR":"Non-functional Requirement", "NFS":"Network File System", "NFT":"Network File Transfer. An INTERLINK command on CERNVM.", "ng":"networking The country code for Nigeria.", "NGL":"A dialect of IGL.", "NHOH":"chat Never heard of him/her. Often used in initgame.", "ni":"networking The country code for Nicaragua.", "NIAL":"Nested Interactive Array Language.", "NIAM":"Natural Language Information Analysis Method or Nijssen IAM.", "nibble":"data /nib'l/ US nybble, by analogy with bite - byte Half a byte. Since a byte is nearly always eight bits, a nibble is nearly always four bits and can therefore be represented by one hex digit.", "NIC":"1. networking Network Information Center.", "NICE":"The Nonprofit International Consortium for Eiffel.", "nick":"[IRC] nickname. On IRC, every user must pick a nick, which is sometimes the user's real name or login name, but is often more fanciful. Compare handle.", "nickle":"/ni'kl/ [nickel, common name for the US 5-cent coin] A nibble + 1; 5 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 the Intellivision games processor, a chip with 16 bit-wide RAM but 10 bit-wide ROM. See also deckle.", "NIFOC":"chat Naked in front of computer. Possibly also typing with one hand.", "NIH":"The United States National Institutes of Health.", "NIHCL":"A class library for C++ from the US National Institutes of Health NIH.", "NII":"National Information Infrastructure", "NIKL":"Frame language.", "NIL":"/nil/ 1. New Implementation of Lisp. A language intended to be the successor of MacLisp. A large Lisp, implemented mostly in VAX assembly language. A forerunner of Common LISP.", "niladic":"programming A less common synonym for nullary, presumably following the more common monadic, dyadic, etc.", "Nintendo":"company, games A Japanese video game hardware manufacturer and software publisher. Nintendo started by making playing cards, but was later dominant in video games throughout the 1980s and early 1990s worldwide. They make lots of games consoles including the Gameboy, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, DS Lite and the Wii.", "NIOS":"Netware Input/Output Subsystem", "nipple":"Trackpoint", "NIS":"Network Information Service", "NISO":"National Information Standards Organisation USA. NISO Standards cover many aspects of library science, publishing, and information services, and address the application of both traditional and new technologies to information services.", "NISS":"National Information Services and Systems", "NIST":"National Institute of Standards and Technology", "NJCL":"Network Job Control Language.", "nl":"networking The country code for the Netherlands Holland.", "NLANR":"National Laboratory for Applied Network Research", "NLM":"Netware Loadable Module", "NLP":"1. application Natural Language Processing.", "NLRI":"network layer reachability information", "NLS":"Native Language System", "NLSP":"NetWare Link State Protocol", "NLX":"hardware, standard A low-profile, low TCO motherboard design created jointly by Intel Corp., IBM, DEC and other PC vendors. In contrast to the traditional single-board design, NLX uses a riser card to carry PCI, ISA and AGP bus data despite Intel's stated intent to rid PC motherboards of the ISA bus by 2000.", "NMI":"Non-Maskable Interrupt", "nML":"language A specification language for instruction sets, based on attribute grammars, for back-end generators.", "NMU":"Non-Maintainer Upload", "NN":"artificial neural network", "nn":"tool, messaging A terminal based program for reading Usenet news by Kim F. Storm storm@texas.dk, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark.", "NNI":"Network Node Interface", "NNTP":"messaging Network News Transfer Protocol.", "no":"networking The country code for Norway.", "NOC":"Network Operations Center", "NODAL":"Interpreted language implemented on Norsk Data's NORD-10 computers. Used by CERN and DESY high energy physics labs to control their accelerator hardware, PADAC and SEDAC. Included trackball input, graphics.", "noddy":"/nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system.", "node":"1. A point or vertex in a graph.", "noise":"communications Any part of a signal that is not the true or original signal but is introduced by the communication mechanism.", "NOL":"Never Offline", "NOMAD":"language, database A database language.", "nondeterminism":"algorithm A property of a computation which may have more than one result.", "nondeterministic":"Exhibiting nondeterminism.", "nonlinear":"Scientific computation A property of a system whose output is not proportional to its input. For example, a transistor has a region of input voltages for which its output voltage is found by multiplying the input voltage by the gain of the transistor. Outside this region though, the transistor behaves non-linearly, meaning that it does not obey this simple equation. The behaviour of a system containing non-linear components is thus harder to model and to predict.", "Nonpareil":"One of five pedagogical languages based on Markov algorithms, used in [Nonpareil, a Machine Level Machine Independent Language for the Study of Semantics, B. Higman, ULICS Intl Report No ICSI 170, U London 1968]. The others were Brilliant, Diamond, Pearl and Ruby.", "nontrivial":"Requiring real thought or significant computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable Proving P=NP is nontrivial. The preferred emphatic form is decidedly nontrivial.", "noob":"newbie", "NOR":"Not OR.", "NorCroft":"Contraction of Norman + Mycroft A company producing C compilers, set up by Arthur Norman and Alan Mycroft. Now sort of called Codemist. The original Norcroft compiler was written by Alan and Arthur to provide a platform for teaching languages and compilers on the Cambridge University mainframe. They then went on to develop versions for the transputer, ARM and others.", "NORDUnet":"networking, body Nordic Universities Network? A collaboration between the national research networks in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It provides international access for these countries.", "norm":"mathematics A real-valued function modelling the length of a vector. The norm must be homogeneous and symmetric and fulfil the following condition: the shortest way to reach a point is to go straight toward it. Every convex symmetric closed surface surrounding point 0 introduces a norm by means of Minkowski functional; all vectors that end on the surface have the same norm then.", "normalisation":"1. data processing A transformation applied uniformly to each element in a set of data so that the set has some specific statistical property. For example, monthly measurements of the rainfall in London might be normalised by dividing each one by the total for the year to give a profile of rainfall throughout the year.", "normalised":"normalisation", "northbridge":"architecture The single integrated circuit in a core logic chip set that connects the CPU to the system memory and the AGP and PCI busses. Other functions are provided by the southbridge chip.", "NorthWestNet":"NWNET Kochmer, J., and NorthWestNet, The Internet Passport: NorthWestNets Guide to Our World Online, NorthWestNet, Bellevue, WA, 1992.", "NOS":"Network Operating System", "NOT":"logic The Boolean function which is true only if its input is false. Its truth table is:", "notebook":"1. computer laptop computer.", "NoteCards":"An ambitious hypertext system developed at Xerox PARC, designed to support the task of transforming a chaotic collection of unrelated thoughts into an integrated, orderly interpretation of ideas and their interconnections.", "Notepad":"text, tool The very basic text editor supplied with Microsoft Windows.", "Notes":"Lotus Notes", "Nother":"A parallel symbolic mathematics system.", "notspot":"networking, humour In contrast with wireless hotspot, a place where there is no means to connect to the Internet.", "notwork":"networking, humour /not'werk/ A network that is performing badly.", "Nova":"processor A minicomputer? introduced by Data General in 1969, with four 16-bit accumulators, AC0 to AC3, and a 15-bit program counter. A later model also had a 15-bit stack pointer and frame pointer. AC2 and AC3 could be used for indexed addressing and AC3 was used to store the return address on a subroutine call. Apart from the small register set, the NOVA was an ordinary CPU design.", "NOWEB":"programming A system of structured programming and documentation from M.Speh in DESY.", "NP":"complexity nondeterministic polynomial time.", "np":"networking The country code for Nepal.", "NPC":"1. complexity NP-complete.", "NPL":"1. New Programming Language. IBM's original temporary name for PL/I, changed due to conflict with England's National Physical Laboratory. MPL and MPPL were considered before settling on PL/I. Sammet 1969, p.542.", "NPPL":"Network Picture Processing Language. An interactive language for manipulation of digraphs.", "NQS":"Batch processing software for Unix systems.", "Nqthm":"The language used in the Boyer-Moore theorem prover.", "nr":"networking The country code for Nauru.", "NREN":"National Research and Education Network", "nroff":"language /N'rof/ [Unix, from new roff] A text formatting language and interpreter, companion to the Unix typesetter troff, accepting identical input but preparing output for terminals and line printers. See also groff.", "NRZ":"Non Return to Zero", "NRZI":"Non Return to Zero Inverted", "ns":"nanosecond", "NSAPI":"Netscape Application Programming Interface", "NSDI":"National Spatial Data Infrastructure", "NSE":"Network Software Environment: a proprietary CASE framework from Sun Microsystems.", "NSF":"National Science Foundation", "NSFIP":"operating system NEXTSTEP For Intel Processor.", "NSFNET":"National Science Foundation Network", "NSI":"Network Solutions, Inc.", "nslookup":"networking A Unix utility program, originally by Andrew Cherenson, for querying Internet domain name servers. The basic use is to find the IP address corresponding to a given hostname or vice versa. By changing the query type e.g. set type=CNAME other types of information can be obtained including CNAME - the canonical name for an alias; HINFO - the host CPU and operating system type; MINFO - mailbox or mail list information; MX - mail exchanger information; NS - the name server for the named zone; PTR - the hostname if the query is an IP address, otherwise the pointer to other information; SOA the domain's start-of-authority information; TXT - text information; UINFO - user information; WKS - supported well-known services.", "NSRD":"National Software Reuse Directory", "NSS":"1. networking Nodal Switching System.", "NT":"1. Network Termination.", "ntalk":"chat new talk An update of the Unix talk program, old versions of talk being referred to as old talk. New talk and old talk are generally incompatible, and attempts to get them to communicate result in entirely unhelpful error messages.", "NTAS":"NT Advanced Server", "NTFS":"NT File System", "NTIS":"National Technical Information Service", "NTMBS":"programming null-terminated multibyte string.", "NTP":"Network Time Protocol", "NTSC":"National Television Standards Committee", "NTU":"Network Termination Unit", "nu":"networking The country code for Niue.", "NuBus":"The proprietary expansion bus used on Apple Macintosh personal computers.", "NUCLEOL":"List processing language, influenced by EOL. J. Nievergelt, Computer J 133 Aug 1970.", "nude":"Said of machines delivered without an operating system compare bare metal. We ordered 50 systems, but they all arrived nude, so we had to spend a an extra weekend with the installation tapes. This usage is a recent innovation reflecting the fact that most PC clones are now delivered with DOS or Microsoft Windows pre-installed at the factory. Other kinds of hardware are still normally delivered without OS, so this term is particular to PC support groups.", "nuke":"/n[y]ook/ 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a given directory or storage volume. On Unix, rm -r /usr will nuke everything in the usr file system. Never used for accidental deletion.", "null":"programming A special value used in several languages to represent the thing referred to by an uninitialised pointer.", "nullary":"programming A description of an operator or function which takes no arguments, e.g. a function that returns the current time.", "NUMA":"Non-Uniform Memory Access", "numbers":"Scientific computation Output from a computation that may not be significant but at least indicates that the program is running. Numbers may be used to placate management, grant sponsors, etc. Making numbers means running a program because output - any output, not necessarily meaningful output - is needed as a demonstration of progress.", "Numeris":"The name given by France Telecom, the french telephone network operator, to its ISDN network.", "Nuprl":"/nyu p*rl/ Nearly Ultimate PRL.", "nurbs":"Non-Uniform Rational B Spline", "NVL":"database A function in Oracle SQL called like NVLX, Y that returns X unless it is null, in which case it returns Y. This function is useful for supplying a default value where an expression might be null.", "NVRAM":"Non-Volatile Random Access Memory", "NVS":"Non-Volatile Storage", "NWNET":"NorthWestNet", "NYAP":"language An early system on the IBM 704.", "nybble":"nibble", "nyetwork":"notwork", "nym":"1. tool, networking /nim/ From the third syllable of anonymous; or nym server A server that functions as an anonymous remailer.", "NYSERNET":"New York State Educational Reasearch NETwork", "nz":"networking The country code for New Zealand.", "O":"character ASCII code 79, The letter of the alphabet, not to be confused with 0 zero the digit.", "Oaklisp":"language A portable object-oriented Scheme by K. Lang and Barak Perlmutter of Yale. Oaklisp uses a superset of Scheme syntax. It is based on generic operations rather than functions, and features anonymous classes, multiple inheritance, a strong error system, setters and locators for operations and a facility for dynamic binding.", "OAP":"Outside Awareness Port", "OATH":"Object-oriented Abstract Type Hierarchy, a class library for C++ from Texas Instruments.", "OBDC":"Do you mean ODBC?", "OBE":"Office By Example", "Oberon":"language A strongly typed procedural programming language and an operating environment evolved from Modula-2 by Nicklaus Wirth in 1988. Oberon adds type extension inheritance, extensible record types, multidimensional open arrays, and garbage collection. It eliminates variant records, enumeration types, subranges, lower array indices and for loops.", "OBEX":"Object Exchange", "obfuscated":"programming Made unclear, used to describe source code that has been transformed or written to make it as hard as possible to read, usually for fun, as in the Obfuscated C Contest. A japh is a kind of obfuscated Perl program.", "OBJ":"Joseph Goguen 1976. A family of declarative ultra high level languages. Abstract types, generic modules, subsorts subtypes with multiple inheritance, pattern-matching modulo equations, E-strategies user control over laziness, module expressions for combining modules, theories and views for describing module interfaces. For the massively parallel RRM Rewrite Rule Machine.", "object":"object-oriented In object-oriented programming, an instance of the data structure and behaviour defined by the object's class. Each object has its own values for the instance variables of its class and can respond to the methods defined by its class.", "ObjectBroker":"programming A distributed object system from DEC based on the CORBA standard.", "ObjectCenter":"A product offering similar facilities to CodeCenter for the C++ language, plus class browsing facilities etc formerly Saber-C++.", "Objecteering":"programming, tool An object-oriented design tool from Softeam, based on the Class Relation Methodology, with C++ code generation.", "ObjectLOGO":"A variant of LOGO with object-oriented extensions. Lexical scope. Version 2.6, for the Mac. Paradigm Software paradigm@applelink.apple.com 617576-7675.", "Objectory":"programming An object-oriented methodology mostly created by Ivar Jacobson.", "ObjectPAL":"Object-oriented database language, part of Borland's MS-Windows version of Paradox.", "Objectworks":"An object-oriented development environment developed by ParcPlace, available under Smalltalk and C++.", "Objlog":"A frame-based language combining objects and Prolog II from CNRS, Marseille, France.", "OBJT":"Error algebras plus an image construct. Tardo.", "ObjVlisp":"1984. An object-oriented extension of Vlisp.", "ObjVProlog":"Logic programming and object-orientation, an adaptation of the ObjVlisp model to Prolog.", "Obliq":"A small, statically scoped untyped language by Luca Cardelli, 1993. Obliq is object-oriented, higher order, concurrent, and distributed. State is local to an address space, while computation can migrate over the network. The distributed computation mechanism is based on Modula-3 network objects.", "Oblog":"language A small, portable, Object-oriented extension to Prolog by Margaret McDougall of EdCAAD, Dept Arch, University of Edinburgh.", "OBOE":"Object-code Buffer Overrun Evaluator", "OBSCURE":"A Formal Description of the Specification Language OBSCURE, J. Loeckx, TR A85/15, U Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, 1985.", "Oc":"language Oh see! A parallel logic language.", "OCAL":"On-Line Cryptanalytic Aid Language.", "occam":"language Note lower case A language based on Anthony Hoare's CSP and David May's EPL. Named after the English philosopher, William of Occam 1300-1349 who propounded Occam's Razor. The occam language was designed by David May of INMOS to easily describe concurrent processes which communicate via one-way channels. It was developed to run on the INMOS transputer but compilers are available for VAX, Sun and Intel MDS, inter alia.", "occlude":"programming Or shadow To make a variable inaccessible by declaring another with the same name within the scope of the first.", "OCL":"language 1. Operator Control Language.", "OCLC":"Online Computer Library Center", "OCODE":"An assembly language for a stack-based virtual machine, used as the intermediate language of the Cambridge BCPL compiler.", "OCP":"processor Order Code Processor.", "OCR":"Optical Character Recognition", "OCS":"Object Compatibility Standard", "octal":"mathematics Number base eight. The octal number representation uses the digits 0-7 only, with the right-most digit counting ones, the next counting multiples of 8, then 8^2 = 64, etc. For example, octal 177 is digital 127:", "Octave":"language A high-level interactive language by John W. Eaton, with help from many others, like MATLAB, primarily intended for numerical computations. Octave provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically.", "octet":"jargon, networking Eight bits. This term is used in networking, in preference to byte, because some systems use the term byte for things that are not 8 bits long.", "octothorpe":"hash character", "OCX":"OLE custom controls", "ODA":"Open Document Architecture formerly Office Document Architecture.", "ODBC":"Open DataBase Connectivity", "ODC":"Open Distributed Computing", "Ode":"An Object-Oriented Database from AT&T which extends C++ and supports fast queries, complex application modelling and multimedia.", "ODI":"1. Optical Digital Image.", "ODIF":"Open Document Interchange Format", "ODMA":"Open Document Management API", "ODMG":"Object Data Management Group", "odometry":"robotics The use of motion sensors to determine a robot's change in position relative to some known position. For example, if a robot is traveling in a straight line and if it knows the diameter of its wheels, then by counting the number of wheel revolutions it can determine how far it has traveled.", "ODP":"Open Distributed Processing", "ODS":"Operational Data Store", "ODSA":"Open Distributed System Architecture", "ODT":"Open Desktop", "OEM":"original equipment manufacturer", "OFA":"Optimal Flexible Architecture", "Office":"Microsoft Office", "offset":"programming An index or position in an array, string, or block of memory usually a non-negative integer.", "offshoring":"business Transfer of a business process, e.g. manufacturing or customer service, from a company in one country to the same or another company in a different country. This overlaps partially with outsourcing, in which work is transferred to a different company in the same or a different country.", "ogg":"games /og/ CMU 1. In the multi-player space combat game Netrek, to execute kamikaze attacks against enemy ships which are carrying armies or occupying strategic positions.", "OHCI":"Open Host Controller Interface", "Ohm":"unit The MKS unit of electrical resistance. One Ohm is the resistance of a conductor across which a potential difference of one Volt produces a current of one Ampere. Named after Georg Simon Ohm.", "ohnosecond":"unit, humour Presumably a play on nanosecond The miniscule time it takes to realize that you've just made a BIG mistake like typing rm -rf * in the wrong directory.", "OIC":"chat oh, I see.", "OID":"object identifier", "OIL":"1. [The Architecture of the FAIM-1 Symbolic Multiprocessing System, A. Davis et al, 9th Intl Joint Conf in Artif Intell, 1985, pp.32-38].", "OLAP":"On-Line Analytical Processing", "OLC":"On-Line Computer system", "OLDAS":"On-line Digital Analog Simulator. An interactive version of MIMIC, for IBM 360.", "OLE":"Object Linking and Embedding", "OLGA":"Ouf! un Langage pour les Grammaires Attribuees.", "Olivetti":"company A large Italian company producing office machinery, computers and printers.", "OLTP":"On-Line Transaction Processing", "OLWM":"OpenLook Window Manager", "om":"networking The country code for Oman.", "OMA":"Object Management Architecture.", "Omega":"1. programming A prototype-based object-oriented language from Austria.", "OMF":"Object Management Facility.", "OMG":"Object Management Group", "OMNICODE":"Thompson, 1956. Ran on IBM 650.", "OMNIFAX":"Alternate name for NYU OMNIFAX? Early system on UNIVAC I or II. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "OMNITAB":"Statistical analysis and desk calculator. Version: OMNITAB II.", "OMR":"Optical Mark Reader", "OMS":"Opportunity Management System", "OMT":"Object Modelling Technique", "OMTool":"A graphical tool from General Electric Advanced Concepts Center for design and analysis of systems with the OMT methodology. Generates C++ and SQL code.", "ONC":"Open Network Computing", "Ondine":"[Concurrency Introduction to an Object-Oriented Language System Ondine, T. Ogihara et al, 3rd Natl Conf Record A-5-1, Japan Soc for Soft Sci Tech, Japan 1986].", "one":"mathematics The lowest positive integer and the basis for counting. Multiplication by one is an identity operator and, since one is its own reciprocal, so is division by one. One is the result of dividing any non-zero number by itself. One raised to any power is one and raising to the power one is also an identity operator.", "Ontic":"language Object-oriented language for an inference system with a Lisp-like appearance, but based on set theory.", "onto":"surjection", "ontology":"1. philosophy A systematic account of Existence.", "OnX":"A graphics package from LAL Orsay.", "OO":"object-oriented", "OOA":"object-oriented analysis", "OOD":"object-oriented design", "OODB":"object-oriented database", "OODBMS":"object-oriented database management system", "OOF":"Object-Oriented Fortran", "OOGL":"Object-Oriented Graphics Language. 1970's.", "OOo":"OpenOffice.org", "OOP":"object-oriented programming", "OOPL":"object-oriented programming language", "OOPS":"OOPS: A Knowledge Representation Language, D. Vermeir, Proc 19th Intl Hawaii Conf on System Sciences, IEEE Jan 1986 pp.156-157.", "OOPSLA":"Conference on Object-oriented Programming Systems, Languages and Applications.", "OOSD":"Object-oriented structured design: a design method elaborated from structured design and incorporating the essential features of the object-oriented approach.", "OOZE":"Object oriented extension of Z. Object Orientation in Z, S.", "op":"job /op/ 1. In England and Ireland, a common verbal abbreviation for operator, as in system operator. This is less common in the US, where sysop seems to be preferred.", "OPAC":"Online Public Access Catalog", "Opal":"1. A DSP language.", "OPC":"OLE for Process Control", "open":"1. programming To prepare to read or write a file. This usually involves checking whether the file already exists and that the user has the necessary authorisation to read or write it.", "OpenBSD":"operating system A version of BSD Unix with an emphasis on security. A lot of security work that is ported to other free operating systems originates with OpenBSD and a lot of code review is done here.", "OpenDoc":"operating system A compound document architecture from CIL based on CORBA. It aims to enable embedding of features from different application programs into a single working document.", "OpenDocument":"file format, standard ODF, ISO/IEC 26300, OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications An XML file format for office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations, databases and word processing.", "OpenGL":"Open Graphics Library", "OpenInsight":"programming, database The workflow-enabled Windows 95/Windows NT version of Advanced Revelation, featuring native support for Lotus Notes, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and ODBC. OpenInsight is available from Revelation Software.", "OpenStep":"operating system An object-oriented application programming interface API derived from NEXTSTEP and proposed as an open standard by NeXT in 1994.", "OpenTransport":"networking OT A complete reimplementation of all levels of the Macintosh networking code including Classic AppleTalk and MacTCP. It appeared in MacOS revision 7.5.3 [or earlier? Date?].", "OpenVMS":"Virtual Memory System", "OpenWindows":"operating system A graphical user interface server for Sun workstations which handles SunView, NeWS and X Window System protocols.", "operand":"programming An argument of an operator or of a machine language instruction.", "operating":"1. operating system.", "operator":"programming A symbol used as a function, with infix syntax if it has two arguments e.g. + or prefix syntax if it has only one e.g. Boolean NOT. Many languages use operators for built-in functions such as arithmetic and logic.", "OPF":"Object Persistence Framework", "OPS":"1. simulation On-line Process Synthesizer.", "optimal":"1. mathematics Describes a solution to a problem which minimises some cost function. Linear programming is one technique used to discover the optimal solution to certain problems.", "optimise":"To perform optimisation.", "optimism":"What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and just before actually discovering the *next* last bug. Fred Brooks's book The Mythical Man-Month contains the following paragraph that describes this extremely well.", "optimize":"optimisation", "option":"command line option", "OPTRAN":"Specification language for attributed tree transformation writetn by R. Wilhelm, U Saarlandes in the early 1980's.", "Opus":"project, product A Honeywell operating system promised as a sop to customers after canning Multics in 1985. Opus was to provide everything Multics had and more, plus total compatibility with the Level 6/DPS6 operating system.", "OR":"logic The Boolean function which is true if any of its arguments are true. Its truth table is:", "Oracle":"Oracle Corporation", "ORB":"Object Request Broker", "Orbit":"A Scheme compiler.", "Orca":"Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 1986. Similar to Modula-2, but with support for distributed programming using shared data objects, like Linda. A 'graph' data type removes the need for pointers. Version for the Amoeba OS, comes with Amoeba.", "ordering":"A relation.", "ordinal":"mathematics An isomorphism class of well-ordered sets.", "ordinate":"mathematics The y-coordinate on an x,y graph; the output of a function plotted against its input.", "OREGANO":"[On the Design and Specification of the Programming Language OREGANO, D.M. Berry. UCLA-ENG-7388, 1973].", "org":"networking The top-level domain for organisations or individuals that don't fit any other top-level domain national, com, edu, or gov. Though many have .org domains, it was never intended to be limited to non-profit organisations.", "ORKID":"Open Real-time Kernel Interface Definition", "ORM":"1. programming, database object relational mapping.", "ORTHOCARTAN":"mathematics, tool A system for symbolic mathematics, especially General Relativity, written by A. Krasinski of Warsaw in the early 1980s.", "orthogonal":"mathematics, jargon At 90 degrees right angles.", "Orwell":"Lazy functional language, Miranda-like. List comprehensions and pattern matching. Introduction to Orwell 5.00, P.L. Wadler et al, Programming Research Group, Oxford U, 1988.", "OS":"1. operating system.", "OSA":"1. Open Scripting Architecture.", "OSAX":"OSA extension", "OSCAR":"1. Oregon State Conversational Aid to Research. Interactive numerical calculations, vectors, matrices, complex arithmetic, string operations, for CDC 3300. OSCAR: A User's Manual with Examples, J.A. Baughman et al, CC, Oregon State U.", "OSD":"Open Source Definition", "OSE":"Open Systems Environment", "OSF":"Open Software Foundation", "OSI":"1. networking Open Systems Interconnection.", "OSP":"optical computing", "OSPF":"Open Shortest-Path First Interior Gateway Protocol", "OSQL":"Object-oriented SQL", "OSSL":"Operating Systems Simulation Language.", "OSTA":"Optical Storage Technology Association", "OT":"OpenTransport", "OTDR":"Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry", "OTI":"Open Tool Interface", "OTOH":"chat On the other hand.", "OTP":"1. security One-Time Password.", "OTPROM":"One Time Programmable Read-Only Memory", "OTT":"Over the top.", "out":"programming A type or mode of function parameter that passes information in one direction - from the function to the caller. An out parameter thus provides an additional return value, typically for languages that don't have good support for returning data structures like lists. Other modes are in and inout.", "output":"architecture Data transferred from a computer system to the outside world via some kind of output device.", "outsourcing":"business Paying another company to provide services which a company might otherwise have employed its own staff to perform, e.g. software development.", "overclocking":"hardware Any adjustments made to computer hardware, or less commonly software, to make its CPU run at a higher clock rate than intended by the original manufacturers. Typically this involves replacing the crystal in the clock generation circuitry with a higher frequency one or changing jumper settings or software configuration.", "Overdrive":"processor An Intel Pentium processor which fits into a socket designed to accomodate an Intel 486, or into a special upgrade socket on the motherboard.", "overflow":"programming The condition that occurs when the result of a calculation is too big to store in the intended format. For example, the result of adding one to 255 cannot be represented as an unsigned, eight-bit integer. In a signed integer representation, overflow can occur when an integer becomes either too positive or too negative.", "overhead":"1. Resources in computing usually processing time or storage space consumed for purposes which are incidental to, but necessary to, the main one. Overheads are usually quantifiable costs of some kind.", "overloading":"language Or Operator overloading. Use of a single symbol to represent operators with different argument types, e.g. -, used either, as a monadic operator to negate an expression, or as a dyadic operator to return the difference between two expressions. Another example is + used to add either integers or floating-point numbers. Overloading is also known as ad-hoc polymorphism.", "overriding":"programming Redefining in a child class a method or function member defined in a parent class.", "overrun":"1. A frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, especially in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if a silo can hold only two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 milliseconds to get to service the interrupt, at least one character will be lost.", "OWHY":"language An early functional language?.", "OWL":"1. company Office Workstations Limited.", "Owl":"The original name of Trellis.", "Ox":"language, tool A preprocessor, written by Kurt Bischoff of Iowa State University, that extends and generalises the syntax and semantics of Yacc, Lex, and C. Ox's support of LALR1 grammars generalises yacc in the way that attribute grammars generalise context-free grammars. It augments Yacc and Lex specifications with definitions of synthesised and inherited attributes written in C syntax.", "Oz":"An object-oriented concurrent constraint language from the University of Saarbrucken. Oz is based on constraint communication, a new form of asynchronous communication using logic variables. Partial information about the values of variables is imposed concurrently and incrementally.", "oz":"An old Australian top-level domain and network which got incorporated into the current one. The former Australian domains .oz, .edu and .com are now .oz.au, .edu.au and .com.au.", "pa":"networking The country code for Panama.", "PABX":"Private Automatic Branch eXchange", "PACE":"A CPU based on the Nova design, but with 16-bit addressing, more addressing modes and a 10 level stack like the Intel 8008.", "packet":"The unit of data sent across a network. Packet is a generic term used to describe a unit of data at any layer of the OSI protocol stack, but it is most correctly used to describe application layer data units application protocol data unit, APDU.", "PackIt":"file format, tool A file format used on the Apple Macintosh to represent collections of Mac files, possibly Huffman compressed. Packing many small related files together before a MacBinary transfer or a translation to BinHex 4.0 is common practice.", "PACTOLUS":"Digital simulation.", "PAD":"Packet Assembler/Disassembler", "Paddle":"A language for transformations leading from specification to program. Used in the POPART programming environment generator.", "PAGE":"A typesetting language.", "page":"1. operating system paging.", "paged":"paging", "pagelet":"web A component of an HTML page, that contains directives, layout, and code in a single context. A pagelet may be a separate file or web page that contains information you want displayed across several pages. They are similar to server-side include files, as implemented in ASP+. Pagelets act like independent HTML frames and provide discrete access to content. They use Cascading Style Sheets as templates for defining their layout behavior in a single context.", "pager":"1. hardware, communications Or beeper, bleeper UK? A small wireless receiver that, when triggered generally via phone, will beep or vibrate unpleasantly. The wearer will have been trained to respond to this signal by looking at a small screen on the device for an unimportant message.", "paging":"operating system A technique for increasing the memory space available by moving infrequently-used parts of a program's working memory from RAM to a secondary storage medium, usually hard disk. The unit of transfer is called a page.", "PaiLisp":"language A parallel Lisp built on Scheme in 1986.", "Paintbrush":"graphics, tool A Microsoft Windows tool for creating bitmap graphics.", "PAISley":"An operational specification language from Bell Labs.", "Pajek":"mathematics A program for analysing and visualising large networks. Pajek is Slovene for spider. The program runs on Windows and is free for noncommercial use. Pajek is developed by Vladimir Batagelj and Andrej Mrvar with contributions from Matjaž Zaveršnik.", "PAL":"1. language Paradox Application Language.", "Palace":"virtual reality, chat A proprietary multi-user virtual reality-like talk system.", "palette":"colour palette", "palmtop":"computer Or pocket computer, Hand-held Personal Computer, H/PC A small general-purpose, programmable, battery-powered computer cabable of handling both numbers and text in contrast to most pocket calculators which can be operated comfortably while held in one hand. A palmtop is usually loaded with an operating system such as Windows CE. Data can be transferred between the palmtop and a desktop PC.", "PAM":"Pluggable Authentication Module", "Pam":"language A toy ALGOL-like language used in Formal Specification of Programming Languages: A Panoramic Primer, F.G. Pagan, P-H 1981.", "Pandora":"language Parlog extended to allow don't-know nondeterminism.", "panic":"1. operating system What Unix does when a critical internal consistency checks fails in such a way that Unix cannot continue. The kernel attempts to print a short message on the console and write an image of memory into the swap area on disk. This can be analysed later using adb.", "PANON":"A family of pattern-directed string processing languages based on generalised Markov algorithms.", "PANS":"Pretty Amazing New Stuff.", "Pansophic":"A US Software Engineering company.", "Pantone":"graphics A set of standard colours for printing, each of which is specified by a single number. You can buy a Pantone swatch book containing samples of each colour. Some computer graphics software allows colours to be specified as Pantone numbers. Even though a computer monitor can only show an approximation to some of the colours, the software can output a colour separation for each different Pantone colour, enabling a print shop to exactly reproduce the original desired colour.", "PAP":"1. networking, protocol, security Password Authentication Protocol.", "papermail":"snail mail", "PARADE":"PARallel Applicative Database Engine. A project at Glasgow University to construct a transaction-processor in the parallel functional programming language Haskell to run on an ICL EDS+ database machine.", "Paradise":"Paradise is a subsystem a set of packages developed to implement inter-processes, inter-tasks and inter-machine communication for Ada programs under Unix. This subsystem gives the user full access to files, pipes, sockets both Unix and Internet and pseudo-devices.", "Paradox":"database A relational database for Microsoft Windows, originally from Borland.", "paradox":"logic An apparently sound argument leading to a contradiction.", "Paragon":"Mark Sherman. IEEE Software Nov 1991.", "Paralation":"PARALlel reLATION. Sabot, MIT 1987. A framework for parallel programming. A field is an array of objects, placed at different sites. A paralation is a group of fields, defining nearness between field elements. Operations can be performed in parallel on every site of a paralation.", "ParAlfl":"Hudak, Yale. Parallel functional language, a superset of Alfl. Used by the Alfalfa system on Intel iPSC and Encore Multimax.", "Parallaxis":"language A procedural programming language developed by Thomas Braeunl braunl@ee.uwa.edu.au at the University of Stuttgart. It is based on Modula-2, but extended for data parallel SIMD programming. The main approach for machine independent parallel programming is to include a description of the virtual parallel machine with each parallel algorithm.", "parallel":"parallel processing", "parallelism":"1. parallel processing.", "param":"formal argument", "parameter":"formal argument", "paraML":"An extension of Standard ML which supports coarse-grained parallelism. Peter Bailey, while at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre at University of Edinburgh, has implemented of Murray Cole's original four skeletons in paraML.", "Parasol":"Parallel Systems Object Language.", "PARC":"XEROX PARC", "parent":"mathematics, data The ancestor node in a tree that points to the current node one of its child nodes.", "parentheses":"See left parenthesis, right parenthesis.", "Pari":"mathematics, tool A system for symbolic mathematics, especially number theory.", "Paris":"PARallel Instruction Set.", "parity":"storage, communications An extra bit added to a byte or word to reveal errors in storage in RAM or disk or transmission. Even odd parity means that the parity bit is set so that there are an even odd number of one bits in the word, including the parity bit. A single parity bit can only reveal single bit errors since if an even number of bits are wrong then the parity bit will not change. Moreover, it is not possible to tell which bit is wrong, as it is with more sophisticated error detection and correction systems.", "Parlance":"A concurrent language.", "Parlog":"Clark & Gregory, Imperial College 1983. An AND-parallel Prolog, with guards and committed choice nondeterminism don't care nondeterminism. Shallow backtracking only.", "parm":"/parm/ Further-compressed form of param. This term is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown outside IBM shops; spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but the synonym arg is favoured among hackers. Compare var.", "PARMACS":"The Argonne macros from Argonne National Laboratory. A package of macros written in m4 for portable parallel programming, using monitors on shared memory machines, and message passing on distributed memory machines.", "ParMod":"Parallel Programming with ParMod, S. Eichholz, Proc 1987 Intl Conf on Parallel Proc, pp.377-380.", "PARS":"Programmable Airline Reservation System", "parse":"parser", "PARSEC":"language An extensible language with PL/I-like syntax, derived from PROTEUS.", "parsed":"parser", "parser":"language An algorithm or program to determine the syntactic structure of to parse a sentence or string of symbols in some language. A parser normally takes as input a sequence of tokens output by a lexical analyser. It may produce some kind of abstract syntax tree as output. A parser may be produced automatically from a grammar by a parser generator such as yacc.", "parsing":"parser", "Parsley":"A Pascal extension for construction of parse trees, by Barber of Summit Software. It features Iterators.", "partition":"1. storage A logical section of a disk. Each partition normally has its own file system. Unix tends to treat partitions as though they were separate physical entities.", "PARTS":"Digitalk. Visual language for OS/2 2.0.", "PARULEL":"The PARULEL Parallel Rule Language, S. Stolfo et al, Proc 1991 Intl Conf Parallel Proc, CRC Press 1991, pp.36-45.", "PASC":"Perceptional Adaptive Subband Coding", "Pascal":"language After the French mathematician Blaise Pascal 1623-1662 A programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth around 1970. Pascal was designed for simplicity and for teaching programming, in reaction to the complexity of ALGOL 68. It emphasises structured programming constructs, data structures and strong typing. Innovations included enumeration types, subranges, sets, variant records, and the case statement. Pascal has been extremely influential in programming language design and has a great number of variants and descendants.", "Pasqual":"[Pasqual: A Proposed Generalization of Pascal, R.D. Tennent, TR75-32, Queen's U, Canada, 1975].", "PASRO":"robotics PAScal for RObots.", "PASSIM":"A simulation language based on Pascal.", "passphrase":"operating system A string of words and characters that you type in to authenticate yourself. Passphrases differ from passwords only in length. Passwords are usually short - six to ten characters. Passphrases are usually much longer - up to 100 characters or more.", "password":"security An arbitrary string of characters chosen by a user or system administrator and used to authenticate the user when he attempts to log on, in order to prevent unauthorised access to his account.", "paste":"copy and paste", "pastie":"/pay'stee/ An adhesive label designed to be attached to a key on a keyboard to indicate some non-standard character which can be accessed through that key. Pasties are likely to be used in APL environments, where almost every key is associated with a special character. A pastie on the R key, for example, might remind the user that it is used to generate the rho character. The term properly refers to nipple-concealing devices formerly worn by strippers in concession to indecent-exposure laws; compare tits on a keyboard.", "PAT":"1. language Personalized Array Translator.", "PATA":"1. storage Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment.", "patch":"software 1. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature. A patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated permanently into the program.", "PATCHY":"A Fortran code management program written at CERN.", "path":"1. file system pathname.", "pathname":"file system Or path The specification of a node file or directory in a hierarchical file system. The path is usually specified by listing the nodes top-down, separating the directories by the pathname separator / in Unix, \\ in MS-DOS.", "pathological":"1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, especially one that exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using. An algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may still be useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in practice.", "pathspec":"pathname", "PAW":"tool Physics Analysis Workbench.", "payware":"/pay'weir/ Commercial software. Opposite: shareware or freeware.", "PBCAK":"PEBCAK", "PBD":"Programmer Brain Damage", "PBEM":"play by electronic mail", "PBKAC":"PEBCAK", "PBM":"play by mail. See play by electronic mail.", "PBX":"Private Branch Exchange", "PC":"1. computer personal computer.", "PCA":"tool, programming A dynamic analyser from DEC giving information on run-time performance and code use.", "PCB":"1. hardware Power Circuit Breaker.", "PCCTS":"Purdue Compiler-Construction Tool Set", "PCF":"A simply typed, functional language.", "PCI":"Peripheral Component Interconnect", "PCjr":"IBM PCjr", "PCL":"1. Printer Control Language. A Document description language used by Hewlett-Packard Laserjet printers, a superset of HP-GL/2.", "PCLIPS":"Parallel CLIPS - U Lowell. Concurrent independent CLIPS expert systems. They use 'rassert' remote assert to enter facts into each other's database. PCLIPS: A Distributed Expert System Environment, R. Miller, CLIPS Users Group Conf, Aug 1990. E-mail: pclips@dragon.ulowell.edu?.", "PCM":"1. data Pulse Code Modulation.", "PCMCIA":"body, standard Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. Or People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms.", "PCMIA":"Personal Computer Manufacturer Interface Adaptor", "PCN":"1. Program Composition Notation.", "PCS":"1. Personal Communication Services.", "PCTE":"Portable Common Tool Environment", "PCU":"PCI Configuration Utility", "pcx":"filename extension A filename extension for images created with the IBM PC Paintbrush tool.", "PD":"public domain", "PDA":"Personal Digital Assistant", "PDC":"Primary Domain Controller", "PDEL":"Partial Differential Equation Language. A preprocessor for PL/I.", "PDELAN":"Partial Differential Equation LANguage", "PDES":"Product Data Exchange using STEP", "PDF":"Portable Document Format", "PDFTeX":"tool A modification of TeX to produce PDF output instead of the canonical DVI.", "PDH":"Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy", "PDIL":"language A language developed at Agence d'Informatique, France in the 1970s for description of communication protocols. It was part of the RHIN project.", "pdksh":"Version 4.9", "PDL":"1. Page Description Language.", "PDM":"1. Product Development Management.", "PDP":"Programmed Data Processor", "PDS":"1. hardware Processor Direct Slot.", "PDU":"Protocol Data Unit", "PE":"1. database periodic group", "pe":"networking The country code for Peru.", "PeaceNet":"One of the IGC networks. PeaceNet serves peace and social justice advocates around the world in such areas as human rights, disarmament, and international relations. A number of alternative news services provide a range of information about these and other topics from around the world.", "Peano":"Giuseppe Peano", "PEARL":"1. language, mathematics A language for constructive mathematics developed by Constable at Cornell University in the 1980s.", "Pebble":"A polymorphic language.", "Pebbleman":"DoD requirements that led to APSE. They were written in Jul 1978 and revised Jan 1979.", "PEBCAK":"humour Or PEBKAC, PBCAK, PBKAC Tech support shorthand for Problem Exists between Chair and Keyboard.", "PEBKAC":"PEBCAK", "PECOS":"A constraint-based language, built on the object-oriented module of Le-Lisp.", "PEEK":"The command in most microcomputer BASICs for reading memory contents a byte at an absolute address. POKE is the corresponding command to write a value to an absolute address.", "PEEL":"Used to implement version of Emacs on PRIME computers.", "peer":"networking A unit of communications hardware or software that is on the same protocol layer of a network as another.", "Pegasus":"1. networking, product A product to support Internet searches, electronic mail, and Usenet news.", "PEIPA":"Pilot European Image Processing Archive", "PEM":"Privacy Enhanced Mail", "PENCIL":"Pictorial ENCodIng Language. On-line system to display line structures. Sammet 1969, 675.", "Pentium":"processor Intel's superscalar successor to the 486.", "peon":"jargon A person with no special root or wheel privileges on a computer system. I can't create an account on foovax for you; I'm only a peon there.", "PeopleSoft":"application, company A company selling web-based ERP systems. Originally PeopleSoft supplied human resource management systems, they now provide financial data management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, workforce management, and data analytics systems.", "PEP":"peak envelope power", "Pepper":"language A variant of POP-11 by Chris Dollin kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com.", "PEPsy":"Prolog extended with parallel modules within which explicit OR-parallelism can be used.", "PER":"1. networking Packed Encoding Rules.", "percent":"%", "perceptron":"1. A single McCulloch-Pitts neuron.", "perf":"chad", "PERFORM":"programming A COBOL statement used for executing paragraphs.", "period":"1. data The time between repetitions of any cyclic event or phenomenon such as an electromagnetic wave or planetary orbit. Period is the reciprocal of frequency.", "peripheral":"hardware Or peripheral device, device Any part of a computer other than the CPU or working memory, i.e. disks, keyboards, monitors, mice, printers, scanners, tape drives, microphones, speakers, cameras, to list just the less exotic ones.", "Perl":"language, tool A high-level programming language, started by Larry Wall in 1987 and developed as an open source project. It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from the ubiquitous C programming language and to a lesser extent from sed, awk, various Unix shell languages, Lisp, and at least a dozen other tools and languages. Originally developed for Unix, it is now available for many platforms.", "permission":"file system Or file mode The ability to access read, write, execute, traverse, etc. a file or directory.", "permutation":"mathematics 1. An ordering of a certain number of elements of a given set.", "perplexity":"The geometric mean of the number of words which may follow any given word for a certain lexicon and grammar.", "persistence":"1. programming A property of a programming language where created objects and variables continue to exist and retain their values between runs of the program.", "persistent":"persistence", "perspective":"games In computer games, the virtual position from which the human player views the playing area. There are three different perspectives: first person, second person, and third person.", "PERT":"Program Evaluation and Review Technique", "pessimal":"/pes'im-l/ Latin-based antonym for optimal Maximally bad.", "petabyte":"unit, data PB A unit of data equal to one quadrillion bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions. A petabyte is 10^15 bytes or 1000^5 bytes or 1000 terabytes.", "petaflops":"unit 10^15 flops or 1000 teraflops.", "petdingo":"tool An Estelle to C++ translator.", "PETSCII":"character /pet'skee/ PET ASCII. The variation many would say perversion of the ASCII character set used by the Commodore Business Machines' PET series of personal computers and the later Commodore 64, Commodore 16, and Commodore 128 computers. The PETSCII set used left-arrow and up-arrow as in old-style ASCII instead of underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at positions 65--90, put the shifted alphabet at positions 193--218, and added graphic characters.", "PEX":"PHIGS Extension to X Extension to the X Window System providing 3d graphics support.", "pf":"networking The country code for French Polynesia.", "PFE":"1. text, editor Programmer's File Editor.", "PFL":"1. language A concurrent extension of ML by Holmstrom and Matthews, using CCS.", "pfm":"program file manager", "pForth":"language A portable hence the p ANS-standard Forth implemented in ANSI C. Phil Burk http://softsynth.com/philburk.html initially began developing pForth in 1994 to support ASIC development at 3DO.", "Pfortran":"Parallel Fortran", "PFP":"Plastic Flat Package", "pg":"networking The country code for Papua New Guinea.", "PGA":"1. graphics, specification Professional Graphics Adapter.", "PGP":"Pretty Good Privacy", "PH":"tool The tool for looking up people in Eudora on the Macintosh. Equivalent to Unix's finger service.", "pH":"Parallel Haskell", "ph":"networking The country code for the Philippines.", "phacker":"communications, security A telephone system cracker. A phacker may attempt to gain unauthorised access to a phone system in order to make free or untraceable calls or he may disrupt, alter or illegally tap phone systems via computer.", "phage":"A program that modifies other programs or databases in unauthorised ways; especially one that propagates a virus or Trojan horse. See also worm, mockingbird. The analogy, of course, is with phage viruses in biology.", "phase":"1. The offset of one's waking-sleeping schedule with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle; a useful concept among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed schedule.", "PHIGS":"Programmers Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System", "Philips":"company A Dutch multinational electronics company. It produces washing machines, consumer electronics, integrated circuits and light bulbs. Together with Sony they set the Compact Disc standard, especially Green Book CD-ROM. They are members of the Open Software Foundation. Philips Research Labs developed the POOL and SPL languages.", "philosophy":"See computer ethics, liar paradox, netiquette, proof.", "phishing":"security brand spoofing, carding, after fishing /fishing/ Sending e-mail that claims to be from some well-known organisation, e.g. a bank, to trick the recipient into revealing information for use in identity theft. The user is told to visit a website where they are asked to enter information such as passwords, credit card details, social security or bank account numbers. The website usually looks like it belongs to the organisation in question and may silently redirect the user to the real website after collecting their data.", "PHOCUS":"An object-oriented Prolog-like language.", "Phoenix":"operating system An operating system, built in BCPL on top of IBM MVT and later MVS by Cambridge University Computing Service from 1973 to 1995, which ran on the university central mainframe. All parts of the system were named after birds, including Eagle the job scheduler, also the nearest pub, Pigeon the mailer, GCAL the text processor and Wren the command language, leading to Wren Libraries a local pun.", "Phonetastic":"communications A CTI product from Callware. Phonetastic employs if-then rules and customer records to tell those receiving calls who is calling based on ANI and DNIS and to determine how the call should be routed, e.g. to a certain sales representative or to the general sales department; receive high-priority treatment; receive a fax-back, etc.", "Photoshop":"graphics, tool An image manipulation program by Adobe Systems, Inc..", "PHP":"PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor", "phreaking":"jargon /freek'ing/ phone phreak 1. The art and science of cracking the telephone network so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls.", "physical":"jargon The opposite of logical in its jargon sense.", "PI":"programming An interface between Prolog application programs and the X Window System that aims to be independent from the Prolog engine, provided that it has a Quintus foreign function interface e.g. SICStus and YAP. PI is mostly written in Prolog and is divided in two libraries: Edipo - the lower level interface to the Xlib functions; and Ytoolkit - the higher level user interface toolkit.", "pi":"1. character The greek lower-case letter P.", "PIC":"1. hardware programmable interrupt controller.", "PICL":"Language on Ncube or iPSC machines?", "PICNIC":"PEBCAK", "picosecond":"unit 10^-12 seconds.", "PICS":"Platform for Internet Content Selection", "PICT":"file format An Apple graphics format.", "PicTeX":"A version of TeX for pictures.", "pictogram":"text Or pictograph A symbol which is a picture that represents an object or concept, e.g. a picture of an envelope used to represent an e-mail message.", "pictograph":"pictogram", "picture":"image", "PID":"process identifier", "Pidgin":"software, communications A text chat application that work with many different chat systems at the same time.", "PIE":"A language from CMU similar to Actus.", "pif":"Program Information File", "piggybacking":"1. A method for passing acknowledgement frames and data frames in the same direction along a line.", "PIGUI":"Platform Independent Graphical User Interface", "PIL":"Procedure Implementation Language.", "PILE":"1. Polytechnic's Instructional Language for Educators.", "PILOT":"Programmed Inquiry Learning Or Teaching. CAI language, many versions. Guide to 8080 PILOT, J. Starkweather, Dr Dobb's J Apr 1977.", "PIM":"1. Personal Information Manager.", "PIN":"Personal Identification Number", "PINBOL":"language, games A decision table language for controlling pinball machines used at Atari. PINBOL included a multitasking executive and an interpreter that worked on data structures compiled from condition:action lists.", "Pine":"Program for Internet News & Email. A tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. It was designed specifically with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored to accommodate the needs of power users as well.", "ping":"networking, tool ping, originally contrived to match submariners' term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse A program written in 1983 by Mike Muuss who also wrote TTCP used to test reachability of destinations by sending them one, or repeated, ICMP echo requests and waiting for replies.", "pinging":"ping", "PIP":"tool Peripheral Interchange Program.", "pipe":"1. operating system One of Unix's buffers which can be written to by one asynchronous process and read by another, with the kernel suspending and waking up the sender and receiver according to how full the pipe is. In later versions of Unix, rather than using an anonymous kernel-managed temporary file to implement a pipe, it can be named and is implemented as a local socket pair.", "pipeline":"architecture A sequence of functional units stages which performs a task in several steps, like an assembly line in a factory. Each functional unit takes inputs and produces outputs which are stored in its output buffer. One stage's output buffer is the next stage's input buffer. This arrangement allows all the stages to work in parallel thus giving greater throughput than if each input had to pass through the whole pipeline before the next input could enter.", "pipelined":"pipeline", "pipelining":"pipeline", "piping":"pipe", "piracy":"software piracy", "pirate":"software pirate", "PIRL":"Pattern Information Retrieval Language.", "pistol":"[IBM] A tool that makes it all too easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. Unix rm * makes such a nice pistol!", "PIT":"Language for IBM 650. See IT.", "PITA":"Pain in the arse/ass.", "pixel":"picture element", "pixmap":"Contraction of pixel map. A 3 dimensional array of bits corresponding to a 2 dimensional array of pixels. It is used, for example, in the X Window System to describe a memory region where graphics can be drawn without affecting the screen. Typically this is used for the efficient handling of expose events, icon images or for animation. Compare bitmap.", "PJPEG":"Progressive JPEG", "PK":"zip", "pk":"networking The country code for Pakistan.", "PKE":"public-key encryption", "PKI":"Public Key Infrastructure", "PKLITE":"compression, tool An executable file compression utility for MS-DOS from PKWARE, Inc.. PKLITE compresses the body of the executable and adds a small, fast decompress routine in the header. In many cases it performs better than lzexe.", "PKUNZIP":"tool, compression A program to unpack archives created by PKZIP, written by PKWARE, Inc. and released as shareware. Versions exist for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Open VMS. PKUNZIP is no longer distributed, its functions having been incorporated into PKZIP.", "PKZIP":"tool A file compression and archiver utility for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows from PKWARE, Inc.. PKZIP uses a variation on the sliding window compression algorithm. It comes with pkunzip and pklite and is available as shareware from most FTP archives in a self-expanding MS-DOS executable.", "pl":"networking The country code for Poland.", "Pla":"language, music A high-level music programming language, written in SAIL. Pla includes concurrency based on message passing.", "PLACE":"Programming Language for Automatic Checkout Equipment.", "PLAGO":"A translator-interpreter for a PL/I subset. PLAGO/360 User's Manual, Poly Inst Brooklyn.", "PLAIN":"Programming LAnguage for INteraction. Pascal-like, with extensions for database, string handling, exceptions and pattern matching. Revised Report on the Programming Language PLAIN, A. Wasserman, SIGPLAN Notices 65:59-80 May 1981.", "plaintext":"cryptography A message before encryption or after decryption, i.e. in its usual form which anyone can read, as opposed to its encrypted form ciphertext.", "PLAN":"language Programming LANguage Nineteen hundred.", "Planet":"[An Experiment in Language Design for Distributed Systems, D. Crookes et al, Soft Prac & Exp 1410:957-971 Oct 1984].", "PLANIT":"Programming LANguage for Interaction and Teaching. CAI language. PLANIT - A Flexible Language Designed for Computer-Human Interaction, S.L. Feingold, Proc FJCC 31, AFIPS Fall 1967 Sammet 1969, p.706.", "PLANNER":"A language for writing theorem provers by Carl Hewitt hewitt@ai.mit.edu MIT 1967. Never fully implemented.", "PLANS":"Programming Language for Allocation and Network Scheduling. A PL/I preprocessor, used for developing scheduling algorithms.", "plants":"[The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, Aristid Lindenmayer. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1990.", "PLASMA":"PLAnner-like System Modelled on Actors. Carl Hewitt, 1975.", "platform":"Specific computer hardware, as in the phrase platform-independent. It may also refer to a specific combination of hardware and operating system and/or compiler, as in this program has been ported to several platforms. It is also used to refer to support software for a particular activity, as in This program provides a platform for research into routing protocols.", "Platon":"Distributed language based on asynchronous message passing.", "PLAY":"language, music A language for real-time music synthesis.", "Playground":"A visual language for children, developed for Apple's Vivarium Project. OOPSLA 89 or 90?", "playpen":"IBM A room where programmers work.", "Playstation":"games, hardware The leading family of games consoles, from Sony Corporation consisting of the original Playstation PS1 and the Playstation 2 PS2.", "playte":"data, jargon /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with byte.", "PLC":"Programmable Logic Controller", "PLD":"Programmable Logic Device", "pleonasm":"Redundancy of expression; tautology.", "plesiochronous":"communications Nearly synchronised, a term describing a communication system where transmitted signals have the same nominal digital rate but are synchronised on different clocks.", "Plexus":"A modular web server written in Perl by Tony Sanders sanders@earth.com. Comes with interfaces to allow many other information services to be served via the Web.", "pling":"character exclamation mark.", "plingnet":"UUCPNET. See also pling.", "PLisp":"1. PostScript Lisp? A Common Lisp translator and programming environment in PostScript by John Peterson peterson-john@cs.yale.edu.", "PLITS":"Programming Language In The Sky. A computational model for concurrency with communication via asynchronous message-passing.", "PLL":"phase-locked loop", "PLMK":"chat please let me know.", "plokta":"jargon, humour /plok't*/ Press Lots Of Keys To Abort. To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the system is just sluggish or really hung. Plokta can also be used while trying to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation. Someone going into plokta mode usually places both hands flat on the keyboard and mashes them down, hoping for some useful response.", "plotter":"hardware A device that uses one or more pens that can be raised, lowered and moved over the printing media to draw graphics or text.", "PLTL":"Propositional Linear Temporal Logic", "plugh":"games /ploogh/ A magic word from the ADVENT game.", "PLUM":"A compiler for a substantial subset of PL/I for the Univac 1100, from the University of Maryland.", "Plumber":"programming, tool A system for obtaining information about memory leaks in Ada and C programs.", "plumbing":"Unix Term used for shell code, so called because of the prevalence of pipelines that feed the output of one program to the input of another. Under Unix, user utilities can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines and temporary file grinding encapsulated in a shell script. This is much less effort than writing C every time, and the capability is considered one of Unix's major winning features. A few other operating systems such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar facilities.", "PLUS":"Late 60's. Machine-oriented systems language used internally by Univac.", "plus":"character +, ASCII character 43, 0x2B. The mathematical symbol for the addition operator, also used with the same meaning in arithmetic expressions in nearly all programming languages.", "PLUSS":"Proposition of a Language Useable for Structured Specifications", "ply":"mathematics, data 1. Of a node in a tree, the number of branches between that node and the root.", "PM":"1. preventive maintenance.", "pm":"networking The country code for St. Pierre and Miquelon.", "PMBX":"Private Manual Branch EXchange", "PMC":"PCI Mezzanine Card", "PML":"Parallel ML.", "PMP":"Portable Media Player", "pn":"networking The country code for Pitcairn Island.", "pnambic":"jargon /p*-nam'bik/ From the scene in the film, The Wizard of Oz in which the true nature of the wizard is first discovered: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.", "PNG":"Portable Network Graphics", "PNP":"1. electronics A type of bipolar transistor consisting of a layer of N-doped semiconductor the base between two P-doped layers the collector and emitter. PNP transistors are commonly operated with the emitter at ground and the collector at a negative voltage.", "POA":"Portable Object Adapter", "PoB":"Prisoner of Bill", "POC":"Point Of Contact", "POCAL":"PETRA Operator's CommAnd Language.", "pod":"Not to be confused with P.O.D..", "podcast":"networking Any series of audio files that can be downloaded from the Internet, often released on some regular schedule, e.g. daily or weekly.", "POE":"PowerOpen Environment", "POFAC":"A subset of Fortran.", "POFOD":"Probability of Failure on Demand", "POGO":"Early system on G-15. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "point":"1. unit, text Sometimes abbreviated pt The unit of length used in typography to specify text character height, rule width, and other small measurements.", "pointer":"1. programming An address, from the point of view of a programming language. A pointer may be typed, with its type indicating the type of data to which it points.", "POJO":"Plain Old Java Object", "poke":"The BASIC command to write a value to an absolute address.", "Polka":"language An object-oriented parallel logic programming language, built on top of Parlog.", "poll":"To check the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered.", "polling":"poll", "Poly":"language 1. A polymorphic, block-structured language developed by D.C.J. Matthews at Cambridge in the early 1980s.", "POLYGOTH":"language A distributed language integrating classes with a parallel block structure, including multiprocedures and fragments.", "polylithism":"programming A property of a data-object that can exist in many shapes and sizes, but not simultaneously; which distinguishes it from a union. It is often implemented as a set of classes or structs derived from a common base class or with a common header, as in the case of structs, typically without any methods.", "polymorphic":"polymorphism", "polymorphism":"theory, programming The ability to leave parts of a type in a typed language unspecified. The term has three distinct uses:", "polynomial":"1. mathematics An arithmetic expression composed by summing multiples of powers of some variable.", "POM":"phase of the moon", "pompom":"graphics Algorithmic art by Denis Howe.", "Ponder":"A non-strict polymorphic, functional language by Jon Fairbairn jf@cl.cam.ac.uk.", "Pong":"games A computer game invented in 1972 by Atari's Nolan Bushnell. The game is a minimalist rendering of table tennis.", "POOL":"Parallel Object-Oriented Language.", "POP":"1. language A family of programming languages, POP-1, POP-2, POP-10, Pop-11, POP++, POP-9X, POPLOG.", "PoP":"Point Of Presence", "pop":"programming To remove something from the top of a stack.", "POPART":"A grammar-driven programming environment generator. Uses Paddle.", "POPCORN":"AI system built on POP-2. The POPCORN Reference Manual, S.", "POPJ":"/pop'J/ [PDP-10 return-from-subroutine instruction]. To return from a digression. By verb doubling, Popj, popj means roughly Now let's see, where were we? See RTI.", "Poplar":"Morris, 1978. A blend of LISP with SNOBOL4 pattern matching and APL-like postfix syntax. Implicit iteration over lists, sorting primitive. Experience with an Applicative String-Processing Language, J.H. Morris et al, 7th POPL, ACM 1980, pp.32-46.", "POPLER":"A PLANNER-type language for the POP-2 environment.", "POPLOG":"A multi-language programming environment, which includes the languages Pop-11, ML, Common Lisp and Prolog. It supports mixed-language programming and incremental compilation and includes a comprehensive X Window System interface. It is built on top of a two-stack virtual machine, PVM. POPLOG was developed at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.", "PopTalk":"language, product A commercial object-oriented derivative of POP, from Cambridge Consultants, used in the expert system MUSE.", "POR":"power-on reset", "porn":"pornography", "porno":"pornography", "pornography":"application Still and moving images, usually of women, in varying states of nudity, posing or performing erotic acts with men, women, animals, machines, or other props. Some say it degrades women, some say it corrupts young boys who down-load it from the web or exchange it on floppy disks. Most of it is in the form of JPEG images.", "port":"1. networking A logical channel or channel endpoint in a communications system. The Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol transport layer protocols used on Ethernet use port numbers to distinguish between demultiplex different logical channels on the same network interface on a computer.", "portability":"operating system, programming The ease with which a piece of software or file format can be ported, i.e. made to run on a new platform and/or compile with a new compiler.", "portable":"portability", "PORTAL":"Process-Oriented Real-Time Algorithmic Language.", "portal":"web A website that aims to be an entry point to the web, typically offering a search engine and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other services. These services are usually provided for free in the hope that users will make the site their default home page or at least visit it often. Popular examples are Yahoo and MSN. Most portals on the Internet exist to generate advertising income for their owners, others may be focused on a specific group of users and may be part of an intranet or extranet. Some may just concentrate on one particular subject, say technology or medicine, and are known as a vertical portals.", "porting":"Translating software to run on a different computer and/or operating system.", "portmapper":"networking A server that converts TCP/IP protocol port numbers into RPC program numbers. It must be running in order to make RPC calls.", "POS":"point of sale", "POSE":"language A query language written in 1967.", "poset":"partially ordered set", "POSIX":"Portable Operating System Interface", "POST":"power-on self-test", "post":"messaging To send a message to a mailing list or newsgroup. Usually implies that the message is sent indiscriminately to multiple users, in contrast to mail which implies one or more deliberately selected individual recipients.", "postcardware":"Shareware that borders on freeware, in that the author requests only that satisfied users send a postcard of their home town or something. This practice, silly as it might seem, serves to remind users that they are otherwise getting something for nothing, and may also be psychologically related to real estate sales in which $1 changes hands just to keep the transaction from being a gift.", "POSTGRES":"database An active DBMS developed at the University of California at Berkeley by a team led by Michael Stonebraker 1986-1994. Postgres was later taken by Illustra and developed into a commercial product, which in turn was bought by Informix and integrated into their product, Universal Server.", "PostgreSQL":"database /'post-gres-kyu-el/ An enhancement of the POSTGRES database system.", "posting":"A message sent to a newsgroup or mailing list may also be called a post or the act of sending it. Distinguished from a letter or ordinary electronic mail message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a small mailing list are postings or e-mail; perhaps the best dividing line is that if you don't know the names of all the potential recipients, it is a posting.", "postmaster":"The electronic mail contact and maintenance person at a site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the same as the admin. The Internet standard for electronic mail RFC 822 requires each machine to have a postmaster address; usually it is aliased to this person.", "POSTQUEL":"POSTGRES QUERy Language. The language used by the POSTGRES database system.", "PostScript":"language, text, graphics A page description language based on work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in 1976, evolving through JaM John and Martin, Martin Newell at XEROX PARC, and finally implemented in its current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe Systems, Inc. in 1982.", "POSYBL":"Programming system for distributed applications. A Linda implementation for Unix networks by Ioannis Schoinas sxoinas@csd.uch.gr.", "POTS":"Plain Old Telephone Service", "pound":"character A British pound sign or Americal hash character.", "POWER":"Performance Optimization with Enhanced RISC. The IBM processor architecture on which PowerPC was based.", "PowerBuilder":"tool, database A graphical user interface development tool from Powersoft for developing client-server database applications. It runs under MS-DOS? and Microsoft Windows. There are also versions for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, Macintosh, and Unix.", "powerdomain":"theory The powerdomain of a domain D is a domain containing some of the subsets of D. Due to the asymmetry condition in the definition of a partial order and therefore of a domain the powerdomain cannot contain all the subsets of D. This is because there may be different sets X and Y such that X = Y and Y = X which, by the asymmetry condition would have to be considered equal.", "PowerFuL":"language A language combining functional programming and logic programming, using angelic Powerdomains.", "PowerOpen":"The PowerOpen Association defines and promotes the PowerOpen Environment POE.", "PowerPC":"processor, standard PPC A RISC microprocessor designed to meet a standard which was jointly designed by Motorola, IBM, and Apple Computer the PowerPC Alliance. The PowerPC standard specifies a common instruction set architecture ISA, allowing anyone to design and fabricate PowerPC processors, which will run the same code. The PowerPC architecture is based on the IBM POWER architecture, used in IBM's RS/6000 workstations. Currently IBM and Motorola are working on PowerPC chips.", "Powerpoint":"graphics, tool A Microsoft application for creating presentations, speeches, slides, etc.", "powerset":"mathematics The powerset of a set S is the set of possible subsets of S, usually written PS.", "PPC":"PowerPC", "PPCP":"PowerPC Platform", "PPD":"Parallel Presence Detect", "PPGA":"Plastic Pin Grid Array", "ppi":"pixels per inch", "PPL":"Polymorphic Programming Language. An interactive, extensible language, based on APL, from Harvard University.", "PPLambda":"language essentially the first-order predicate calculus superposed upon the simply-typed polymorphic lambda-calculus. PPLambda is the object language for LCF.", "PPM":"Portable Pixmap", "PPN":"Project-Programmer Number.", "PPP":"Point-to-Point Protocol", "PPPoA":"Point-to-Point Protocol over ATM", "PPPoE":"Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet", "PPTP":"Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol", "PQS":"Picture Quality Scale", "PR":"Packet Radio", "pr":"networking The country code for Puerto Rico.", "PRA":"PRAgmatics.", "pragma":"programming pragmatic information A standardised form of comment which has meaning to the compiler or some other program. It may use a special syntax or a specific form within the normal comment syntax. A pragma usually conveys non-essential information, often intended to help the compiler to optimise the program or to generate formatted documentation.", "PRAM":"hardware 1. parallel random-access machine.", "PRECCX":"tool Pre-C-Compiler eXtended An infinite-lookahead compiler-compiler by Peter Breuer ptb@comlab.ox.ac.uk for context dependent grammars. PRECCX generates ANSI C.", "precedence":"operator precedence", "precharge":"storage The phase in the access cycle of DRAM during which the storage capacitors are charged to the appropriate value.", "precision":"mathematics The number of decimal places to which a number is computed.", "predecessor":"parent", "predict":"1. simulation simulation, predictive analytics.", "predomain":"theory A domain with no bottom element.", "prefetch":"instruction prefetch", "prefix":"1. unit An SI prefix used to multiply the value of an SI Système International unit by some power of ten.", "PREP":"1. PReP PowerPC Reference Platform.", "prepaging":"architecture Or working set model A technique whereby the operating system in a paging virtual memory multitasking environment loads all pages of a process's working set into memory before the process is restarted.", "prepend":"jargon /pree'pend'/ by analogy with append To prefix or add to the beginning.", "preprocessor":"programming A program that transforms input data in some way before it is read by the main program. In the case of a compiler, the input is source code. The main advantage of using a preprocessor is that it is possible to change the specification of the input data without changing the main program. The separation can also help to make the system's overall behaviour easier to understand. The disadvantage is that performance may be reduced by the extra input and output performed between the two programs.", "prestidigitization":"/pres`t*-dij*-ti:-zaysh*n/ 1. A term coined by Daniel Klein dvk@lonewolf.com for the act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand.", "PRESTO":"A parallel language for shared-memory multiprocessors, built on top of C++ by Bershad et al, U Washington 1987. PRESTO provides classes for threads and spinlocks as well as Mesa-style monitors and condition variables.", "prettyprint":"/prit'ee-print/ Or pretty-print To generate pretty human-readable output from a hairy internal representation; especially used for the process of grinding program code.", "PRI":"ISDN Primary Rate Interface.", "primitive":"programming A function, operator, or type which is built into a programming language or operating system, either for speed of execution or because it would be impossible to write it in the language. Primitives typically include the arithmetic and logical operations plus, minus, and, or, etc. and are implemented by a small number of machine language instructions.", "PRINT":"language PRe-edited INTerpreter.", "printer":"printer A peripheral device for producing text and images on paper. There are many different types, broadly grouped into impact printers and non-impact printers.", "printf":"library The standard function in the C programming language library for printing formatted output.", "PRISM":"A distributed logic language.", "privacy":"security An attribute of a system's security that ensures that only intended or desired people or bodies can read a message or piece of stored data. Privacy is often enforced by some kind of access control or encryption.", "private":"privacy", "PRL":"Proof Refinement Logic.", "PRMD":"primary management domain", "PRML":"Partial Response Maximum Likelihood", "probabilistic":"probability Relating to, or governed by, probability. The behaviour of a probabilistic system cannot be predicted exactly but the probability of certain behaviours is known.", "Probe":"An object-oriented logic language based on ObjVlisp.", "PROC":"language The job control language used in the Pick operating system.", "procedural":"procedural language", "procedure":"subroutine", "proceedings":"publication Proc. A printed collection of papers presented at a conference or meeting, e.g. The Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Microelectronics for Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems. Along with learned journals, conference proceedings are a major repository of peer-reviewed research results.", "process":"1. operating system, software The sequence of states of an executing program. A process consists of the program code which may be shared with other processes which are executing the same program, private data, and the state of the processor, particularly the values in its registers. It may have other associated resources such as a process identifier, open files, CPU time limits, shared memory, child processes, and signal handlers.", "processing":"data Performing some predefined sequence of operations on an input to produce an output or change of internal state; activity specifically involving the computer's CPU.", "processor":"central processing unit", "PROCOL":"language A parallel object language with protocols, constraints and distributed delegation by J. Van Den Bos of Erasmus University, Rotterdam.", "Procomm":"communications, product A terminal emulator program, originally from Datastorm Technologies, used for connection to BBSes etc.", "Prodigy":"networking A commercial on-line conferencing service, co-developed by IBM and Sears, Roebuck, Inc.", "ProDoc":"documentation A set of tools for software documentation from SPC.", "product":"mathematics, programming An expression in mathematics or computer programming consisting of two other expressions multiplied together. In mathematics, multiplication is usually represented by juxtaposition, e.g. x y, whereas in programming, * is used as an infix operator, e.g. salary * tax_rate.", "PROFILE":"Simple language for matching and scoring data. User's Manual for the PROFILE System, Cambridge Computer Assoc May 1974.", "profile":"1. A control file for a program, especially a text file automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customise the program's behaviour. Used to avoid hard-coded choices see also dot file, rc file.", "PROFS":"Professional Office System", "PROGENY":"1961. Report generator for UNIVAX SS90.", "proglet":"/prog'let/ [UK] A short extempore program written to meet an immediate, transient need. Often written in BASIC, rarely more than a dozen lines long and containing no subroutines.", "program":"software", "programmer":"job Or computer programmer, developer Someone who writes or debugs computer programs, for a living or for fun.", "programming":"1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper or, in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging an empty file.", "Prograph":"language", "PROGRES":"language PROgrammed Graph REwriting Systems.", "PROJECT":"Subsystem of ICES. Sammet 1969, p.616.", "projection":"theory In domain theory, a function, f, which is a idempotent, i.e. ffx=fx and b whose result is no more defined than its argument. E.g. Fx=bottom or Fx=x.", "Prolog":"programming Programming in Logic or French Programmation en Logique. The first of the huge family of logic programming languages.", "PROM":"Programmable Read-Only Memory", "PROMAL":"PROgrammer's Microapplication Language", "Prometheus":"language A programmaing language geared for logic, mathematics, AI, and string, list and database processing.", "pron":"jargon Or pr0n B1FF-speak for pornography. Often seen on IRC in such desperate cries for help as I WNAT PRON!!!!!", "Pronet":"language", "Pronunciation":"In this dictionary slashes /../ bracket phonetic pronunciations of words not found in a standard English dictionary. The notation, and many of the pronunciations, were adapted from the Hacker's Jargon File.", "proof":"1. logic A finite sequence of well-formed formulas, F1, F2, ... Fn, where each Fi either is an axiom, or follows by some rule of inference from some of the previous F's, and Fn is the statement being proved.", "proposition":"logic A statement in propositional logic which may be either true or false. Each proposition is typically represented by a letter in a formula such as p = q, meaning proposition p implies proposition q.", "proprietary":"1. In marketroid-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers.", "PROSE":"1. PROblem Solution Engineering. Numerical problems including differentiation and integration. Computing in Calculus, J. Thames, Research/Development 265 May 1975.", "ProSet":"A derivative of SETL with Ada-like syntax developed at the University of Essen in 1990. Formerly known as SETL/E.", "PROSPER":"[PROSPER: A Language for Specification by Prototyping, J.", "Prospero":"A tool for organising Internet resources. Prospero allows each user to organise the contents of remote file servers into his own virtual file system with his own hierarchical name space consisting of links to remote objects. Remote indexing services are made available by treating the results as a virtual directory. A union link allows the contents of the link's target directory to appear as part of the directory containing the link. Arbitrary filters can be associated with links to modify the representation of the target directory as desired. Prospero directories can be shared between users.", "ProTalk":"Quintus. An object-oriented Prolog.", "PROTEUS":"An extensible language, the core of PARSEC.", "protocal":"spelling It's spelled protocol.", "protocol":"A set of formal rules describing how to transmit data, especially across a network. Low level protocols define the electrical and physical standards to be observed, bit- and byte-ordering and the transmission and error detection and correction of the bit stream. High level protocols deal with the data formatting, including the syntax of messages, the terminal to computer dialogue, character sets, sequencing of messages etc.", "protoduction":"jargon A prototype that ends up in a production environment.", "PROTON":"1. A home computer made by Acorn Computers under a contract won from the BBC in April 1981.", "Protosynthex":"A query system for English text.", "prototype":"1. systems An early version of a product, designed to demonstrate feasability and elicit feedback. A prototype usually has some subset of the functions, behaviour and appearance of the finished product. It is usually made using a method suitable for producing a one-off rather than mass production.", "Prototyper":"An interface builder for the Macintosh from Smethers Barnes.", "prototyping":"The creation of a model and the simulation of all aspects of a product. CASE tools support different degrees of prototyping. Some offer the end-user the ability to review all aspects of the user interface and the structure of documentation and reports before code is generated.", "provider":"Internet Access Provider", "prowler":"Unix A daemon that is run periodically typically once a week to seek out and erase core files, truncate administrative logfiles, nuke lost+found directories, and otherwise clean up the cruft that tends to pile up in the corners of a file system.", "proxy":"networking A process that accepts requests for some service and passes them on to the real server. A proxy may run on dedicated hardware or may be purely software. It may transform the request in some way or provide some additional layer of functionality such as caching or remote access. A proxy may be intended to increase security, e.g. a web proxy that allows multiple clients inside an organisation to access the Internet through a single secure, shared connection.", "PS":"1. language, text, graphics PostScript.", "PSA":"Problem Statement Analizer. See PSL/PSA.", "pSather":"language A parallel extension of Sather for a clustered shared memory model. It features threads synchronised by monitor objects gates; locality assertions and placement operators.", "PSD":"tool Portable Scheme Debugger.", "PSDN":"communications Public Switched Data Network.", "pseudo":"jargon /soo'doh/ Usenet Pseudonym.", "pseudocode":"programming A notation resembling a programming language but not intended for actual compilation. It usually combines some of the structure of a programming language with an informal natural language description of the computations to be carried out. Some CASE systems produce it as a basis for later hand coding.", "pseudoprime":"A backgammon prime six consecutive occupied points with one point missing. This term is an esoteric pun derived from a mathematical method that, rather than determining precisely whether a number is prime has no divisors, uses a statistical technique to decide whether the number is probably prime. A number that passes this test is called a pseudoprime. The hacker backgammon usage stems from the idea that a pseudoprime is almost as good as a prime: it does the job of a prime until proven otherwise, and that probably won't happen.", "PseudoScheme":"A translator from Scheme to Common Lisp by Jonathan Rees jar@cs.cornell.edu. Version 2.8. It conforms to all of R3RS except call/cc and requires Common Lisp. Runs on Lucid, Symbolics CL, VAX Lisp, Explorer CL.", "pseudosuit":"/soo'doh-s[y]oot/ A suit wannabee; a hacker who has decided that he wants to be in management or administration and begins wearing ties, sport coats, and shudder! suits voluntarily.", "PSF":"Print Services Facility", "PSI":"Portable Scheme Interpreter", "Psion":"company The UK company that produced the Psion Organiser.", "PSK":"1. communications Phase-Shift Keying.", "PSL":"language", "PSML":"Processor System Modeling Language.", "PSN":"Packet Switch Node", "PSO":"Oracle Parallel Server", "PSPP":"statistics A GNU version of SPSS.", "PSTN":"Public Switched Telephone Network", "PSU":"power supply unit", "psychedelicware":"/si:k*-del-ik-weir/ [UK] Synonym display hack. See also smoking clover.", "psyton":"humour /si:'ton/ From TMRC The elementary particle carrying the sinister force. The probability of a process losing is proportional to the number of psytons falling on it.", "pt":"1. text, unit point.", "ptc":"A Pascal to C translator.", "PTF":"Program Temporary Fix", "Pthreads":"POSIX Threads", "PTI":"Portable Tool Interface", "PTN":"Physical Transport Network", "Ptolemy":"A flexible foundation for the specification, simulation, and rapid prototyping of systems. It is an object-oriented framework within which diverse models of computation can co-exist and interact. For example, using Ptolemy a data-flow system can be easily connected to a hardware simulator which in turn may be connected to a discrete-event system. Because of this, Ptolemy can be used to model entire systems. In addition, Ptolemy now has code generation capabilities. From a flow graph description, Ptolemy can generate both C code and DSP assembly code for rapid prototyping. Note that code generation is not yet complete, and is included in the current release for demonstration purposes only.", "PTT":"Post, Telephone and Telegraph administration", "PUB":"1. PUBlishing. A 1972 text-formatting language for TOPS-10, with syntax based on SAIL. Influenced TeX and Scribe.", "puff":"algorithm To decompress data that has been crunched by Huffman coding. At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder program was actually *named* PUFF, but these days it is usually packaged with the encoder.", "PUFFT":"[The Purdue University Fast Fortran Translator, Saul Rosen et al, CACM 811:661-666 Nov 1965].", "pull":"pull media", "pumpkin":"jargon A humourous term for the token - the object notional or real that gives its possessor the pumpking or the pumpkineer exclusive access to something, e.g. applying patches to a master copy of source for which the pumpkin is called a patch pumpkin.", "pumpkineer":"pumpkin", "pumpking":"pumpkin", "punt":"From the punch line of an old joke referring to American football: Drop back 15 yards and punt! 1. To give up, typically without any intention of retrying. Let's punt the movie tonight. I was going to hack all night to get this feature in, but I decided to punt may mean that you've decided not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even going to put in the feature.", "PureLink":"An incremental linker from Pure Software.", "Purify":"A debugging tool from Pure Software.", "Purveyor":"web A web server for Windows NT and Windows 95 when available.", "push":"1. programming To put something onto a stack or pdl.", "PVC":"1. networking Permanent Virtual Circuit.", "PVM":"Parallel Virtual Machine", "pw":"networking The country code for Palau.", "PWM":"pulse width modulation", "py":"networking The country code for Paraguay.", "Pythagoras":"person Pythagoras of Samos, Ionia; about 569-475 BC The Greek mathematician who founded a philosophical and religious school in Croton now Crotone in southern Italy.", "Python":"1. language A simple, high-level interpreted language invented by Guido van Rossum guido@cwi.nl in 1991. Python combines ideas from ABC, C, Modula-3 and Icon. It bridges the gap between C and shell programming, making it suitable for rapid prototyping or as an extension language for C applications. It is object-oriented and supports packages, modules, classes, user-defined exceptions, a good C interface, dynamic loading of C modules and has no arbitrary restrictions.", "Q":"language A very high level language by Per Bothner based on lazy generalised sequences. Q has lexical scope, and some support for logic programming[?] and constraint programming. The language includes small subsets of Common Lisp and Scheme.", "QA":"Quality Assurance", "qa":"networking The country code for Qatar.", "QAM":"1. Quadrature Amplitude Modulation.", "Qbasic":"language Quick basic.", "QBE":"Query By Example", "QBIC":"content-based information retrieval", "QCA":"Quantum-dot Cellular Automata", "QCIF":"Quarter CIF", "qdjanus":"A Janus-to-Prolog compiler by Saumya Debray debray@cs.arizona.edu. It is meant to be used with Sicstus Prolog and is mostly compliant with Programming in Janus by Saraswat, Kahn, and Levy.", "QDOS":"operating system The Sinclair QL's proprietary operating system. The origin of the name is uncertain a weak pun on kudos, perhaps, as Unix was on Multics. There was another OS around from the birth of personal computers called Q.D.O.S. - Quick And Dirty Operating System. QDOS might also stand for QL Data/Disk/Drive/Device Operating System.", "QIC":"Quarter-Inch Cartridge", "QL":"computer Quantum Leap Sir Clive Sinclair's first Motorola 68008-based personal computer, developed from around 1981 and released about 1983. The QL ran Sinclair's QDOS operating system which was the first multitasking OS on a home computer, though few programmers used this feature. It had a structured, extended BASIC and a suite of integrated application programs written by Psion. It featured innovative microdrives which were random-access tape drives. It was not a success.", "Qlambda":"language A LISP by Richard Gabriel and John McCarthy.", "QLISP":"1. SRI 1973. General problem solving, influenced by PLANNER.", "QLOG":"A version of Prolog implemented in Lisp which allows Prolog programs to call Lisp and vice versa.", "QMQP":"Quick Mail Queueing Protocol", "QMTP":"Quick Mail Transfer Protocol", "QMW":"Queen Mary and Westfield College", "QNX":"operating system A realtime, network distributed, POSIX-certified, microkernel, multi-user, multitasking, ROMable, fault-tolerant, embeddable operating system that supports TCP/IP, NFS, FTP, the X Window System, Microsoft Windows as a guest process, Ethernet, Token Ring, Arcnet and Watcom ANSI C/C++. Support for Pentium, 486, 386, 286, 80x87. Developed and distributed by QNX Software Systems, Ltd.", "QoS":"Quality of service", "QPE":"language 1. A two-dimensional pictorial query language.", "QSAM":"Physical Sequential", "QTRADER":"application Analytical software for stock and commodity trading, released in July 1995 by Caribou CodeWorks.", "quad":"character The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for various arcane purposes mostly related to I/O.", "quadruplex":"communications A kind of telegraphy system developed by Thomas A. Edison in the 1870s combining diplex and duplex communications to support simultaneous transmission of two messages in each direction.", "Quake":"A string-oriented language designed to support the construction of Modula-3 programs from modules, interfaces and libraries. Written by Stephen Harrison of DEC SRC, 1993.", "Qualcomm":"company A California-based technology company; their primary product is the OMNITRACS tractor-trailer-tracking system.", "quality":"The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. Not to be mistaken for degree of excellence or fitness for use which meet only part of the definition.", "quantifier":"logic An operator in predicate logic specifying for which values of a variable a formula is true. Universally quantified means for all values written with an inverted A, LaTeX \\forall and existentially quantified means there exists some value written with a reversed E, LaTeX \\exists. To be unambiguous, the set to which the values of the variable belong should be specified, though this is often omitted when it is clear from the context the universe of discourse. E.g.", "Quantify":"A performance analysis tool from Pure Software.", "quantum":"time slice", "quarter":"crumb", "QUEASY":"An early system on the IBM 701.", "QUEL":"The query language used by the database management system INGRES.", "query":"1. database, information science A user's or agent's request for information, generally as a formal request to a database or search engine.", "ques":"question mark", "Quest":"1. A language designed for its simple denotational semantics.", "queue":"programming A first-in first-out data structure used to sequence objects. Objects are added to the tail of the queue enqueued and taken off the head dequeued.", "QUICK":"language An early system on the IBM 701.", "QuickDraw":"library, graphics Part of the software in the Apple Macintosh's ROM that performs graphics operations.", "Quicksilver":"database A dBASE-like compiler for MS-DOS from WordTech.", "Quicksort":"A sorting algorithm with On log n average time complexity.", "QuickTime":"graphics, standard, file format, product Apple Computer's software for playing audio and video. The QuickTime application is a free media player. QuickTime Pro is a paid-for version with editing ability. QuickTime's native format for audio and video is .mov but it can handle many others.", "quiesce":"networking To render quiescent, i.e. temporarily inactive or disabled. For example to quiesce a device such as a digital modem. It is also a system command in MAX TNT software which is used to Temporarily disable a modem or DS0 channel.", "QUIKSCRIPT":"Simulation language derived from SIMSCRIPT, based on 20-GATE.", "QUIKTRAN":"Fortran-like, interactive with debugging facilities. Sammet 1969, p.226.", "QUIN":"Pyle 1965. Interactive language. Sammet 1969, p.691.", "quine":"programming /kwi:n/ After the logician Willard V. Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement.", "quintillion":"10^30 in Europe this is called a nonillion in the United States and Canada.", "quotient":"The number obtained by dividing one number the numerator by another the denominator. If both numbers are rational then the result will also be rational.", "Quty":"A functional plus logic language. Quty: A Functional Language Based on Unification, M. Sato et al, in Conf. Fifth Gen. Computer Systems, ICOT 1984, pp.157-165.", "qux":"jargon /kwuhks/ A metasyntactic variable in the foo series; a mutation from quux.", "QWERTY":"hardware /kwer'tee/ From the top left row of letter keys of most keyboards Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor, as opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts e.g. keyboard AZERTY in french-speaking countries or a space-cadet keyboard or APL keyboard.", "QX":"Meaning OK, from E.E. Smith SF books A language for digital signal processing of digitised speech, by Richard Gillmann of SDC, Santa Monica. QX was part of SDC's speech recognition project.", "RACE":"programming Requirements Acquisition and Controlled Evolution.", "RACF":"Resource Access Control Facility", "RAD":"programming Rapid Application Development.", "Raddle":"parallel", "radiosity":"graphics A method for rendering a view of a three-dimensional scene that provides realistic lighting effects, such as interobject reflections and color bleeding.", "RADIUS":"Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service", "radix":"mathematics The ratio, R, between the weights of adjacent digits in positional representation of numbers. The right-most digit has weight one, the digit to its left has weight R, the next R^2, R^3, etc. The radix also determines the set of digits which is zero to R-1. E.g. decimal radix ten uses 0-9 and each digit is worth ten times as much as you move left along the number.", "RAID":"Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks", "RAIL":"robotics Automatix. High-level language for industrial robots.", "RAIS":"Redundant Array of Inexpensive Servers", "RAISE":"Rigorous Approach to Industrial Software Engineering", "RAL":"1. Rutherford Appleton Laboratory UK.", "RAM":"random-access memory", "RAMDAC":"Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter", "RAMTRON":"company The company which holds the patents for FRAM and licenses the technology to other companies.", "random":"1. Unpredictable closest to mathematical definition; weird.", "randomness":"1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.", "range":"mathematics", "ransomware":"security A kind of malware that encrypts files on your computer and then demands that you send the malware operator money in order to have the files decrypted. CryptoLocker was the best known example of ransomware.", "RapidCAD":"processor A specially packaged Intel 486DX and a dummy floating point unit FPU designed as pin-compatible replacements for an Intel 80386 processor and 80387 FPU.", "Rapidwrite":"language, tool A method for translating set of abbreviations into the much more verbose COBOL code.", "RAPT":"[An Interpreter for a Language for Describing Assemblies, R.J. Popplestone et al, Artif Intell 14:79-107 1980].", "RARE":"Réseaux Associés pour la Recherche Européenne", "RARP":"Reverse Address Resolution Protocol", "RAS":"1. hardware, storage Row Address Strobe.", "RASP":"language [RASP - A Language with Operations on Fuzzy Sets, D.D. Djakovic, Comp Langs 133:143-148 1988].", "raster":"hardware The area of a video display that is covered by sweeping the electron beam of the display in a series of horizontal lines from top to bottom. The beam then returns to the top during the vertical flyback interval.", "rastergram":"Single Image Random Dot Stereogram", "rasterising":"algorithm A transformation that can be applied to an image to prepare it for printing. Rasterising reduces resolution by a factor of typically four to eight. It also reduces sensitivity to paper properties. Rasterising can be combined with dithering.", "rasterizing":"rasterising", "Ratatosk":"An SLR parser generator written in Gofer a Haskell variant by Torben AEgidius Mogensen torbenm@diku.dk.", "RatC":"Rationalized C", "RATEL":"Raytheon Automatic Test Equipment Language. For analog and digital computer controlled test centres. Automatic Testing via a Distributed Intelligence Processing System, S.J. Ring, IEEE AUTOTESTCON 77 Nov 1977.", "RATFIV":"language An enhancement to the RATFOR programming language, developed by Bill Wood while at the Institute for Cancer Research Philadelphia PA, now the Fox Chase Cancer Center in 1980-1981. RATFIV was released on several DECUS Digital Equipment Corporation User's Group tapes for VAX/VMS. Among its enhancements were: optional Fortan 77 output, an enhanced Format statement and enhanced macros.", "RATFOR":"RATional Fortran", "rational":"[Mathematics] a fractional number n/d, where n and d are integers, n is the numerator and d is the denominator. The set of all rational numbers is usually called Q.", "rave":"[WPI] 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.", "RBASIC":"Database language for Revelation, by Cosmos, Inc. Combines features of BASIC, Pascal and Fortran.", "RBCSP":"Roper and Barter's CSP.", "RBOC":"Regional Bell Operating Company", "rc":"1. filename extension run commands.", "RCC":"An extensible language.", "RCL":"Reduced Control Language. A simplified job control language for OS360, translated to IBM JCL. Reduced Control Language for Non- Professional Users, K. Appel in Command Languages, C. Unger ed, N-H 1973.", "rcp":"networking, tool Remote copy The Unix utility for copying files over Ethernet. Rcp is similar to FTP but uses the hosts.equiv user authentication method.", "RCS":"Revision Control System", "Rdb":"Oracle Rdb", "rdb":"A roll-your-own database, created in the Unix toolkit philosophy. It appears to be written in the awk language, and is very compatible with awk. It uses awk's syntax and can be combined with awk commands.", "RDBA":"Remote Database Access", "RDBMS":"relational database", "RDF":"Resource Description Framework", "RDI":"Receiver Data Interface", "RDL":"Requirements and Development Language.", "RDOS":"Realtime Disk Operating System", "RDP":"protocol", "RDRAM":"Rambus DRAM", "RDS":"Random Dot Stereogram", "RE":"regular expression", "re":"1. networking The country code for Reunion.", "real":"1. Not simulated. Often used as a specific antonym to virtual in any of its jargon senses.", "RealAudio":"tool, communications A program from Real Media for playing audio over the Internet, and the lossy audio compression format it uses.", "realization":"specification A UML semantic relationship between a classifier that specifies a contract and another classifier that guarantees to carry it out.", "reaper":"A prowler that GFRs files. A file removed in this way is said to have been reaped.", "reassembly":"segmentation", "reboot":"operating system From boot A boot with the implication that the computer has not been down for long, or that the boot is a bounce intended to clear some state of wedgitude.", "REC":"CONVERT", "recipe":"suspension", "recipient":"communications One who receives; receiver. E.g. No recipient of the e-mail message will know about the other addressees who were listed in the BCC header.", "Recital":"dBASE-like language and DBMS from Recital Corporation.", "RECOL":"REtrieval COmmand Language. CACM 63:117-122 Mar 1963.", "record":"data, database, programming An ordered set of fields, usually stored contiguously. The term is used with similar meaning in several different contexts. In a file, a record probably has some fixed length, in contrast to a line which may have any length and is terminated by some End Of Line sequence. A database record is also called a row. In a spreadsheet it is always called a row. Some programming languages use the term to mean a type composed of fields of several other types C calls this a struct.", "records":"record", "recurse":"recursion", "recursion":"mathematics, programming When a function or procedure calls itself. Such a function is called recursive. If the call is via one or more other functions then this group of functions are called mutually recursive.", "recursive":"recursion", "Red":"Or REDL A language proposed by Intermetrics to meet the Ironman requirements which led to Ada.", "Redcode":"language The ICWS standard language for Core War battle programs.", "redex":"Reducible Expression. An expression matching the left hand side of a reduction rule or definition.", "RediLisp":"R.M. Keller, U Utah. Dialect of Lisp used on the Rediflow machine, a derivative of FEL.", "redirection":"1. operating system input/output redirection.", "redirector":"network redirector", "redocumentation":"The creation or revision of a semantically equivalent representation within the same relative abstraction level.", "REDUCE":"language, mathematics A symbolic mathematics language with ALGOL-like syntax, written in Lisp by Anthony Hearn in 1963.", "reduction":"Or contraction The process of transforming an expression according to certain reduction rules. The most important forms are beta reduction application of a lambda abstraction to one or more argument expressions and delta reduction application of a mathematical function to the required number of arguments.", "redundancy":"1. architecture, parallel The provision of multiple interchangeable components to perform a single function in order to provide resilience to cope with failures and errors. Redundancy normally applies primarily to hardware.", "refactoring":"object-oriented, programming Improving a computer program by reorganising its internal structure without altering its external behaviour.", "REFAL":"Recursive Functional Algorithmic Language", "reference":"pointer", "referer":"web A misspelling of referrer which somehow made it into the HTTP standard. A given web page's referer sic is the URL of whatever web page contains the link that the user followed to the current page. Most browsers pass this information as part of a request.", "referrer":"referer", "REFINE":"1. Research on Knowledge-Based Software Environments at Kestrel Institute, D.R. Smith et al, IEEE Trans Soft Eng, SE-1111 1985. E-mail: maria@kestrel.edu.", "reflexive":"theory A relation R is reflexive if, for all x, x R x.", "RefLisp":"language A small Lisp interpreter written in C++ by Bill Birch of Bull, UK. RefLisp has a built-in web server, Wiki, LISP server pages, SQL Databases, XML parser, MD5 hashing, regular expressions, reference counting and mark-sweep garbage collection.", "refresh":"1. storage DRAM refresh.", "refuctoring":"humour, programming Taking a well-designed piece of code and, through a series of small, reversible changes, making it completely unmaintainable by anyone except yourself. The term is a humourous play on the term refactoring and was coined by Jason Gorman in a pub in 2002.", "refutable":"programming In lazy functional languages, a refutable pattern is one which may fail to match. An expression being matched against a refutable pattern is first evaluated to head normal form which may fail to terminate and then the top-level constructor of the result is compared with that of the pattern.", "regex":"The GNU regular expression matching library. See also Rx.", "regexp":"1. regular expression.", "Regina":"standard A widely-used open source Rexx interpreter by Anders Christensen anders@pvv.unit.no, ported to many platforms including Unix, Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2. Regina is currently maintained by Mark Hessling.", "register":"1. One of a small number of high-speed memory locations in a computer's CPU. Registers differ from ordinary random-access memory in several respects:", "registry":"Windows Registry", "regression":"1. mathematics A mathematical method where an empirical function is derived from a set of experimental data.", "REGTRAL":"Mentioned in Attribute Grammars, LNCS 323, p.108.", "rehi":"chat Hello again.", "reify":"To regard something abstract as a material thing.", "relation":"1. mathematics A subset of the product of two sets, R : A x B. If a, b is an element of R then we write a R b, meaning a is related to b by R. A relation may be: reflexive a R a, symmetric a R b = b R a, transitive a R b & b R c = a R c, antisymmetric a R b & b R a = a = b or total a R b or b R a.", "RELATIVE":"Early system on IBM 650. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "RELCODE":"Early system on UNIVAC I or II. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "release":"programming Or released version, baseline A version of a piece of software which has been made public as opposed to a version that is in development, or otherwise unreleased.", "relevance":"information science A measure of how closely a given object file, web page, database record, etc. matches a user's search for information.", "reliability":"systems An attribute of any system that consistently produces the same results, preferably meeting or exceeding its specifications. The term may be qualified, e.g software reliability, reliable communication.", "REM":"programming From remark The keyword used in BASIC to introduce a comment which continues to the end of the line. MS-DOS probably borrowed it from BASIC. Might be used in the form REM out meaning to comment out.", "remailer":"anonymous remailer", "rendering":"graphics, text The conversion of a high-level object-based description into a graphical image for display.", "rendezvous":"1. In Ada, the method of synchronising the activity of different tasks.", "REP":"programming A directive used in IBM object code card decks and later PTF Tapes to REPlace fragments of already assembled or compiled object code prior to link edit.", "repeat":"repeat loop", "repeater":"networking, communications A network or communications device which propagates electrical signals from one cable to another, amplifying them to restore them to full strength in the process. Repeaters are used to counter the attenuation which occurs when signals travel long distances e.g. across an ocean.", "REPL":"1. language, LISP, programming read-eval-print loop.", "Replay":"Acorn Computers' full-motion video system written by Roger Wilson. Video and sound information are stored in compressed form. Compression is relatively slow but decompression is done in real-time with quality and frame-rate varying with the processing power available, the size of the picture and whether it appears in a window or uses the whole screen.", "replication":"database, networking Creating and maintaining a duplicate copy of a database or file system on a different computer, typically a server. The term usually implies the intelligent copying of parts of the source database which have changed since the last replication with the destination.", "replicator":"Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself; this could be a living organism, an idea see meme, a program see quine, worm, wabbit, fork bomb, and virus, a pattern in a cellular automaton see life, or speculatively a robot or nanobot. It is even claimed by some that Unix and C are the symbiotic halves of an extremely successful replicator; see Unix conspiracy.", "reply":"followup", "repository":"1. database See data dictionary.", "requirements":"programming The first stage of software development which defines what the potential users want the system to do. In modern methods these requirements should be testable, and will usually be traceable in later development stages. A common feature of nearly all software is that the requirements change during its lifetime.", "ResEdit":"programming, tool A free resource editor for Win32 programs. ResEdit can create dialogs, icon, version information or other types of resources. Output files can be compiled by any Win32 compiler like MinGW and Microsoft Visual C++.", "resolution":"1. hardware the maximum number of pixels that can be displayed on a monitor, expressed as number of horizontal pixels x number of vertical pixels, i.e., 1024x768. The ratio of horizontal to vertical resolution is usually 4:3, the same as that of conventional television sets.", "resolver":"networking The TCP/IP protocol library software that formats requests to be sent to the Domain Name Server for hostname to IP address conversion.", "restriction":"A bug or design error that limits a program's capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a feature. Often used especially by marketroid types to make it sound as though some crippling bogosity had been intended by the designers all along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical constraints of a nature no mere user could possibly comprehend these claims are almost invariably false.", "restructuring":"The transformation from one representation form to another at the same relative abstraction level, while preserving the subject system's external behaviour functionality and semantics.", "retcon":"/ret'kon/ retroactive continuity.", "rete":"artificial intelligence /Re'te/ From Latin net A net or network; a plexus; particularly, a network of blood vessels or nerves, or a part resembling a network.", "RETI":"RTI", "Retrieve":"language A query language inspired JPLDIS which led to Vulcan and then to dBASE II, developed by Tymshare Corp in the 1960s.", "retrocomputing":"/ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ Refers to emulations of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software, or implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; especially if such implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies, written mostly for hack value, of more serious designs. Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the pnch6 or bcd6 program on V7 and other early Unix versions, which would accept up to 80 characters of text argument and display the corresponding pattern in punched card code. Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have included the programming language INTERCAL, a JCL-emulating shell for Unix, the card-punch-emulating editor named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11 hardware emulators and RT-11 OS emulators written just to keep an old, sourceless Zork binary running.", "retronym":"jargon A term invented to distinguish a subclass of things from new members of the superclass, where the distinction was previously not necessary, since the old subclass had been all there was of the superclass.", "reusability":"reuse", "reuse":"Using code developed for one application program in another application. Traditionally achieved using program libraries.", "revision":"programming A release of a piece of software which is not a major release or a bugfix, but only introduces small changes or new features.", "REX":"The original name for Restructured EXtended eXecutor.", "REXX":"Restructured EXtended eXecutor", "REXXWARE":"An implementation of REXX for Novell NetWare produced by Simware, Inc. in January 1994. It is used by LAN managers to automate LAN administration chores on a Novell NetWare server.", "RF":"radio frequency", "RFC":"Request For Comments", "RFCOMM":"protocol RS232 Serial Cable Emulation Profile A Bluetooth transport protocol in the Core Protocol Stack based on the ETSI standard.", "RFE":"1. Request For Enhancement compare RFC.", "RFI":"radio frequency interference", "RFID":"Radio-frequency identification", "RFP":"1. business Request for Proposal.", "RFT":"Request For Technology", "RGB":"Red, Green, Blue. The three colours of light which can be mixed to produce any other colour. Coloured images are often stored as a sequence of RGB triplets or as separate red, green and blue overlays though this is not the only possible representation see CMYK and HSV. These colours correspond to the three guns in a colour cathode ray tube and to the colour receptors in the human eye.", "Rhapsody":"operating system Apple Computer, Inc.'s next-generation operating system for PowerPC processor-based systems capable of running Mac OS. Rhapsody includes four components: the Core OS, the Blue Box the implementation of the Mac OS within Rhapsody, the Yellow Box, and the Advanced Mac Look and Feel.", "RIFF":"file format Microsoft's equivalent to the Amiga's IFF files format. RIFF is used for WAV and AVI files.", "RIGAL":"A language for compiler writing. Data strucures are atoms, lists/trees. Control is based on pattern matching.", "Rigel":"A database language? Based on Pascal. Listed by M.P. Atkinson & J.W. Schmidt in a tutorial presented in Zurich, 1989.", "Rijndael":"Advanced Encryption Standard", "RIP":"1. networking Routing Information Protocol.", "rip":"audio, video, legal From rip off - to steal To copy audio or video, typically from a compact disc or DVD, to a file on a computer hard disk. A dedicated program to do this is called a ripper though it is often a function of player software.", "ripcording":"audio From ripping and recording Encoding streaming digital audio from the Internet to an MP3 file or similar. Ripcording is commononly used to copy commercial music from a free stream instead of paying to download.", "RIPE":"Réseaux IP Européens", "RIPEM":"Riordan's Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail", "ripper":"rip", "RISC":"Reduced Instruction Set Computer", "RISCiX":"operating system /risk-icks/ Or RISC iX BSD-based Unix developed by Acorn Computers Ltd. Cambridge, UK to run on 32-bit ARM RISC processors.", "RiscPC":"computer The final addition to Acorn's Archimedes family of personal computers, released in April 1994. The RiscPC allowed a second processor, e.g. an Intel 486 or a second ARM, to share the bus, memory and peripherals with the main processor. It also had full 24-bit colour graphics support.", "RISQL":"Red Brick Intelligent SQL", "RITL":"Wireless Local Loop", "RJE":"Remote Job Entry", "RKM":"Rom Kernel Manual", "RL":"MUD community Real Life.", "rl":"Kent Wittenburg kentw@bellcore.com.", "RLaB":"A MATLAB-like matrix-oriented programming language/toolbox.", "RLDRAM":"storage Reduced Latency DRAM A kind of dynamic random access memory. RLDRAM comes in common IO and separate IO configurations. It supports broadside addressing. It is typically used in networking gear and set-top boxes that require high bandwidth memory.", "RLE":"run-length encoding", "RLF":"Reuse Library Framework of the DoD.", "RLL":"1. language Representation Language Language.", "rlogin":"networking, tool Remote login The 4.2BSD Unix utility to allow a user to log in on another host via a network.", "RMAG":"Recursive Macro Actuated Generator", "RMAIL":"messaging A MUA written in Emacs Lisp to run within Emacs.", "RMI":"Remote Method Invocation", "RMON":"1. networking remote monitoring.", "RMS":"1. Record Management Services.", "RNF":"root normal form", "ro":"networking The country code for Romania.", "roach":"jargon A Bell Labs term meaning destroy, especially of a data structure. Hardware gets toasted or fried, software gets roached.", "ROADS":"Subsystem of ICES. Sammet 1969, p.616.", "ROBEX":"ROBot EXapt. Aachen Tech College. Based on EXAPT. Version: ROBEX-M for micros.", "RoboHELP":"tool A Microsoft Windows Help authoring tool from Blue Sky Software. Used with Microsoft Word to create Help files for inclusion in a Windows application or for stand alone use.", "robot":"1. robotics A mechanical device for performing a task which might otherwise be done by a human, e.g. spraying paint on cars.", "robust":"Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and situations in a given environment. One step below bulletproof. Carries the additional connotation of elegance in addition to just careful attention to detail. Compare smart, opposite: brittle.", "rococo":"jargon, abuse Baroque in the extreme. Used to imply that a program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the mid-1700s in Europe. Alan Perlis said: Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble.", "ROCOF":"Rate of Occurrence of Failures", "roff":"text, tool A text formatting language associated with Unix. See groff, nroff, troff.", "ROFL":"ROTFL", "ROFLMAO":"ROTFLMAO", "rogue":"games [Unix] A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character graphics, written under BSD Unix and subsequently ported to other Unix systems. The original BSD curses3 screen-handling package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support rogue6 and has since become one of Unix's most important and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, and an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the inspiration provided by rogue6. See also nethack.", "rollback":"database Reverting data in a database to an earlier state, usually in response to an error or aborted operation.", "ROM":"Read-Only Memory", "ROME":"An experimental object-oriented language.", "room":"channel", "root":"1. operating system The Unix superuser account with user name root and user ID 0 that overrides file permissions. The term avatar is also used. By extension, the privileged system-maintenance login on any operating system.", "ROSE":"Remote Operations Service Element", "Rosette":"language A concurrent object-oriented language from MCC.", "ROTFL":"chat Or ROFL Rolling on the floor laughing or rolls....", "ROTFLMAO":"chat Rolling on the floor laughing my ass arse off. An extreme form of ROTFL.", "ROTFLMAOASTC":"chat Rolling on the floor laughing my ass or arse off and scaring the cat. The superlative form of ROTFL.", "ROTFLOL":"chat Rolling on the floor laughing out loud. See ROTFL.", "route":"networking /root/ The sequence of hosts, routers, bridges, gateways, and other devices that network traffic takes, or could take, from its source to its destination. As a verb, to determine the link down which to send a packet, that will minimise its total journey time according to some routeing algorithm.", "routed":"networking /root dee/ Route Daemon. A program which runs under 4.2BSD Unix systems and derivatives to propagate routes among machines on a local area network, using the Routing Information Protocol. See also gated.", "routeing":"networking US routing /roo'ting/ The process, performed by a router, of selecting the correct interface and next hop for a packet being forwarded.", "router":"networking /roo't*/ A device which forwards packets between networks. The forwarding decision is based on network layer information and routing tables, often constructed by routing protocols.", "routine":"subroutine", "routing":"tool /row'ting/ Using a kind of rotating cutting tool called a router, pronounced /row't*/. In the USA a router, pronounced /row't*/, is also a network device that performs routing. In the UK, the network device is pronounced /roo't*/ and what it does is spelled routeing.", "row":"record", "RPC":"Remote Procedure Call", "RPG":"1. games Role-Playing Game.", "RPI":"Rockwell Protocol Interface", "RPL":"Reverse Polish LISP. Language used by HP-28 and HP-48 calculators.", "RPM":"operating system, tool A Unix package-management system that helps installation of software packages; similar to an install program.", "rpm":"revolutions per minute", "RPN":"postfix notation", "RPT":"Unify. Report Writer Language.", "RRL":"Remote Reference Layer", "RRS":"An early definition of Scheme. Revised in R2RS.", "RS":"1. character Record Separator", "RSA":"cryptography, company The initials of the authors", "RSCS":"communications Remote Spooling Communication Subsystem.", "rsh":"Remote shell.", "RSI":"1. medical overuse strain injury.", "RSL":"RAISE Specification Language", "RSN":"Real Soon Now", "RSS":"Rich Site Summary", "rstat":"netstat", "RSVP":"1. chat Répondez s'il vous plait.", "RTBM":"Unix Read The Bloody Manual.", "RTEE":"Real Time Engineering Environment: a set of CASE tools produced by Westmount Technology B.V.", "RTF":"Rich Text Format", "RTFAQ":"Usenet, primarily written, by analogy with RTFM Read the FAQ!", "RTFB":"jargon By analogy with RTFM Read The Fucking Binary.", "RTFM":"jargon /R T F M/ Read The Fucking Manual always abbreviated, sometimes bowdlerised to Fine or Friendly An unhelpful guru's traditional response when someone asks a question in a newsgroup or mailing list which he could have easily answered for himself had he bothered to RTFM.", "RTFS":"jargon 1. Read The Fucking Source. Variant form of RTFM, used when the problem at hand is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the manuals - or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will be. For even trickier situations, see RTFB. Unlike RTFM, the anger inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking the question, but rather at the people who failed to provide adequate documentation.", "RTI":"Return from interrupt", "RTL":"1. hardware Resistor-Transistor Logic.", "RTM":"1. [Usenet] Read The Manual. Politer variant of RTFM.", "RTMP":"Routing Table Maintenance Protocol", "RTOS":"Real-Time Operating System", "RTP":"Real-Time Transport Protocol", "RTS":"1. operating system run-time system.", "RTSA":"real-time structured analysis", "RTSP":"Real Time Streaming Protocol", "RTT":"Round-Trip Time", "RTTI":"Run Time Type Information", "RTTY":"radio teletypewriter", "ru":"networking The country code for the Russian Federation.", "rubi":"furigana", "Ruby":"language", "rude":"[WPI] 1. Badly written or functionally poor, e.g. a program that is very difficult to use because of gratuitously poor design decisions. Opposite: cuspy.", "RUFL":"Rhodes University Functional Language. A Miranda-like functional language from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa with a SPARC code generator.", "run":"execution", "RUNCIBLE":"Early system for mathematics on IBM 650.", "runes":"1. Anything that requires heavy wizardry or black art to parse: core dumps, JCL commands, APL or code in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Not quite as bad as line noise, but close.", "runic":"jargon Obscure, consisting of runes.", "ruptime":"Unix Berkeley networking command to report the status of all hosts on the net. See also rwho. See ruptime1N.", "RUSH":"1. language An interactive dialect of PL/I, related to CPS, dated about 1966. The name is the abbreviation of Remote Use of Shared Hardware.", "Russell":"language After Bertrand Russell A compact, polymorphically typed functional language by A. Demers & J. Donahue with bignums and continuations. Types are themselves first-class values and may be passed as arguments.", "RUTH":"D.A. Harrison at Newcastle University. Real-time language based on LispKit. Uses timestamps and real-time clocks.", "rw":"networking The country code for Rwanda.", "rwho":"networking The Berkeley Unix networking command to report who is logged in on all hosts on the local network segment.", "RWP":"Remote Write Protocol", "Rx":"A pattern matcher compatible with GNU regex, but generally faster.", "RYFM":"abuse 1. Read Your Fucking Manual. Uncommon variant of RTFM.", "S":"language A statistical analysis language from AT&T.", "SA":"Structured Analysis", "sa":"networking The country code for Saudi Arabia.", "SAA":"Systems Application Architecture", "SAC":"1. An early system on the Datatron 200 series.", "sacadm":"operating system Service Access Controller Administration A Unix Solaris? command for administering both ttymon and listen. It can be used to add and remove, start and stop, and enable and disable port monitors.", "sacred":"jargon Reserved for exclusive use by something. The term might mean only writable by whatever it is sacred to.", "SAD":"Systems Analysis Definition", "SADT":"Structured Analysis and Design Technique", "SAFARI":"ON-line text editing system by MITRE Corporation.", "safe":"A safe program analysis is one which will not reach invalid conclusions about the behaviour of the program. This may involve making safe approximations to properties of parts of the program. A safe approximation is one which gives less information.", "safety":"See safe, safety-critical system.", "saga":"jargon WPI A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random broken people.", "sagan":"jargon /say'gn/ From Carl Sagan's TV series Cosmos Billions and billions. A large quantity of anything.", "SAGE":"1. body, job Systems Administrators Guild.", "SAIC":"http://saic.com.", "SAID":"Security Association ID", "SAIL":"1. body, education Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.", "SAINT":"1. language Symbolic Automatic INTegrator.", "SAL":"language", "SALEM":"[SALEM - A Programming System for the Simulation of Systems Described by Partial Differential Equations, S.M. Morris et al, Proc SJCC 331, 1968].", "salescritter":"/sayls'kritr/ Pejorative hackerism for a computer salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke:", "SALT":"1. Symbolic Assembly Language Trainer. Assembly-like language implemented in BASIC by Kevin Stock, now at Encore in France.", "salt":"A tiny bit of near-random data inserted where too much regularity would be undesirable; a data frob sense 1. For example, the Unix crypt3 manual page mentions that the salt string is used to perturb the DES algorithm in one of 4096 different ways.", "SAM":"System Account Manager", "sam":"tool A multi-file screen editor with structural regular expressions. Sam runs under the X Window System.", "Samba":"networking A free suite of programs which implement the Server Message Block SMB protocol.", "SAME":"1. Standard ANSI Module language with Extensions.", "SAMeDL":"SQL Ada Module Description Language. Used to interface Ada application programs to SQL-based DBMSs.", "samizdat":"publication Russian, literally self publishing The process of disseminating documentation via underground channels. Originally referred to photocopy duplication and distribution of banned books in the former Soviet Union; now refers by obvious extension to any less-than-official promulgation of textual material, especially rare, obsolete, or never-formally-published computer documentation. Samizdat is obviously much easier when one has access to high-bandwidth networks and high-quality laser printers.", "SAML":"security An XML framework for communicating user authentication, entitlement, and attribute information, developed by the Security Services Technical Committee of OASIS.", "sample":"digital signal processing The result of measuring the amplitude of an analog signal at a specified time. In digital signal processing a sample is a signed or unsigned number and the number of samples per second is called the sample rate.", "sampling":"DSP The process of taking a sample of a signal at evenly spaced intervals of time. This is the first step in Digital Signal Processing.", "samurai":"A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs, snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith. In 1991, mainstream media reported the existence of a loose-knit culture of samurai that meets electronically on BBS systems, mostly bright teenagers with personal micros; they have modelled themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan and on the net cowboys of William Gibson's cyberpunk novels. Those interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by criminal crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic; some quote Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings, a classic of historical samurai doctrine, in support of these principles.", "SAN":"Storage Area Network", "sandbender":"[IBM] A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical design of integrated circuits. Compare ironmonger, polygon pusher.", "sandbox":"UK: sandpit", "Sandman":"The DoD requirements that led to APSE.", "SAP":"1. company SAP AG Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing.", "SAPI":"1. programming Speech Application Programming Interface.", "SAR":"segmentation and reassembly", "SAS":"1. language Statistical Analysis System.", "SASD":"Structured Analysis, Structured Design", "SASE":"Specific Application Service Element. Opposite: CASE.", "SASI":"Small Computer System Interface", "SASL":"1. language St Andrews Static Language.", "SATA":"Serial Advanced Technology Attachment", "SATAN":"Security Administrator's Integrated Network Tool", "Sather":"language /Say-ther/ Named after the Sather Tower at UCB, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower.", "saturation":"1. graphics In colour theory, the colourfulness of a stimulus relative to its brightness, the amount of the dominant wavelength relative to other wavelengths in the colour, one of the three coordinates in the hue, saturation, value HSV and hue, saturation, brightness HSB colour models.", "SAVE":"programming An assembler for the Burroughs 220 written by Melvin Conway. The name SAVE didn't stand for anything; it was just that you lost fewer card decks and listings because they all had SAVE written on them.", "save":"editor, programming, storage To copy data to a more permanent form of storage. The term is commonly used for when some kind of document editing application program writes the current document from RAM to a file on hard disk at the request of the user. The implication is that the user might later load the file back into the editor again to view it, print it, or continue editing it. Saving a document makes it safe from the effects of power failure.", "say":"A human may say things to a computer by typing them on a terminal. To list a directory verbosely, say ls -l. Tends to imply a newline-terminated command a sentence.", "sb":"networking The country code for the Solomon Islands.", "SBCS":"character IBM single-byte character set.", "SBD":"Smart Battery Data", "SBE":"Microsoft Office Small Business Edition", "SBM":"Solution Based Modelling", "SBR":"Spectral Band Replication", "SBus":"hardware The hardware interface for add-in boards in later Sun-3 and Sun-4? workstations.", "SC":"body Subcommittee of ISO, JTC?.", "sc":"networking The country code for the Seychelles.", "SCA":"Single Connection Attach", "SCADA":"Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition", "scag":"To destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the file system or by causing media damage.", "scalability":"How well a solution to some problem will work when the size of the problem increases.", "scalar":"1. mathematics A single number, as opposed to a vector or matrix of numbers. Thus, for example, scalar multiplication refers to the operation of multiplying one number one scalar by another and is used to contrast this with matrix multiplication etc.", "SCALLOP":"language, history A medium-level language for CDC computers, used to bootstrap the first Pascal compiler.", "SCAN":"1. [A Parallel Implementation of the SCAN Language, N.G. Bourbakis, Comp Langs 144:239-254 1989].", "scan":"1. computer peripheral See scanner.", "SCANDISK":"operating system, storage An MS-DOS command to check for faults on a disk and provide a graphical representation the results. Scandisk was introduced with MS-DOS version 6 to replace CHKDSK.", "scanf":"The C library routine that reads data from the standard input stream stdin into the locations given by each entry in its argument list. The first argument is a format string which controls interpretation of the input and each subsequent argument points to a variable with a type that corresponds to a type specifier in the format-string.", "scanner":"1. An input device that takes in an optical image and digitises it into an electronic image represented as binary data. This can be used to create a computerised version of a photo or illustration.", "scanno":"/skan'oh/ An error in a document caused by a scanner glitch, analogous to a typo or thinko.", "SCC":"strongly connected component", "SCCS":"software Source Code Control System: a popular source code management system found on Unix since early versions.", "SCEPTRE":"Designing and analysing circuits.", "scheduler":"scheduling", "scheduling":"algorithm The arrangement of a number of related operations in time.", "Schelog":"language, Scheme, Prolog Previously slog? A Prolog to Chez Scheme macro translator by dorai@cs.rice.edu.", "schema":"1. database database schema.", "Schematik":"A NeXT front-end to MIT Scheme for the NeXT by Chris Kane and Max Hailperin max@nic.gac.edu. Schematik provides syntax-knowledgeable text editing, graphics windows and a user-interface to an underlying MIT Scheme process. It comes with MIT Scheme 7.1.3 ready to install on the NeXT and requires NEXTSTEP.", "Scheme":"programming Originally Schemer, by analogy with Planner and Conniver. A small, uniform Lisp dialect with clean semantics, developed initially by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman in 1975. Scheme uses applicative order reduction and lexical scope. It treats both functions and continuations as first-class objects.", "Schoonschip":"mathematics, tool From the Dutch for beautiful ship or clean ship A program for symbolic mathematics, especially High Energy Physics, written by M. Veltman of CERN in 1964.", "SCI":"hardware 1. Scalable Coherent Interface.", "SCL":"language 1. System Control Language.", "SCM":"1. business Supply Chain Management.", "SCO":"Santa Cruz Operation", "Scode":"The internal representation used by the Liar compiler for MIT Scheme.", "SCOOP":"Structured Concurrent Object-Oriented Prolog.", "SCOOPS":"Scheme Object-Oriented Programming System. Developed at Texas Instruments in 1986. It supports multiple inheritance and class variables.", "SCOPE":"project Software Evaluation and Certification Programme Europe.", "scope":"programming The scope of an identifier is the region of a program source within which it represents a certain thing.", "Scorpion":"Twenty tools that can be used to construct specialised programming environments. The Scorpion Project was started by Prof. Richard Snodgrass rts@cs.arizona.edu as an outgrowth of the SoftLab Project which produced the IDL Toolkit that he started when he was at the University of North Carolina. The Scorpion Project is directed by him at the University of Arizona and by Karen Shannon at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.", "SCPI":"Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments", "SCRAP":"Something written at CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa in the late 1970s. It ran on Interdata and Perkin-Elmer computers and was in use until the late 1980s.", "scratch":"1. From scratchpad Describes a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary-use purposes; one that can be scribbled on without loss.", "Screamer":"An extension of Common Lisp providing nondeterministic backtracking and constraint programming.", "screen":"1. hardware A generic term for a display device that shows text and/or images on a roughly flat rectangular surface. The most common type is usually refered to as a monitor and is based on a cathode-ray tube, though flat panel displays have, since around 2000, become increasingly competitive in price and performance.", "Screenwrite":"language An easy-to-use, columnar format third generation programming language used for transaction processing. It was implemented solely on the Honeywell Bull TPS6 database/transaction management system, on their Level 6 DPS6 minicomputers running under the GCOS6 operating system. In the UK it was used by local authorities, the Ministry of Defense, Rank Xerox UK and possibly others.", "screw":"jargon MIT A failure, usually in software. Especially used for user-visible misbehaviour caused by a bug or misfeature. This use has become quite widespread outside MIT.", "screwage":"/skroo'*j/ Like lossage but connotes that the failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple inadequacy or a mere bug.", "scribble":"To modify a data structure in a random and unintentionally destructive way. Bletch! Somebody's disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node table. It was working fine until one of the allocation routines scribbled on low core. Synonymous with trash; compare mung, which conveys a bit more intention, and mangle, which is more violent and final.", "Scribe":"A text-formatting language by Brian Reid.", "SCRIPT":"1. An early system on the IBM 702.", "script":"language A program written in a scripting language, but see Ousterhout's dichotomy.", "Scriptics":"company John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite.", "scrog":"/skrog/ [Bell Labs] To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. The list header got scrogged. Also reported as skrog, and ascribed to the comic strip The Wizard of Id.", "SCROLL":"String and Character Recording Oriented Logogrammatic Language.", "scroll":"interface From a scroll of paper To change the portion of a document displayed in a window or on a VDU screen. In a graphical user interface, scrolling is usually controlled by the user via scroll bars, whereas on a VDU the text scrolls up automatically as lines of data are output at the bottom of the screen.", "scrolling":"chat, games To flood a chat room or Internet game with text or macros in an attempt to annoy the occupants. This can often cause the chat room to be uninhabitable due to the noise created by the scroller. Compare spam.", "scrool":"/skrool/ [The pioneering Roundtable chat system in Houston ca. 1984; probably originated as a typo for scroll] The log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get back in synch with the conversation. It was originally called the scrool monster, because an early version of the roundtable software had a bug where it would dump all 8K of scrool on a user's terminal.", "scrozzle":"/skroz'l/ Used when a self-modifying code segment runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data.", "scruffies":"neats vs. scruffies", "SCSI":"Small Computer System Interface", "ScumOS":"abuse, operating system /skuhm'os/ or /skuhm'O-S/ An Unflattering hackerism for SunOS, the Unix variant once supported on Sun Microsystems's Unix workstations.", "scuzzy":"The usual pronunciation of SCSI.", "SD":"Structured Design", "sd":"networking The country code for the Sudan.", "SDDI":"Sony Digital Data Interface", "SDE":"Software Development Environment: equivalent to SEE.", "SDF":"Syntax Definition Formalism. A language for lexical and syntactic specification.", "SDH":"Synchronous Digital Hierarchy", "SDI":"1. library Selective Dissemination of Information.", "SDK":"Software Developers Kit or Software Development Kit.", "SDL":"Specification and Design Language.", "SDLC":"1. communications Synchronous Data Link Control.", "SDM":"Schematic Data Model", "SDMS":"A query language.", "SDP":"Service Discovery Protocol", "SDRAM":"Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory", "SDRC":"company The company behind VGX.", "SDS":"1. company Scientific Data Systems.", "SDSL":"Single-line Digital Subscriber Line", "SE":"1. software software engineering.", "se":"networking The country code for Sweden.", "SEA":"Self Extracting Archive", "SEAL":"Semantics-directed Environment Adaptation Language.", "search":"1. web web search.", "SEC":"Single Edge Contact Cartridge", "SECC":"Single Edge Contact Cartridge", "security":"security Protection against unauthorized access to, or alteration of, information and system resources including CPUs, storage devices and programs.", "SED":"smoke-emitting diode", "Sed":"tool, text Stream editor.", "SEE":"1. Simultaneous Engineering Environment.", "seed":"BitTorrent", "seek":"1. storage To move the head of a disk drive radially, i.e., to move from one track to another.", "seeking":"seek", "SEESAW":"language An early system on the IBM 701.", "SEGA":"company, games manufacturer of video game hardware and software.", "segfault":"segmentation fault", "seggie":"/seg'ee/ British shorthand for a Unix segmentation fault.", "segment":"/seg'ment/ 1. architecture A collection of pages in a memory management system.", "segmentation":"networking Or segmentation and reassembly, SAR Breaking an arbitrary size packet into smaller pieces at the transmitter. This may be necessary because of restrictions in the communications channel or to reduce latency. The pieces are joined back together in the right order at the receiver reassembly. Segmentation may be performed by a router when routing a packet to a network with a smaller maximum packet size.", "segv":"/seg'vee/ segmentation violation.", "SEI":"Software Engineering Institute.", "SEL":"1. Self-Extensible Language.", "selector":"programming 1. In Smalltalk or Objective C, the syntax of a message which selects a particular method in the target object.", "Self":"language A small, dynamically typed object-oriented language, based purely on prototypes and delegation.", "selvage":"chad", "SEM":"The semantic specification language for COPS.", "semantics":"theory The meaning of a string in some language, as opposed to syntax which describes how symbols may be combined independent of their meaning.", "semaphore":"programming, operating system The classic method for restricting access to shared resources e.g. storage in a multi-processing environment. They were invented by Dijkstra and first used in T.H.E operating system.", "semi":"/se'mee/ or /se'mi:/ A spoken abbreviation for semicolon.", "semicolon":";", "semiconductor":"electronics A material, typically crystaline, which allows current to flow under certain circumstances. Common semiconductors are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide.", "SENDIT":"Systems Engineering for Network Debugging, Integration and Test. A two-year European Commission funded project to produce software tools for distributed applications running on networks of microcontrollers.", "sendmail":"messaging The BSD Unix Message Transfer Agent supporting mail transport via TCP/IP using SMTP. Sendmail is normally invoked in the background via a Mail User Agent such as the mail command.", "Seneca":"Oberon-V", "sense":"human language A meaning of a word.", "sensor":"hardware An electronic device used to measure a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure or loudness and convert it into an electronic signal of some kind e.g a voltage.", "sentence":"logic A collection of clauses.", "SEP":"1. Someone Else's Problem.", "SEPIA":"Standard ECRC Prolog Integrating Applications. Prolog with many extensions including attributed variables metaterms and declarative coroutining. SEPIA, Micha Meier micha@ecrc.de et al, TR-LP-36 ECRC, March 1988. Version 3.1 available for Suns and VAX. See ECRC-Prolog. E-mail: sepia-request@ecrc.de.", "SEPP":"Single Edge Processor Package", "Seque":"Seque: A Programming Language for Manipulating Sequences, R.E. Griswold et al, Comp Langs 131:13-22 1988.", "Sequel":"1. Precursor to SQL.", "sequence":"A collection of related things in a specific order. In mathematics, numbers are represented as sequences of digits e.g. bits, decimal digits, hexadecimal digits, etc.", "sequencer":"music Any system for recording and/or playback of music via a programmable memory which stores music not as audio data, but as some representation of notes. The most common modern usage of sequencer is to refer to systems whether in software, or as a feature of devices like synthesizers or drum machines that deal with MIDI data.", "Sequent":"company A computer manufacturer.", "SERC":"Science and Engineering Research Council", "SERCOS":"serial real-time communications system", "serial":"1. communications serial communications", "serialise":"programming To represent an arbitrarily complex data structure in a location-independent way so that it can be communicated or stored elsewhere.", "serialize":"serialise", "serve":"networking To be a server, to provide a service.", "servelet":"Java servlet", "server":"1. A program which provides some service to other client programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of message passing, often over a network, and uses some protocol to encode the client's requests and the server's responses. The server may run continuously as a daemon, waiting for requests to arrive or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which controls a number of specific servers inetd on Unix.", "serverlet":"Java Servlet", "servers":"server", "service":"networking, programming Work performed or offered by a server. This may mean simply serving simple requests for data to be sent or stored as with file servers, gopher or http servers, e-mail servers, finger servers, SQL servers, etc.; or it may be more complex work, such as that of irc servers, print servers, X Windows servers, or process servers.", "serviceability":"systems The ease with which corrective maintenance or preventative maintenance can be performed on a system e.g. by a hardware service technician. Higher serviceability improves availability and reduces service cost.", "servlet":"Java servlet", "session":"networking 1. A lasting connection between a user or user agent and a peer, typically a server, usually involving the exchange of many packets between the user's computer and the server. A session is typically implemented as a layer in a network protocol e.g. telnet, FTP.", "SET":"1. security Secure Electronic Transaction.", "set":"A collection of objects, known as the elements of the set, specified in such a way that we can tell in principle whether or not a given object belongs to it. E.g. the set of all prime numbers, the set of zeros of the cosine function.", "Setext":"A markup scheme intended for documents that are both human- and computer-readable.", "SETL":"SET Language. A very high level language based on sets, designed by Jack Schwartz at the Courant Institute in the early 1970s. It was possibly the first use of list comprehension notation.", "SETS":"Set Equation Transformation System", "SEUS":"R. Weyrauch et al. Language allowing functions to return multiple values. Implemented but never published. Mentioned in Evolution of Lisp, G.L. Steele et al, SIGPLAN Notices 283:231-270 March 1993.", "SEX":"/seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] 1. Software EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among hackers and others of course, these are no longer limited to exchanges of genetic software. In general, SEX parties are a Good Thing, but unprotected SEX can propagate a virus. See also pubic directory.", "sexadecimal":"hexadecimal", "SEXI":"SNOBOL", "SFA":"Sales Force Automation", "SFBI":"Shared Frame Buffer Interconnect Intel", "SFFA":"Sales Force Automation", "SFL":"System Function Language. Assembly language for the ICL2900.", "SFLV":"Unifies logic and functional programming. SASL+LV with unification moved from actual/formal parameter matching to equational clauses. Static Analysis of Functional Programs with Logical Variables, G. Lindstrom in Programming Languages Implementation and Logic Programming, P. Deransart et al eds, LNCS 348, Springer 1988.", "sFTP":"Secure File Transfer Protocol", "sg":"networking The country code for Singapore.", "SGCP":"Simple Gateway Control Protocol", "SGI":"Silicon Graphics, Inc.", "SGML":"Standard Generalized Markup Language", "sgmls":"language, tool Sgmls is an SGML parser derived from the ARCSGML parser materials which were written by Charles Goldfarb. It outputs a simple, easily parsed, line oriented, ASCII representation of an SGML document's Element Structure Information Set see pp 588-593 of The SGML Handbook. It is intended to be used as the front end for structure-controlled SGML application programs.", "SGRAM":"Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory", "sh":"1. operating system Bourne shell.", "SHA":"Secure Hash Algorithm", "SHACO":"An early system on the IBM 701.", "SHADOW":"language A syntax-directed compiler written by Barnett and Futrelle in 1962. It was the predecessor to SNOBOL?", "shadowing":"aliasing", "ShapeTools":"tool, programming A code management system for Unix from The Technical University of Berlin.", "shar":"tool, file format Shell archive, after ar and tar Any of the many Unix programs that creates a flattened representation of one or more files, with the unique property that it can be unflattened the original files extracted merely by feeding it through a standard Unix shell. The output of shar, known as a shar file or sharchive, can be distributed to anyone running Unix, and no special unpacking software is required.", "sharchive":"shar", "sharding":"database A form of data partitioning in which a large database table is split over multiple servers in order to balance load load balancing. Some property of the data is used to select which server should handle a given row, e.g. the primary id modulo the number of servers.", "shareware":"software /sheir'weir/ Software that, like freeware, can be usually obtained downloaded and redistributed for free, but most often is under copyright and does legally require a payment in the EULA, at least beyond the evaluation period or for commercial applications. This payment, as well as fulfilling the user's legal obligations, may buy additional support, documentation, or functionality. Generally, source code for shareware programs is not available. Shareware is sometimes also nagware and/or crippleware, which muddles the term and is frowned upon in the community.", "sharp":"character hash.", "shebang":"operating system Or shebang line, bang path /sh*-bang'/ From sharp and bang The magic cookie #! used in Unix to mark the start of a script, e.g. a shell script or Perl script.", "SHEEP":"mathematics, tool A package for symbolic mathematics, especially tensor analysis and General Relativity, developed by Inge Frick in Stockholm in the late 1970s to early 1980s.", "shelf":"A public library of classes for the Eiffel language.", "shelfware":"jargon /shelfweir/ Software which is never used and so ends up on the shelf. Shelfware may be purchased on a whim by an individual, or in accordance with corporate policy, but not actually required for any particular use. Alternatively, it may be software that has been developed unlike vaporware, but is never released as a product -- a common occurrence at DEC.", "SHELL":"language An early system on the Datatron 200 series.", "shell":"1. operating system Originally from Multics, widely propagated via Unix The command interpreter used to pass commands to an operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating system that interfaces with the outside world.", "SHIFT":"Scalable Heterogeneous Integrated Facility Testbed. A parallel processing project at CERN.", "shim":"jargon, memory management A small piece of data inserted in order to achieve a desired memory alignment or other addressing property.", "shitogram":"/shit'oh-gram/ A *really* nasty piece of e-mail.", "Shockwave":"tool A program from Macromedia for viewing files created with Macromedia Director. Shockwave is freely available as a plug-in for the Netscape Navigator web browser.", "shockwave":"networking The propagation of failure, shutdown, meltdown, net overload, or a virus from one network node to another, resulting in a wave of inactivity across the net.", "shopbot":"web A kind of bot that searches the World-Wide Web to find the best price for a product you're looking for.", "shortcut":"file system Microsoft Corporation's term for a symbolic link, stored as a file with extension .lnk. Shortcuts first appeared in 1996 in the Windows 95 operating system.", "Shorten":"audio, compression A form of lossless audio compression.", "shovelware":"/shuh'v*l-weir/ Extra software dumped onto a CD-ROM or tape to fill up the remaining space on the medium after the software distribution it's intended to carry, but not integrated with the distribution.", "showstopper":"A hardware or especially software bug that makes an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation from its original theatrical use, which refers to something stunningly *good*.", "shriek":"exclamation mark", "sht":"server-parsed HTML", "SHTF":"shit hit the fan", "shtml":"server-parsed HTML", "SHUG":"Scottish Hypermedia Users' Group", "SI":"1. unit Système International.", "si":"networking The country code for Slovenia.", "SIA":"Serial Interface Adaptor", "SIBO":"SIxteen Bit Organisers", "SICL":"Standard Instrument Control Library", "SICS":"Swedish Institute for Computer Science", "sidecar":"1. Synonym slap on the side. Especially used of add-ons for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr.", "Siemens":"A German semiconductor and electronics manufacturer.", "Sierra":"company, games Or Sierra On-Line A computer game developer founded in the early 1980s by Ken and Roberta Willams in the small mountain town of Oakhurst California.", "SIFT":"SHARE Internal Fortran Translator. Translation utility designed for converting Fortran II to Fortran IV. The word sift was often used as a verb to describe converting code from one language to another. Sammet 1969, p.153.", "SIG":"Special Interest Group", "Sig":"Signal Processing, Analysis, and Display program. An environment with an associated programming language by Jan Carter of Argonne National Lab. Telephone +1 312 972 7250.", "sig":"signature", "SIGBUS":"bus error", "SIGhyper":"Special Interest Group on Hypertext and Multimedia of the SGML Users' Group.", "SIGLA":"robotics SIGma LAnguage. A language for industrial robots from Olivetti.", "SIGMA":"A scientific visual programming environment from NASA.", "SIGNAL":"language A synchronous language by Le Guernic et al of INRIA.", "signal":"operating system A predefined message sent between two Unix processes or from the kernel to a process. Signals communicate the occurrence of unexpected external events such as the forced termination of a process by the user. Each signal has a unique number associated with it and each process has a signal handler set for each signal. Signals can be sent using the kill system call.", "signature":"1. A set of function symbols with arities.", "SIL":"1. SIL - A Simulation Language, N. Houbak, LNCS 426, Springer 1990.", "Silage":"Synchronous DSP specification language.", "silicon":"1. electronics The material used as the base or substrate for most integrated circuits.", "Siliwood":"jargon Or Hollywired The coming convergence of film, interactive TV and computers.", "silo":"The FIFO input-character buffer in an EIA-232 serial line card. So called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for fungible stuff that went in at the top and came out at the bottom.", "SIM":"Subscriber Identity Module", "SIMAN":"SIMulation ANalysis", "SimCity":"games Maxis Software's simulation game which lets you design and build your own city, which must be administered well if it is to thrive. Land must be zoned, transportation systems built, and police and fire protection provided. Once you've zoned some land, and provided electrical power, the simulation takes over, and simcitizens move in. If you perform your mayoral duties poorly, however, they will move out again. If you don't provide enough police, crime will rise and sims will vote with their feet. Try to save money on fire protection, and your city may burn to the ground. There is no predefined way to win the game, building the largest city you can is just one possible strategy.", "SIMD":"Single Instruction/Multiple Data", "Similix":"An autoprojector self-applicable partial evaluator for a higher order subset of the strict functional language Scheme.", "SIMM":"Single in-line memory module", "Simone":"language A simulation language by A. Hoare et al. based on Pascal.", "SIMPAC":"Early simulation language with fixed time steps.", "SIMPAS":"Event scheduling language, implemented as Pascal preprocessor.", "SIMPL":"Simulation language, descendant of OPS-4, compiled into PL/I on Multics.", "SIMPLE":"1. Early system on Datatron 200 series. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "simplex":"1. communications Used to describe a communications channel that can only ever carry a signal in one direction, like a one-way street. Television is an example of broadcast simplex communication.", "SIMSCRIPT":"A free-form, English-like general-purpose simulation language produced by Harry Markowitz et al of Rand Corp in 1963. It was implemented as a Fortran preprocessor on IBM 7090 and was designed for large discrete simulations.", "simship":"simultaneous shipment", "SIMULA":"language SIMUlation LAnguage.", "simulate":"simulation", "simulation":"simulation, systems Attempting to predict aspects of the behaviour of some system by creating an approximate mathematical model of it. This can be done by physical modelling, by writing a special-purpose computer program or using a more general simulation package, probably still aimed at a particular kind of simulation e.g. structural engineering, fluid flow. Typical examples are aircraft flight simlators or electronic circuit simulators.", "SINA":"[An Implementation of the Object-Oriented Concurrent Programming Language SINA, A. Tripathi et al, Soft Prac & Exp 193:235-256 1989].", "siod":"language Scheme In One Defun or Scheme In One Day A small Scheme implementation in C by George Carrette gjc@world.std.com, gjc@mitech.com. SIOD is arranged as a set of subroutines that can be called from any main program for the purpose of introducing an interpreted extension language. It compiles to 20 kbytes of executable VAX/VMS. Lisp calls C and C calls Lisp transparently.", "SIP":"1. protocol Session Initiation Protocol.", "SIPB":"Student Information Processing Board, MIT.", "SIPLAN":"SIte PLANning computer language. Interactive language for space planning. Formal Languages for Site Planning, C.I. Yessios in Spatial Synthesis for Computer-Aided Design, C. Eastman ed, Applied Science Publ 1976.", "SIPP":"Single Inline Pin Package", "Siprol":"Signal Processing Language. A DSP language.", "SIR":"1. language An early system on the IBM 650.", "SIRDS":"Single Image Random Dot Stereogram", "Siri":"An object-oriented constraint language using a single abstraction mechanism developed by Bruce Horn of CMU in 1991. Siri is a conceptual blend of BETA and Bertrand.", "SIRTS":"Single Image Random Text Stereogram. Or ASCII stereogram.", "SISAL":"language Streams and Iteration in a Single Assignment Language A general-purpose single assignment functional programming language with strict semantics, automatic parallelisation and efficient arrays. Outputs a dataflow graph in IF1 Intermediary Form 1. Derived from VAL, adds recursion and finite streams. Pascal-like syntax.", "sit":"Stuffit", "SITBOL":"language A SNOBOL4 interpreter for the PDP-10.", "sitename":"hostname", "sj":"networking The country code for Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands.", "sk":"networking The country code for Slovakia.", "Sketchpad":"A program that allowed users to draw on a screen with a light pen. It supported constraints e.g. drawing a constrained ellipse produced a circle. It also had some computer aided design features e.g. computing loads on beams.", "Skill":"A somewhat peculiar blend between Franz-Lisp and C, with a large set of various CAD primitives. It is owned by Cadence Design Systems and has been used in their CAD frameworks since 1985. It's an extension language to the CAD framework in the same way that Emacs-Lisp extends GNU Emacs, enabling you to automate virtually everything that you can do manually in for example the graphic editor. Skill accepts C-syntax, funa b, as well as Lisp syntax, fun a b, but most users including Cadence themselves use the C-style.", "Skim":"language A Scheme implementation with packages and other enhancements, by Alain Deutsch et al, France.", "SkipJack":"cryptography An encryption algorithm created by the NSA National Security Agency which encrypts 64-bit blocks of data with an 80-bit key. It is used in the Clipper chip, a VLSI device with an ARM processor core, which is intended to perform cryptographic operations while allowing the security agencies listen in.", "SKOL":"Fortran pre-processor for COS Cray Operating System.", "skolemisation":"A means of removing quantifiers from first order logic formulas.", "skrog":"scrog", "SKsh":"Steve Koren/Korn shell. A Unix ksh-like shell which runs under AmigaDos by Steve Koren koren@hpfcogv.fc.hp.com. SKsh provides a Unix-like environment but supports many AmigaDos features such as resident commands and ARexx. Scripts can be written to run under either ksh or SKsh and many of the useful Unix commands such as xargs, grep and find are provided.", "SKU":"stock-keeping unit", "skulker":"prowler", "SL":"processor Features of some Intel processors, including the Pentium, for reducing power consumption. These features operate at two levels: the microprocessor and the system.", "sl":"networking The country code for Sierra Leone.", "slack":"1. operating system Internal fragmentation. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used to store useful information.", "slackware":"operating system A distribution of the Linux operating system by Patrick Volkerding volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu, volkerdi@ftp.cdrom.com.", "SLAM":"1. language Simulation Language for Alternative Modeling.", "SLANG":"1. R.A. Sibley. CACM 41:75-84 Jan 1961.", "slash":"oblique stroke", "sleep":"1. operating system Or block When a process on a multitasking system asks the scheduler to deactivate it until some given external event e.g. an interrupt or a specified time delay occurs.", "SLIB":"Scheme Library", "Slide":"project A now-retired Jakarta project to develop a repository for content management. Slide is no longer in development. It featured WebDAV, DeltaV WebDAV versioning, different databases and file system storage, transactions and locking, flexible permissions per file and more.", "SLIM":"A VLSI language for translating DFA's into circuits.", "slim":"jargon A small, derivative change e.g. to code.", "Slingshot":"networking, business, tool, product, protocol CSK Software's real time financial server for the Internet.", "SLIP":"1. Serial Line Internet Protocol.", "SlipKnot":"web A graphical web browser specifically designed for Microsoft Windows users who have Unix shell accounts with their service providers. Its primary feature is that it does not require SLIP or PPP or TCP/IP services. SlipKnot is distributed as restricted shareware.", "SLIPS":"An Interpreter for SLIPS - An Applicative Language Based on Lambda-Calculus, V. Gehot et al, Comp Langs 111:1-14 1986.", "SLiRP":"networking, tool A SLIP emulator by Danny Gasparovski, faster than TIA.", "SLLIC":"language An intermediate language developed at HP. An infinite-register version of the Precision Architecture instruction set?", "slog":"Schelog", "Sloop":"Parallel Programming in a Virtual Object Space, S. Lucco, SIGPLAN Notices 2212:26-34 OOPSLA '87 Dec 1987.", "slop":"jargon 1. A one-sided fudge factor, that is, an allowance for error but in only one of two directions. For example, if you need a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it, you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on again. When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a fencepost error.", "slopsucker":"/slop'suhk-r/ A lowest-priority task that only runs when the computer would otherwise be idle. Also called a hungry puppy or bottom feeder after the fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist on the primordial ooze.", "slosh":"backslash", "slurp":"To read a large data file entirely into core before working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next piece. This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT. See also sponge.", "sm":"networking The country code for San Marino.", "smail":"snail-mail", "SMALGOL":"SMall ALGOL.", "SMALL":"1. Functional, lazy, untyped.", "Smalltalk":"language The pioneering object-oriented programming system developed in 1972 by the Software Concepts Group, led by Alan Kay, at Xerox PARC between 1971 and 1983. It includes a language, a programming environment, and an extensive object library.", "SmallVDM":"tool", "SMALLWORLD":"legal A trademark of Smallworldwide Plc. http://smallworld.co.uk/.", "SmallWorld":"language An object-oriented language.", "SMART":"For MS-DOS?", "smart":"1. programming Said of a program that does the Right Thing in a wide variety of complicated circumstances. There is a difference between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs yet - see AI-complete.", "Smartdrive":"storage, product A Microsoft MS DOS disk cache program to speed up disk access.", "SMARTdrv":"Smartdrive", "SMB":"1. protocol Server Message Block.", "smbclient":"Samba", "smblib":"Samba", "SMBus":"System Management Bus", "SMCC":"Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation.", "SMDS":"Switched Multimegabit Data Service", "SMG":"Screen Management Guidelines. A VMS package of run-time library routines providing windows on DEC VT100 terminals.", "SMI":"Structure of Management Information", "SMIL":"1. language The machine language for a Swedish computer.", "smiley":"emoticon", "smilies":"emoticon", "SML":"1. Standard ML.", "SMM":"System Management Mode", "SMNP":"Do you mean SNMP? If not, please tell me.", "smoke":"1. To crash or blow up, usually spectacularly. The new version smoked, just like the last one. Used for both hardware where it often describes an actual physical event, and software where it's merely colourful.", "SMoLCS":"Specification metalanguage used for a formal definition of Ada. An Introduction to the SMoLCS Methodology, E. Astesiano, U Genova 1986.", "SMOP":"/S-M-O-P/ [Simple or Small Matter of Programming] 1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity. Used to refer to a program that could obviously be written, but is not worth the trouble. Also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it; the irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be a great deal of work. It's easy to enhance a Fortran compiler to compile COBOL as well; it's just an SMOP. 2. Often used ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously to the victim a lot of work.", "SMP":"1. Symbol Manipulation Program.", "SMPS":"switch mode power supply", "SMPT":"spelling Do you mean SMTP?", "SMRP":"Simplified Multicast Routing Protocol", "SMS":"1. messaging Short Message Service.", "SMT":"Station Management", "SMTP":"Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", "smurf":"jargon /smerf/ From the news:soc.motss Usenet newsgroup, after some obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters A newsgroup regular with a habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and cute. Like many other hackish terms for people, this one may be praise or insult depending on who uses it. In general, being referred to as a smurf is probably not going to make your day unless you've previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of irony.", "sn":"networking The country code for Senegal.", "SNA":"Systems Network Architecture", "snacc":"tool Sample Neufeld ASN.1 to C/C++ Compiler A program by Mike Sample msample@opentext.com which compiles 1990 ASN.1 data structures including some macros into C, C++ or type tables. The generated C/C++ includes a .h file with the equivalent data struct and a .c/.C file for the BER encode and decode, print and free routines.", "snaf":"chad", "snag":"bug", "SNAP":"language 1. An early IBM 360? interpreted text-processing language for beginners, close to basic English.", "snap":"1. programming To remove indirection, e.g. by replacing a pointer to a pointer with a pointer to the final target see chase pointers.", "Snappy":"Snappy Video Snapshot", "snarf":"/snarf/ 1. To grab, especially to grab a large document or file for the purpose of using it with or without the author's permission.", "snark":"[Lewis Carroll, via the Michigan Terminal System] 1. A system failure. When a user's process bombed, the operator would get the message Help, Help, Snark in MTS!", "sneakernet":"/snee'ker-net/ Term used generally with ironic intent for transfer of electronic information by physically carrying tape, disks, or other media from one machine to another.", "sneck":"jargon The sound made by deboursification, according to Sam Spade anti-spam software.", "snert":"abuse A derogatory term commonly used on the Internet ECHO BBS, echonyc.com, meaning to make overtures of a sexual nature. It implies terminal cluelessness.", "SNI":"Siemens Nixdorf Informationssteme, AG", "Sniff":"A C++/C programming environment providing browsing, cross-referencing, design visualisation, documentation and editing support. Developed by UBS Switzerland and marketed by takeFive Salzburg.", "sniff":"poll", "sniffer":"packet sniffer", "snivitz":"jargon /sniv'itz/ A hiccup in hardware or software; a small, transient problem of unknown origin less serious than a snark.", "SNMP":"Simple Network Management Protocol", "SNOBOL":"String Oriented Symbolic Language", "SNOOPS":"Craske, 1988. An extension of SCOOPS with meta-objects that can redirect messages to other objects. SNOOPS: An Object-Oriented language Enhancement Supporting Dynamic Program Reeconfiguration, N. Craske, SIGPLAN Notices 2610: 53-62 Oct 1991.", "SNPP":"Simple Network Paging Protocol", "SNR":"signal-to-noise ratio", "SO":"1. character Shift Out", "so":"networking The country code for Somalia.", "SOA":"1. architecture service-oriented architecture.", "SOAP":"1. protocol Simple Object Access Protocol.", "SOAR":"1. State, Operator And Result. A general problem-solving production system architecture, intended as a model of human intelligence. Developed by A. Newell in the early 1980s.", "socket":"networking The Berkeley Unix mechansim for creating a virtual connection between processes. Sockets interface Unix's standard I/O with its network communication facilities. They can be of two types, stream bi-directional or datagram fixed length destination-addressed messages.", "SOCKS":"security A security package that allows a host behind a firewall to use finger, FTP, telnet, Gopher, and Mosaic to access resources outside the firewall while maintaining the security requirements.", "SOCRATIC":"An early interactive learning system not a language? developed at Bolt, Beranek & Newman.", "SODA":"Symbolic Optimum DEUCE Assembly Program", "SODAS":"[D.L. Parnas & J.A. Darringer. Proc FJCC 31:449-474, AFIPS Fall 1967].", "SOE":"Standard Operating Environment", "SoftBench":"An IPSE from Hewlett-Packard.", "softcopy":"/soft'kop-ee/ by analogy with hardcopy A machine-readable machinable form of corresponding hardcopy.", "Softlab":"company A software engineering company strong in the UK and Germany.", "SoftModem":"The integration of modem controller and data pump algorithms into a single RAM-based DSP hardware architecture. These integrated algorithms are stored on the computer's hard disk, from which they are downloaded into the DSP board's random-access memory RAM. This downloading, or booting process of the PC-installed software algorithms occurs as part of the computer's power-up initialisation process in less than 100 milliseconds, making it transparent to the user.", "software":"programming Or computer program, program, code The instructions executed by a computer, as opposed to the physical device on which they run the hardware.", "softwarily":"/soft-weir'i-lee/ In a way pertaining to software. The system is softwarily unreliable. The adjective softwary is *not* used. See hardwarily.", "softy":"IBM Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.", "SOH":"Start Of Header", "SOHIO":"An early system on the IBM 705.", "SoHo":"small-office/home-office.", "SOIF":"Summary Object Interchange Format", "SOJ":"Small Outline J", "SOL":"1. language Simulation Oriented Language.", "Solaris":"operating system Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s version of the Unix operating system. As well as the core operating system, Solaris inludes networking software, the Java Virtual Machine, the CDE/Desktop that includes an X11-based windowing environment and graphical user interface.", "SOLID":"programming An acronym for some principles of good software architecture, originally compiled by Robert C. Martin in the 1990s. The letters stand for:", "SOLO":"[SOL Semantic Operating Language + LOGO]. A variant of LOGO with primitives for dealing with semantic networks and pattern matching rather than lists.", "solution":"marketing, jargon A marketroid term for something he wants to sell you without bothering you with distinctions between hardware, software, services, applications, file formats, companies, brand names and operating systems.", "Solve":"Parallel object-oriented language. Message Pattern Specifications: A New Technique for Handling Errors in Parallel Object- Oriented Systems, J.A. Purchase et al, SIGPLAN Notices 2510:116-125 OOPSLA/ECOOP '90 Oct 1990.", "SOM":"System Object Model. An implementation of CORBA by IBM.", "Sonata":"operating system The code name for the major Mac OS release due in mid-1999.", "SONET":"Synchronous Optical NETwork", "SORCERER":"tool A simple tree parser generator by Terence Parr parrt@s1.arc.umn.edu.", "sort":"1. application, algorithm To arrange a collection of items in some specified order. The items - records in a file or data structures in memory - consist of one or more fields or members. One of these fields is designated as the sort key which means the records will be ordered according to the value of that field. Sometimes a sequence of key fields is specified such that if all earlier keys are equal then the later keys will be compared. Within each field some ordering is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, lexical ordering, or date.", "sorting":"sort", "SOS":"1. Scheme Object System.", "sound":"1. audio.", "soundex":"algorithm, text An algorithm for encoding a word so that similar sounding words encode the same. The first letter is copied unchanged then subsequent letters are encoded as follows:", "soundness":"The quality of being sound 2.", "source":"source code", "southbridge":"architecture The integrated circuit in a core logic chip set that controls the IDE bus, USB, plug-n-play support, the PCI-ISA bridge, keyboard/mouse controller, power management, and various other features. One brand provides sound card functions.", "SP":"Simplicity and Power.", "space":"character The space character, ASCII 32.", "SPACEWAR":"games A space-combat simulation game for the PDP-1 written in 1960-61 by Steve Russell, an employee at MIT. SPACEWAR was inspired by E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman books, in which two spaceships duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and jumping through hyperspace. MIT were wondering what to do with a new vector video display so Steve wrote the world's first video game. Steve now lives in California and still writes software for HC12 emulators.", "SPADE":"Specification Processing And Dependency Extraction.", "spam":"1. messaging From Hormel's Spiced Ham, via the Monty Python Spam song To post irrelevant or inappropriate messages to one or more Usenet newsgroups, mailing lists, or other messaging system in deliberate or accidental violation of netiquette.", "spamdex":"web Presumably from spam, index word spamming.", "spamming":"spam", "SPAR":"Early system on Datatron 200 series. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "SPARC":"1. processor Scalable Processor ARChitecture.", "SPARCStation":"computer A family of workstations from Sun Microsystems based on the SPARC architecture. Models include the SPARCStation 1, 1+, SLC, SPARCStation ELC, IPX, SPARCStation 5, SPARCStation 10 and SPARCStation 20.", "SPARK":"language An annotated subset of Ada supported by tools supplied by Praxis Critical Systems originally by PVL.", "SPARKS":"language Fortran superset, used in Fundamentals of Data Structures, E. Horowitz & S. Sahni, Computer Science Press 1976.", "sparse":"A sparse matrix or vector, or array is one in which most of the elements are zero. If storage space is more important than access speed, it may be preferable to store a sparse matrix as a list of index, value pairs or use some kind of hash scheme or associative memory.", "spawn":"operating system To create a child process in a multitasking operating system. E.g. Unix's fork system call or one of the spawn library routines provided by most MS-DOS, Novell NetWare and OS/2 C compilers - spawnl, spawnle, etc.", "SPC":"1. business Statistical Process Control. Something to do with quality management.", "SPD":"Serial Presence Detect", "SPDL":"Standard Page Description Language", "SPE":"Software Practice and Experience", "Speakeasy":"Simple array-oriented language with numerical integration and differentiation, graphical output, aimed at statistical analysis.", "speaker":"1. audio, hardware loudspeaker.", "SPEC":"benchmark, body Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.", "Spec":"A specification language. It expresses black box interface specifications for large distributed systems with real-time constraints. It incorporates conceptual models, inheritance and the event model. It is a descendant of MSG.84.", "spec":"specification", "SPECbaserate":"A variant of SPECrate that reports baseline results, using stricter run rules.", "SPECIAL":"language, specification A specification language, developed at SRI around 1976, used to specify the abstract machines in Hierarchical Design Methodology HDM.", "specialisation":"A reduction in generality, usually for the sake of increased efficiency. If a piece of code is specialised for certain values of certain variables usually function arguments, this is known as partial evaluation. In a language with overloading e.g. Haskell, an overloaded function might be specialised to a non-overloaded instance at compile-time if the types of its arguments are known.", "specification":"jargon spec A document describing how some system should work.", "SPECmark":"benchmark The average of a set of floating-point and integer SPEC benchmark results.", "SPECOL":"[SPECOL - A Computer Enquiry Language for the Non-Programmer, B.T. Smith, Computer J 11:121 1968].", "Spectrum":"ZX Spectrum", "SPEED":"Early system on LGP-30. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "Speedcoding":"language A pseudocode interpreter for mathematics on IBM 701 and IBM 650 written by John Backus in 1953.", "SPEEDEX":"Early system on IBM 701. Listed in CACM 25:16 May 1959.", "speedometer":"A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of LEDs today or nixie tubes yesterday, on ancient mainframes. The pattern is shifted left every N times the operating system goes through its main loop. A swiftly moving pattern indicates that the system is mostly idle; the speedometer slows down as the system becomes overloaded. The speedometer on Sun Microsystems hardware bounces back and forth like the eyes on one of the Cylons from the wretched Battlestar Galactica TV series.", "spell":"incantation", "SPG":"System Program Generator. A compiler-writing language.", "SPGA":"Staggered Pin Grid Array", "SPI":"1. company Software in the Public Interest, Inc..", "SPID":"Service Provider ID", "spider":"web Or robot, crawler A program that automatically explores the web by retrieving a document and recursively retrieving some or all the documents that are referenced in it. This is in contrast with a normal web browser operated by a human that doesn't automatically follow links other than inline images and URL redirection.", "Spiderweb":"tool A program for creating versions of Knuth's WEB self-documenting programs literate programming.", "spiffy":"/spi'fee/ 1. Said of programs having a pretty, clever, or exceptionally well-designed interface. Have you seen the spiffy X version of empire yet? This was common mainstream slang during the 1940s.", "spike":"jargon To defeat a selection mechanism by introducing a sometimes temporary device that forces a specific result.", "spill":"register spilling", "spim":"messaging From spam and IM Unsolicited commercial messages sent via an instant messaging system, instant messenger spam.", "spin":"programming, jargon Equivalent to buzz. More common among C and Unix programmers.", "spinner":"spin control", "SPIT":"Language for IBM 650. See IT.", "SPITBOL":"SPeedy ImplemenTation of snoBOL. Macro SPITBOL - A SNOBOL4 Compiler, R.B.K. Dewar et al, Soft Prac & Exp 7:95-113, 1971.", "spiware":"spelling Misspelling of spyware.", "SPL":"1. Synchronous Programming Language. A DSP language.", "splat":"1. Name used in many places DEC, IBM, and others for the asterisk * character ASCII 0101010. This may derive from the squashed-bug appearance of the asterisk on many early line printers.", "SPLINTER":"A PL/I interpreter with debugging features.", "split":"chunker", "splot":"graphics, tool A graph plotting package from Stanford University which produces encapsulated PostScript.", "SPLX":"language Specification Language for Parallel cross-product of processes and sequential modules.", "SPM":"Sequential Parlog Machine", "SPMD":"single processor/multiple data", "SPML":"server-parsed HTML", "spod":"chat Great Britain A lower form of life found on chat systems and MUDs. The spod has few friends in RL and uses chat instead, finding communication easier and preferable over the net. He has all the negative traits of the computer geek without having any interest in computers per se.", "spoiler":"1. A remark which reveals important plot elements from books or movies, thus denying the reader of the article the proper suspense when reading the book or watching the movie.", "sponge":"tool A kind of Unix filter that reads its entire input before writing any output, e.g. sort. Unlike most filters, a sponge can safely overwrite the input file with the output data.", "spoo":"Variant of spooge, sense 1.", "spoof":"spoofing", "spoofing":"A technique used to reduce network overhead, especially in wide area networks WAN.", "spooge":"/spooj/ Inexplicable or arcane code, or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program.", "SPOOL":"operating system Acronym for Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On-Line; but see also spool.", "Spool":"language An object-oriented logic programming language.", "spool":"operating system To send files to some device or program a spooler or demon that puts them in a queue for later processing of some kind. Without qualification, the spooler is the print spooler controlling output of jobs to a printer; but the term has been used in connection with other peripherals especially plotters and graphics devices and occasionally even for input devices.", "spooler":"operating system, tool Software or hardware to which data is spooled and which processes that data e.g. prints it in the background.", "SpoolView":"tool A printing system for Unix. SpoolView can control several printers connected to a TCP/IP network. Different printers can be loaded with different paper and forms.", "spray":"networking A Unix command that sends packets to a host and reports performance statistics. The number of packets, delay between packets and packet length can all be specified.", "spreadsheet":"application, tool Or rarely worksheet A type of application program which manipulates numerical and string data in rows and columns of cells. The value in a cell can be calculated from a formula which can involve other cells. A value is recalculated automatically whenever a value on which it depends changes. Different cells may be displayed with different formats.", "SPRING":"String PRocessING language", "SPRINT":"List processing language involving stack operations. SPRINT - A Direct Approach to List Processing Languages, C.A. Kapps, Proc SJCC 30 1967. Sammet 1969, p 462.", "Sprintnet":"A public packet-switched network using the ITU-T X.25 protocols, that provides dial-up access to services like Delphi, Portal, GEnie and Compuserve.", "Sprite":"operating system An operating system from Berkeley supporting multiprocessing and distributed files.", "sprite":"graphics, file format A small bitmap image, often used in animated games but also sometimes used as a synonym for icon.", "SPS":"Symbolic Programming System. Assembly language for IBM 1620.", "SPSS":"Statistical Package for the Social Sciences", "SPUR":"An early system on the IBM 650.", "SPX":"1. networking Sequenced Packet Exchange.", "spx":"filename extension The filename extension for Screen Peace eXtension files.", "spyware":"software Or adware Any type of software that transmits information without the user's knowledge.", "SQE":"Signal Quality Error", "SQL":"language, database, standard /S Q L/ An industry-standard language for creating, updating and, querying relational database management systems.", "SQLWindows":"programming, product A package used to graphically develop MS-Windows client-server applications. Sold by Gupta Corporation.", "SQR":"database, language A fourth generation language for the creation of reports from databases. SQR is interpreted to dynamically generate SQL queries and format the results.", "SQRIBE":"company The company formerly known as MITI which bought SQR from Sybase.", "Square":"language A query language, a precursor to SQL.", "Squeak":"language 1. graphics", "Squiggol":"Bird-Meertens Formalism", "SR":"language Synchronizing Resources.", "sr":"networking The country code for Suriname.", "SRAM":"static random-access memory", "SRAPI":"Speech Recognition Application Program Interface", "SRDL":"Small algebraic specification language, allows distfix operators.", "SRI":"SRI International", "SRL":"1. Bharat Jayaraman.", "SRP":"A data link layer protocol.", "SSA":"Single Static Assignment Serial Storage Architecture", "SSADM":"A software engineering method and toolset required by some UK government agencies.", "SSBA":"Suite Synthetique des Benchmarks de l'AFUU", "SSD":"1. Solid State Disk", "SSE":"Streaming SIMD Extensions", "ssh":"operating system 1. Steve's Shell.", "SSI":"1. electronics small scale integration.", "SSID":"Service Set Identifier", "SSII":"Societe de Service en Ingenierie Informatique", "SSL":"1. language Synthesizer Specification Language.", "SSLeay":"networking, security, protocol A free implementation of Netscape's Secure Socket Layer protocol, coded from scratch, using only the publically available documentation of the various protocols, by Eric Young in Australia.", "SSMA":"chat some such meaningless acronym.", "SSO":"single sign-on", "SSR":"Scalable Sampling Rate", "st":"networking The country code for Sao Tome and Principe.", "STAB":"language A descendent of BCPL.", "stable":"programming 1. A quality of a program that is relatively unlikely to fall over to terminate unexpectedly.", "STAC":"1. language Storage Allocation and Coding Program.", "stack":"programming See below for synonyms A data structure for storing items which are to be accessed in last-in first-out order.", "staircase":"jaggies", "staircasing":"jaggies", "standard":"standard Standards are necessary for interworking, portability, and reusability. They may be de facto standards for various communities, or officially recognised national or international standards.", "STAPLE":"language A programming language written at Manchester University? and used at ICL in the early 1970s for writing the test suites. STAPLE was based on Algol 68 and had a very advanced optimising compiler.", "Staple":"language St Andrews Applicative Persistent Language.", "StarBurst":"An active DBMS from IBM Almaden Research Center.", "StarLISP":"*LISP", "StarMOD":"*MOD", "Starset":"Portable storage/retrieval language for distributed databases.", "STARSYS":"Convergent Technologies Operating System", "stat":"programming, operating system The Unix system call to get the properties of a file or directory.", "state":"storage, architecture, jargon, theory How something is; its configuration, attributes, condition or information content.", "stateless":"A stateless server is one which treats each request as an independent transaction, unrelated to any previous request.", "statement":"programming A single instruction in a computer program written in a procedural language. Typical examples are an assignment statement, an if statement conditional, a loop statement while, for, repeat, until, etc., a procedure call, a procedure exit, function return statement, switch statement or goto statement.", "static":"programming static typing, static variable.", "statistics":"statistics, mathematics The practice, study or result of the application of mathematical functions to collections of data in order to summarise or extrapolate that data.", "StatMUX":"statistical time division multiplexing", "status":"1. hardware A description of how something is, similar to state but usually implying a simpler set of possibilities, e.g. up or down; set or clear; stopped, starting, started, stopping.", "STB":"set-top box", "STD":"1. state transition diagram.", "stderr":"standard input/output", "stdin":"standard input/output", "stdio":"standard input/output", "STDM":"statistical time division multiplexing", "stdout":"standard input/output", "STDWIN":"A windowing interface from CWI with windows, menus, modal dialogs, mouse and keyboard input, scroll bars, drawing primitives, etc that is portable between platforms. STDWIN is available for Macintosh and the X Window System.", "Steelman":"DoD, June 1978. Fifth and last of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada. Steelman Requirements for High Order Programming Languages, US Dept of Defense, June 1978.", "steganography":"security Hiding a secret message within a larger one in such a way that others can not discern the presence or contents of the hidden message. For example, a message might be hidden within an image by changing the least significant bits to be the message bits.", "stemmer":"information science, human language A program or algorithm which determines the morphological root of a given inflected or, sometimes, derived word form -- generally a written word form.", "stemming":"stemmer", "STENSOR":"L. Hornfeldt, Stockholm, mid-80's. Symbolic math, especially General Relativity. Implemented on top of SHEEP and MACSYMA.", "STEP":"Standard for the exchange of product model data", "stereogram":"A two-dimensional image which, when viewed correctly appears three-dimensional. E.g. SIRDS or SIRTS.", "STFT":"Short Term Fourier Transform", "STFU":"chat Shut the fuck up.", "STFW":"Search The Fucking Web", "stiffy":"storage, jargon University of Lowell, Massachusetts A 3.5-inch microfloppy, so called because their jackets are more rigid than those of the 5.25-inch and the obsolete 8-inch floppy disk. Elsewhere this might be called a firmy.", "STIL":"STatistical Interpretive Language.", "STING":"A parallel dialect of Scheme intended to serve as a high-level operating system for symbolic programming languages. First-class threads and processors and customisable scheduling policies.", "STk":"language, LISP, graphics A Scheme interpreter blended with Ousterhout's Tk package by Erick Gallesio eg@unice.fr. STk expresses all of Tk as Scheme objects.", "STMP":"Did you mean SMTP?", "stochastic":"probabilistic", "STOIC":"STring Oriented Interactive Compiler", "STONE":"A Structured and Open Environment: a project supported by the German Ministry of Research and Technology BMFT to design, implement and distribute a SEE for research and teaching.", "Stoneman":"The requirements, written by the HOLWG of the US DoD in Feb 1980, that led to APSE.", "stoppage":"/sto'p*j/ Extreme lossage that renders something usually something vital completely unusable. The recent system stoppage was caused by a fried transformer.", "storage":"data storage", "store":"jargon In some varieties of Commonwealth hackish, the preferred synonym for core. Thus, bringing a program into store means that a program is being swapped in from backing store to main store.", "storm":"broadcast storm", "STP":"shielded twisted pair", "StP":"Software through Pictures", "Strand":"1. AND-parallel logic programming language. Essentially flat Parlog83 with sequential-and and sequential-or eliminated.", "Stratus":"company One of the leading manufacturers of fault-tolerant computer systems. While virtually all of Stratus' core hardware and software is sold into the financial services, telecommunications, travel and transportation, and gaming these markets, a broad range of middleware and applications are developed and marketed by Stratus, its subsidiaries, and third party partners.", "Strawman":"The first of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada Woodenman, Tinman, Ironman, Steelman.", "STREAM":"[STREAM: A Scheme Language for Formally Describing Digital Circuits, C.D. Kloos in PARLE: Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe, LNCS 259, Springer 1987].", "stream":"1. communications An abstraction referring to any flow of data from a source or sender, producer to a single sink or receiver, consumer. A stream usually flows through a channel of some kind, as opposed to packets which may be addressed and routed independently, possibly to multiple recipients.", "streaming":"communications Playing sound or video in real time as it is downloaded over the Internet as opposed to storing it in a local file first. A plug-in to a web browser such as Netscape Navigator decompresses and plays the data as it is transferred to your computer over the web.", "STREAMS":"operating system A collection of system calls, kernel resources, and kernel utility routines that can create, use, and dismantle a stream. A stream head provides the interface between the stream and the user processes. Its principal function is to process STREAMS-related user system calls. A stream module processes data that travel bewteen the stream head and driver. The stream end provides the services of an external input/output device or an internal software driver. The internal software driver is commonly called a pseudo-device driver.", "STRESS":"STRuctual Engineering Systems Solver.", "strict":"A function f is strict in an argument if", "strided":"/str:'d*d/ scientific computing Said of a sequence of memory reads and writes to addresses, each of which is separated from the last by a constant interval called the stride length, or just the stride. These can be a worst-case access pattern for cache schemes when the stride length is a multiple of the cache line size.", "string":"programming Or character string A sequence of characters.", "stripe":"data striping", "striping":"data striping", "STROBES":"Shared Time Repair of Big Electronic Systems", "stroke":"The oblique stroke character, /, ASCII 47.", "StrongARM":"processor A collaborative project between Digital Equipment Corporation and Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. ARM announced on 1995-02-06 licensing the ARM RISC architecture to Digital Semiconductor for the development of high-performance, low power microprocessors.", "struct":"programming A data type in C and C++ corresponding to a record in Ada or Pascal or a tuple in functional programming. A struct has one or more members, each of which may have different types. It is used to group associated data together.", "strudel":"character Common spoken name for the commercial at sign, @, ASCII 64.", "STRUDL":"STRUctured Design Language.", "stub":"1. programming A dummy procedure used when linking a program with a run-time library. The stub routine need not contain any code and is only present to prevent undefined label errors at link time.", "stubroutine":"/stuhb'roo-teen/ [contraction of stub subroutine] Tiny, often vacuous placeholder for a subroutine that is to be written or fleshed out later.", "STUDENT":"D.G. Bobrow 1964. Early query system. Sammet 1969, p.664.", "studly":"Impressive; powerful. Said of code and designs which exhibit both complexity and a virtuoso flair. Has connotations similar to hairy but is more positive in tone. Often in the emphatic most studly or as noun-form studliness. Smail 3.0's configuration parser is most studly.", "studlycaps":"jargon /stuhd'lee-kaps/ A hackish form of silliness similar to BiCapitalisation for trademarks, but applied randomly and to arbitrary text rather than to trademarks. ThE oRigiN and SigNificaNce of thIs pRacTicE iS oBscuRe.", "Stuffit":"tool, file format filename extension: .sit A file archiving and compression utility, developed by Aladdin Systems, Inc.. Stuffit was originally developed for the Macintosh and is still the Mac standard tool for compression and archiving compressing multiple files into one. Stuffit is now also available for Microsoft Windows and Linux.", "Stupids":"Term used by samurai for the suits who employ them.", "STX":"Start Of Text", "style":"web The visual presentation or formatting of web content, chiefly either HTML content with style controlled by Cascading Style Sheets CSS or XML content controlled by XSL. Style is distinguished from meaning, which is encoded with semantic markup. The latter deals with logical divisions of content such as headings, lists and paragraphs.", "su":"operating system, tool, security substitute user The Unix command which allows you to become another user after entering their password. su is most often used without arguments in which case it defaults to user root. Some versions of Unix only allows this command to be used by members of the wheel group.", "SUB":"Substitute", "subclass":"class hierarchy", "subject":"programming In subject-oriented programming, a subject is a collection of classes or class fragments whose class hierarchy models its domain in its own, subjective way. A subject may be a complete application in itself, or it may be an incomplete fragment that must be composed with other subjects to produce a complete application. Subject composition combines class hierarchies to produce new subjects that incorporate functionality from existing subjects.", "sublanguage":"database, language One of the languages associated with a DBMS, for example a data-definition language or query language.", "subnet":"A portion of a network, which may be a physically independent network segment, which shares a network address with other portions of the network and is distinguished by a subnet number. A subnet is to a network what a network is to an internet.", "subroutine":"programming Or procedure A sequence of instructions for performing a particular task. Most programming languages, including most machine languages, allow the programmer to define subroutines. This allows the subroutine code to be called from multiple places, even from within itself in which case it is called recursive. The programming language implementation takes care of returning control to just after the calling location, usually with the support of call and return instructions at machine language level.", "subscribe":"messaging To request to receive messages posted to a mailing list or newsgroup. In contrast to the mundane use of the word this is often free of charge.", "subscribing":"subscribe", "Substitute":"character SUB ASCII character 26.", "substrate":"hardware The body or base layer of an integrated circuit, onto which other layers are deposited to form the circuit.", "subtype":"programming If S is a subtype of T then an expression of type S may be used anywhere that one of type T can and an implicit type conversion will be applied to convert it to type T.", "subtyping":"subtype", "SuccessoR":"A language for distributed computing derived from SR.", "successor":"daughter", "Sue":"The system language used to write an operating system for the IBM 360. It is a cross between Pascal and XPL. It allows type checked separate compilation of internal procedures using a program library.", "SUGAR":"A simple lazy functional language designed at Westfield College, University of London, UK and used in Principles of Functional Programming, Hugh Glaser et al, P-H 1984.", "suicideware":"jargon A program which entirely stops functioning after a predefined date. Used to ensure that beta versions don't remain in circulation indefinitely or in demo versions to ensure that they can only be used to try out the program.", "SUIF":"Stanford University Intermediate Format.", "suit":"1. Ugly and uncomfortable business clothing often worn by non-hackers. Invariably worn with a tie, a strangulation device that partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain.", "sum":"1. theory In domain theory, the sum A + B of two domains contains all elements of both domains, modified to indicate which part of the union they come from, plus a new bottom element. There are two constructor functions associated with the sum:", "SUMMER":"String manipulation and pattern matching language by Klint & Sint at CWI in the late 1970s. It was recently used as the input and implementation language for the Dataflow Compiler Project at CWI.", "Sun":"Sun Microsystems", "SunOS":"operating system Sun Microsystems' version of Unix for Sun workstations. SunOS is similar to BSD Unix with some SVR4 features and OpenWindows 3.0.", "sunspots":"1. Notional cause of an odd error. Why did the program suddenly turn the screen blue? Sunspots, I guess.", "SunView":"A windowing system from Sun Microsystems, superseded by NeWS.", "SUNY":"State University of New York", "SUPER":"The successor to LOGLISP, based on LNF.", "Superbrain":"computer A personal computer released in 1980 by Intertec.", "superclass":"class hierarchy", "supercombinators":"Combinators with coarser granularity than those proposed by David Turner. A functional program is translated to a set of functions without free variables. The members of the set are selected to be optimal for that program. Supercombinators were proposed by John Hughes at University of Edinburgh.", "supercompilation":"A function program transformation technique invented by Turchin. A program is evaluated symbolically in order to observe the possible history of computation states called configurations. Based on this Turchin's REFAL compiler would try to construct a better program.", "supercomputer":"computer A broad term for one of the fastest computers currently available. Such computers are typically used for number crunching including scientific simulations, animated graphics, analysis of geological data e.g. in petrochemical prospecting, structural analysis, computational fluid dynamics, physics, chemistry, electronic design, nuclear energy research and meteorology. Perhaps the best known supercomputer manufacturer is Cray Research.", "SuperDrive":"storage Apple Computer, Inc.'s name for a combined DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, CD-RW drive that appeared in the iMac in 2002.", "superhighway":"information superhighway", "SuperJanet":"An initiative started in 1989, under the Computer Board, with the aim of developing of a national broadband network to support UK higher education and research. The preparatory work culminated in 1992 with the award of a contract worth 18M pounds to British Telecom to provide networking services over a four year period that extends to March 1997.", "SUPERMAC":"A general-purpose macro language, embeddable in existing languages as a run-time library.", "SuperPaint":"graphics A pioneering graphics program and framebuffer computer system developed by Richard Shoup at Xerox PARC.", "superpipelined":"1. Traditional pipelined architectures have a single pipeline stage for each of: instruction fetch, instruction decode, memory read, ALU operation and memory write. A superpipelined processor has a pipeline where each of these logical steps may be subdivided into multiple pipeline stages.", "superprogrammer":"A prolific programmer; one who can code exceedingly well and quickly. Not all hackers are superprogrammers, but many are.", "superscalar":"architecture A superscalar architecture is a uniprocessor that can execute two or more scalar operations in parallel.", "SuperTalk":"Silicon Beach Software. A superset of HyperTalk used in SuperCard.", "superuser":"[Unix] Synonym root, avatar. This usage has spread to non-Unix environments; the superuser is any account with all wheel bits on. A more specific term than wheel.", "SuperZap":"tool, IBM An IBM utility program used to quickly patch operating system or application program executable code in preference to editing the source code and recompiling.", "support":"job After-sale handholding; something many software vendors promise but few deliver. To hackers, most support people are useless - because by the time a hacker calls support he or she will usually know the software and the relevant manuals better than the support people. A hacker's idea of support is an electronic exchange with the software's designer.", "supremum":"least upper bound", "Sure":"[Towards a Broader Basis for Logic Programming, Bharat Jayaraman, TR CS Dept, SUNY Buffalo, 1990].", "surfing":"Internet surfing Used by analogy to describe the ease with which an expert user can use the waves of information flowing around the Internet to get where he wants. The term became popular in the early 1990s as access to the Internet became more widespread and tools such as web browsers made its use simpler and more pleasant.", "SURGE":"Sorter, Updater, Report Generator, Etc. IBM 704, 1959.", "surjection":"mathematics A function f : A - B is surjective or onto or a surjection if f A = B. I.e. f can return any value in B.", "surjective":"surjection", "suspension":"In lazy evaluation, a suspension or in Henderson's terminology, a recipe is a closure with a flag indicating whether the expression has been evaluated or not. When the expression is evaluated the first time, this flag is set.", "sv":"networking The country code for El Salvador.", "SVC":"1. operating system Supervisor Call.", "SVG":"Scalable Vector Graphics", "SVGA":"hardware Super Video Graphics Array not Adapter.", "SVID":"System V Interface Definition", "SVRC":"Software Verification Research Centre", "SVS":"OS/VS2", "swab":"/swob/ The PDP-11 swap byte instruction mnemonic, as immortalised in the dd option conv=swab.", "SWAG":"jargon Scientific or Silly Wild Ass Guess. A term used by technical teams when establishing high level sizings for large projects.", "swap":"operating system To move a program from fast-access memory to a slow-access memory swap out, or vice versa swap in. The term often refers specifically to the use of a hard disk or a swap file as virtual memory or swap space.", "swapping":"swap", "Sweden":"networking Country code: se.", "SweetLambda":"Sugared lambda-calculus?.", "swf":"filename extension /S W F/ The filename extension for Adobe Shockwave Flash animated vector graphics files, common on the web.", "Swing":"programming Java's graphical user interface GUI package that provides a large collection of widgets buttons, labels, lists etc. that behave similarly on different platforms. Swing features pluggable look & feel, allowing the program to look like a Windows, Motif or Macintosh application. It is implemented using the Model-View-Controller MVC architecture and makes extensive use of nested containers to control the handling of events such as keystrokes.", "switch":"1. programming switch statement.", "switching":"networking Establishing the correct path through a network for a single packet of data packet switching or a persistent end-to-end connection circuit switching.", "swizzle":"To convert external names, array indices, or references within a data structure into address pointers when the data structure is brought into main memory from external storage also called pointer swizzling; this may be done for speed in chasing references or to simplify code e.g. by turning lots of name lookups into pointer dereferences. The converse operation is sometimes termed unswizzling.", "SWL":"Software Writer's Language", "SWT":"Standard Widget Toolkit", "sy":"networking The country code for Syria.", "SYDEL":"A system language, fully typed, with inline assembly code, by Jan Garwick, ca 1974.", "SYGMA":"A symbolic generator and macro assembler by A.P. Ershov et al of Novosibirsk. For the BESM-6, M-220 and Minsk-22.", "SYLK":"Symbolic Link", "syllogism":"/sil'oh-jiz`*m/ logic Deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises. The conclusion necessarily follows from the premises so that, if these are true, the conclusion must be true, and the syllogism amounts to demonstration. To put it another way, the premises imply the conclusion.", "Sylvan":"[Distributed language?]", "Symantec":"company Software manufacturer of utility and development applications for Windows and Macintosh platforms.", "SYMBAL":"SYMbolic ALgebra. A symbolic mathematics language with ALGOL-like syntax by Max Engeli, late 60's. Implemented for CDC 6600.", "SymbMath":"mathematics, tool A small symbolic mathematics package for MS-DOS which can learn new facts.", "SYMBOLANG":"Lapidus & Goldstein, 1965. Symbol manipulating Fortran subroutine package for IBM 7094, later CDC 6600.", "symlink":"symbolic link", "symmetric":"mathematics 1. A relation R is symmetric if, for all x and y,", "Symphony":"tool, product Lotus Development's successor to their Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet. Unlike 1-2-3, Symphony allowed a limited form of multitasking. The user could switch manually between it and MS-DOS and separate graph and spreadsheet windows could be opened simultaneously and would be updated automatically when cells were changed. In addition, a small word processor could be opened in a third window. These all could be printed out on the same report.", "SYMPL":"language SYsteMs Programming Language.", "SYN":"1. character Synchronous idle.", "sync":"/sink/ Or synch 1. To synchronise, to bring into synchronisation.", "synchronous":"operating system, communications 1. Two or more processes that depend upon the occurrences of specific events such as common timing signals.", "syncronous":"spelling It's spelled synchronous.", "synflood":"networking To flood another machine with bogus TCP/IP SYN requests.", "syntax":"language The structure of valid strings in a given language, as described by a grammar. For example, the syntax of a binary number could be expressed as", "synthesis":"programming, specification The process of deriving efficient programs from clear specifications.", "sypware":"spyware", "sysadmin":"system administrator", "sysape":"/sys'ayp/ A rather derogatory term for a computer operator; a play on sysop common at sites that use the banana hierarchy of problem complexity see one-banana problem.", "SYSKEY":"cryptography, operating system, security A utility that encrpyts the hashed password information in a SAM database using a 128-bit encryption key.", "SYSLISP":"System language used in the implementation of Portable Standard Lisp. Mentioned in The Evolution of Lisp, G.L. Steele et al, SIGPLAN Notices 283:231-270 Mar 1993.", "sysop":"system operator", "Sysplex":"operating system An IBM term for communicating MVS systems. See also Parallel Sysplex.", "sysprog":"Systems programmer", "system":"1. The supervisor program or operating system on a computer.", "SysVile":"Missed'em-five", "sz":"networking The country code for Swaziland.", "T":"1. True. A Lisp compiler by Johnathan A. Rees in 1982 at Yale University. T has static scope and is a near-superset of Scheme. Unix source is available. T is written in itself and compiles to efficient native code. Used as the basis for the Yale Haskell system. Maintained by David Kranz kranz@masala.lcs.mit.edu.", "TA":"Terminal Adaptor", "TAA":"Track Average Amplitude", "TAB":"HT", "table":"database A collection of records in a relational database.", "tablespace":"database, storage A logical unit of storage used by an Oracle database. A tablespace is made up of one or more operating system files. Each table, index or other object that requires storage is located in a tablespace.", "TABLET":"A query language.", "TABLOG":"language A programming language based on first order predicate logic with equality that combines relational programming and functional programming. It has functional notation and unification as its binding mechanism. TABLOG supports a more general subset of standard first order logic than Prolog. It employs the Manna-Waldinger 'deductive-tableau' proof system as an interpreter instead of resolution.", "TABSOL":"language A language extension for GECOM written in the form of truth tables which was compiled into code for the tests and actions described. TABSOL was developed by T.F. Kavanaugh, and was in use around 1964-5.", "TAC":"1. Translator Assembler-Compiler. For Philco 2000.", "TACL":"Tandem Advanced Command Language. Tandem, about 1987. The shell language used in Tandem computers.", "TACPOL":"language A PL/I-like language used by the US Army for command and control.", "tag":"language, text An SGML, HTML, or XML token representing the beginning start tag: p ... or end end tag: /p of an element. In normal SGML syntax and always in XML, a tag starts with a and ends with an \" ", "TAL":"Transaction Application Language", "TALE":"Typed Applicative Language Experiment. M. van Leeuwen. Lazy, purely applicative, polymorphic. Based on typed second order lambda-calculus. Functional Programming and the Language TALE, H.P. Barendregt et al, in Current Trends in Concurrency, LNCS 224, Springer 1986, pp.122-207.", "Taligent":"A company founded jointly by Apple and IBM in March 1992. HP announced in January, 1994 that it would buy a 15% stake in Taligent. They are working on an object-oriented operating system, due to be finished sometime in 1995. However, various independent pieces of Taligent will likely appear to be used with other operating systems, e.g. IBM's WorkplaceOS.", "talk":"chat, tool, networking, messaging A Unix program and protocol supporting conversation between two or more users who may be logged into the same computer or different computers on a network. Variants include ntalk, ytalk, and ports or emulators of these programs for other platforms.", "TALL":"language TAC List Language.", "Tandy":"company A US company, the parent company of Radio Shack, makers of the TRS-80 and other early personal computers.", "tanked":"1. jargon Same as down, used primarily by Unix hackers.", "TANSTAAFL":"/tan'stah-fl/ From Robert Heinlein's classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.", "TAO":"language 1. A Lisp dialect with concurrency, object-orientation and logic.", "TAOS":"Technology for Autonomous Operation Survivability", "TAP":"Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol", "tap":"hit", "tape":"1. magnetic tape.", "TAPI":"Telephony Application Programming Interface", "tar":"file format Tape ARchive, following ar Unix's general purpose archive utility and the file format it uses.", "tarball":"tar", "targa":"graphics, file format A graphics data format for bitmap images. It uses 24 bits per pixel and is a common output format for ray tracing programs.", "target":"SCSI target", "TARTAN":"A simple language proposed to meet the Ironman requirements.", "taskbar":"operating system The part of the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface GUI typically occupying a fixed strip along the bottom of the screen, showing a rectangular icon for each running application.", "TASM":"Turbo Assembler. MS-DOS assembler from Borland.", "TASS":"Template ASSembly language. Intermediate language produced by the Manchester SISAL compiler.", "taste":"1. primarily MIT The quality of a program that tends to be inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and kluges it contains. Taste refers to sound judgment on the part of the creator. See also elegant, flavour.", "tatar":"human language A Turkic language spoken by about five million Tatars in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and elsewhere; the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan Russian Federation.", "tau":"mathematics The mathematical constant that is the circumference of a circle divided by its radius, equal to twice pi.", "tautology":"logic A proposition which is always true.", "TAWK":"Tiny AWK", "Taxis":"[A Language Facility for Designing Database-Intensive Applications, J. Mylopoulos et al, ACM Trans Database Sys 52:185-207 June 1980].", "tayste":"crumb", "taz":"tgz", "TB":"terabyte", "TBF":"Mean Time Between Failures", "TBIL":"Tiny Basic Interpreter Language", "TBK":"Tool Builder Kit", "Tbl":"1. A language by M.E. Lesk for formatting tables, implemented as a preprocessor to nroff.", "tc":"networking The country code for the Turks and Caicos Islands.", "TCB":"1. jargon Trouble Came Back.", "TCGS":"Twente Compiler Generator System", "Tcl":"Tool Command Language", "tclhttpd":"tool An embeddable Tcl-based web server.", "TclX":"Extended Tcl", "TCM":"Trellis Code Modulation", "TCO":"Total Cost of Ownership", "Tcode":"Intermediate language used by the Spineless Tagless G-machine an abstract machine based on graph reduction designed as a target for compilation of non-strict functional languages.", "TCOL":"CMU. Tree-based intermediate representation produced by the PQCC compiler generator. An Overview of the Production Quality Compiler- Compiler Projects, B.W. Leverett et al, IEEE Computer 138: 38-49 Aug 1980. See LG.", "TCP":"Transmission Control Protocol", "TCPIP":"Normally written TCP/IP.", "tcsh":"Unix, operating system A Unix shell by Christos Zoulas christos@ee.cornell.edu, based on csh. tcsh adds WYSIWYG command line editing, command name completion, input history and various other features.", "Tcsim":"Time Complex Simulator", "td":"networking The country code for Chad.", "TDD":"1. testing test-driven development.", "TDEL":"thick film dielectric electroluminescence", "TDF":"language An intermediate language, a close relative of ANDF. A TDF program is an ASCII stream describing an abstract syntax tree.", "TDFL":"Dataflow language. TDFL: A Task-Level Dataflow Language, P.", "TDI":"Transport Driver Interface", "TDM":"1. Technical Data Management", "TDMA":"time division multiple access", "TDR":"time domain reflectometer", "Teamwork":"product, software, tool A SASD tool from Sterling Software, formerly CADRE Technologies, which supports the Shlaer/Mellor Object-Oriented method and the Yourdon-DeMarco, Hatley-Pirbhai, Constantine and Buhr notations.", "Technion":"body Israel Institute of Technology.", "technology":"jargon, marketing Marketroid jargon for software, hardware, protocol or something else too technical to name.", "TechRef":"/tek'ref/ [MS-DOS] The original IBM PC Technical Reference Manual, including the BIOS listing and complete schematics for the PC. The only PC documentation in the issue package that's considered serious by real hackers.", "TECO":"editor, text /tee'koh/ Originally an acronym for [paper] Tape Editor and COrrector; later, Text Editor and COrrector] A text editor developed at MIT and modified by just about everybody. With all the dialects included, TECO may have been the most prolific editor in use before Emacs, to which it was directly ancestral. The first Emacs editor was written in TECO.", "tee":"tool, operating system A Unix command which copies its standard input to its standard output like cat but also to a file given as its argument. tee is thus useful in pipelines of Unix commands see plumbing where it allows you to create a duplicate copy of the data stream.", "TEI":"1. communications Terminal Endpoint Identifier.", "telco":"communications, company from telephone company A company providing phone services to end users. The company may or may not provide other phone services such operating long-distance/international backbones but the name telco usually emphasises its operation as a local service provider.", "TELCOMP":"language A variant of JOSS.", "telecommuting":"The practice of working at home and communicating with your fellow workers through the phone, typically with a computer and modem. Telecommuting saves the employee getting to and from work and saves the employer from supplying support services such as heating and cleaning, but it can also deprive the worker of social contact and support.", "teledildonics":"application, virtual reality /tel*-dil-do-niks/ Sex in a computer simulated virtual reality, especially computer-mediated sexual interaction between the VR presences of two humans. This practice is not yet possible except in the rather limited form of erotic conversation on MUDs and the like. The term, however, is widely recognised in the VR community as a ha ha only serious projection of things to come. When we can sustain a multi-sensory surround good enough for teledildonics, *then* we'll know we're getting somewhere.", "telegraphy":"communications, history A historical term for communication, either wired or wireless, using Morse code. The term is used in contrast with telephony meaning voice transmission.", "telematics":"The combination of telecommunications and computing. Data communications between systems and devices.", "TelEnet":"The old name for Sprintnet. TELENET used to provide a service called PC Pursuit.", "TELEPAC":"networking The Swiss PTT X.25 network.", "telephony":"communications Communication, often two-way, of spoken information, by means of electrical signals carried by wires or radio waves. The term was used to indicate transmission of the voice, as opposed to telegraphy done in Morse code and usually called continuous wave or CW transmission, radio teletypewriter RTTY transmission also called FSK for Frequency Shift Keying, the modulation scheme used by such machines, and later, facimile.", "Telerat":"abuse, hardware /tel'*-rat/ Unflattering hackerism for Teleray, a line of extremely losing terminals.", "Telescript":"A communications-oriented programming language using active software agents, released by General Magic in 1994. What PostScript did for cross-platform, device-independent documents, Telescript aims to do for cross-platform, network-independent messaging. Telescript protects programmers from many of the complexities of network protocols.", "Teletype":"hardware, product tty A trademark for a hard-copy teletypewriter produced by Teletype Corporation.", "teletype":"teletypewriter", "teletypewriter":"hardware Nearly always abbreviated to teletype or tty An obsolete kind of terminal, with a noisy mechanical printer for output, a very limited character set, and poor print quality.", "TeleUSE":"An interface builder for Motif.", "television":"hardware A dedicated push media device for receiving streaming video and audio, either by terrestrial radio broadcast, satellite or cable.", "TELNET":"/tel'net/ 1. The Internet standard protocol for remote login. Runs on top of TCP/IP. Defined in STD 8, RFC 854 and extended with options by many other RFCs. Unix BSD networking software includes a program, telnet, which uses the protocol and acts as a terminal emulator for the remote login session. Sometimes abbreviated to TN. TOPS-10 had a similar program called IMPCOM.", "Telon":"CA-Telon", "TELOS":"1. The LeLisp Version 16 Object System. Also used in EuLisp. The object-oriented core of EuLisp.", "TELSIM":"Busch, ca 1966. Digital simulation.", "template":"text A document that contains parameters, identified by some special syntax, that are replaced by actual arguments by the template processing system. For example:", "TEMPLOG":"Extension of Prolog to handle a clausal subset of first-order temporal logic with discrete time. Proposed by M. Abadi and Z. Manna of Stanford University.", "TEMPO":"A programming language with simple syntax and semantics designed for teaching semantic and pragmatic aspects of programming languages.", "Tempo":"operating system The original code name for Mac OS version 8.", "Tempura":"Language based on temporal logic. Executing Temporal Logic Programs, B. Moszkowski, Camb U Press 1986.", "tendinitis":"overuse strain injury", "TenDRA":"language TenDRA home http://tendra.org/.", "tense":"Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes. A tense programmer is one who produces tense code.", "terabyte":"unit, data TB A unit of data equal to one trillion bytes.", "teraflop":"unit 10^12 flops.", "TERM":"1. networking A program by Michael O'Reilly michael@iinet.com.au for people running Unix who have Internet access via a dial-up connection, and who don't have access to SLIP, or PPP, or simply prefer a more lightweight protocol. TERM does end-to-end error-correction, compression and mulplexing across serial links. This means you can upload and download files as the same time you're reading your news, and can run X clients on the other side of your modem link, all without needing SLIP or PPP.", "TERMAC":"An interactive matrix language.", "termcap":"operating system terminal capabilities A Unix database listing different types of terminal or terminal emulation and the character strings to send to make the terminal perform certain functions such as move the cursor up one line or clear the screen.", "terminak":"/ter'mi-nak`/ [Caltech, ca. 1979] Any malfunctioning computer terminal. A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM 3a terminals caused the L key to produce the K code instead; complaints about this tended to look like Terminak #3 has a bad keyboard. Pkease fix. See AIDX, Nominal Semidestructor, Open DeathTrap, ScumOS, sun-stools, Telerat, HP-SUX.", "terminal":"1. hardware An electronic or electromechanical device for entering data into a computer or a communications system and displaying data received. Early terminals were called teletypes, later ones VDUs. Typically a terminal communicates with the computer via a serial line.", "terminator":"electronics A resistor connected to a signal wire in a bus or network for the purpose of impedance matching to prevent reflections.", "ternary":"programming A description of an operator taking three arguments. The only common example is C's ?: operator which is used in the form CONDITION ? EXP1 : EXP2 and returns EXP1 if CONDITION is true else EXP2. Haskell has a similar if CONDITION then EXP1 else EXP2 operator.", "terpri":"/ter'pree/ TERminate PRInt line. [LISP 1.5 and later, MacLISP] To output a newline. Still used in Common LISP. On some early operating systems and hardware, no characters would be printed until a complete line was formed, so this operation terminated the line and emitted the output.", "terrabyte":"spelling It's spelled terabyte.", "Terse":"Language for decryption of hardware logic.", "test":"testing The process of exercising a product to identify differences between expected and actual behaviour. Typically testing is bottom-up: unit testing and integration testing by developers, system testing by testers, and user acceptance testing by users.", "testing":"test", "TET":"Test Environment Toolkit project coordinated by X/Open.", "TeX":"publication /tekh/ An extremely powerful macro-based text formatter written by Donald Knuth, very popular in academia, especially in the computer-science community it is good enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other favoured formatter, even at many Unix installations.", "Texinfo":"A GNU documentation system that uses a single source file to produce both on-line information and printed output. You can read the on-line information, known as an Info file, with an Info documentation-reading program. By convention, Texinfo source file names end with a .texi or .texinfo extension.", "text":"1. Executable code, especially a pure code portion shared between multiple instances of a program running in a multitasking operating system.", "texture":"graphics A measure of the variation of the intensity of a surface, quantifying properties such as smoothness, coarseness and regularity. It's often used as a region descriptor in image analysis and computer vision.", "tf":"networking The country code for French southern territories.", "TFDL":"language [TFDL : A Task-level Dataflow Language, P.A. Suhler et al, J Parallel and Distrib Comput 9:103-115 1990].", "TFT":"Thin Film transistor", "TFTP":"Trivial File Transfer Protocol", "tg":"networking The country code for Togo.", "TGA":"Targa Graphics Adaptor", "tgz":"filename extension, compression Or less often taz, Tar GNU zip A filename extension for a file or directory which has been archived with tar and then compressed with gzip.", "th":"networking The country code for Thailand.", "THEO":"A frame language.", "theology":"1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to religious issues.", "theory":"The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that is currently being used to inform a behaviour. This usage is a generalisation and deliberate abuse of the technical meaning. What's the theory on fixing this TECO loss? What's the theory on dinner tonight? Chinatown, I guess. What's the current theory on letting lusers on during the day? The theory behind this change is to fix the following well-known screw....", "Theseus":"language A language based on Euclid, never implemented.", "thicket":"jargon Multiple files output from some operation.", "thicknet":"10base5", "ThingLab":"A simulation system written in Smalltalk-80. It solves constraints using value inference.", "thinko":"jargon /thing'koh/ Or braino, by analogy with typo A momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of consciousness.", "thinnet":"cheapernet", "thn":"thumbnail", "Thomas":"language A language compatible with the language DylanTM. Thomas is NOT DylanTM.", "thrash":"To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of core rather than performing useful computation and are therefore said to thrash. Thrashing can also occur in a cache due to cache conflict or in a multiprocessor see ping-pong.", "thrashing":"thrash", "thread":"1. See multithreading.", "threaded":"thread", "threading":"thread", "throughput":"1. The rate at which a processor can work expressed in instructions per second or jobs per hour or some other unit of performance.", "thud":"1. Yet another metasyntactic variable see foo. It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of these was foo, bar, thud, blat.", "Thumb":"processor An extension to the Advanced RISC Machine architecture, announced on 06 March 1995 by Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. By identifying the critical subset of the ARM instruction set and encoding it into 16 bits, ARM has succeeded in reducing typical program size by 30-40% from ARM's already excellent code density. Since this Thumb instruction set uses less memory for program storage, cost is further reduced.", "thumb":"jargon The slider or bubble on a window system scrollbar. So called because moving it allows you to browse through the contents of a text window in a way analogous to thumbing through a book.", "thumbnail":"file format, graphics From thumbnail sketch A file format used by Graphics Workshop for Microsoft Windows.", "Thunderbird":"messaging, open source A complete free, open-source e-mail client from the Mozilla Foundation and therefore a true code descendent of the e-mail code in Netscape Navigator. The first non-beta release was in late 2004.", "thunk":"programming /thuhnk/ 1. A piece of coding which provides an address, according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal definitions in ALGOL 60 procedure calls. If a procedure is called with an expression in the place of a formal parameter, the compiler generates a thunk which computes the expression and leaves the address of the result in some standard location.", "TIA":"1. chat Thanks in advance.", "tick":"1. A jiffy sense 1. 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often pejoratively referred to as tick-tick-tick simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, independent chains of causes is handwaved. 3. In the FORTH language, a single quote character.", "TickIT":"A software industry quality assessment scheme.", "Tickle":"text, tool A text editor, file translator and TCL interpreter for the Macintosh.", "TIFF":"Tagged Image File Format", "tilde":"character ~ ASCII character 126.", "timeout":"A period of time after which an error condition is raised if some event has not occured. A common example is sending a message. If the receiver does not acknowledge the message within some preset timeout period, a transmission error is assumed to have occured.", "TINC":"There Is No Cabal", "Tinman":"language The third of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada. Written by HOLWG, DoD, Jan 1976.", "TINT":"Interpreted version of JOVIAL.", "tint":"hue", "Tiny":"1. A language which provides concurrency through message-passing to named message queues.", "TIP":"1. Texas Instruments Pascal.", "TIPL":"1. Teach IPL. An interpretive IPL teaching system.", "tj":"networking The country code for Tajikistan.", "Tk":"programming, graphics A GUI library, generally used with TCL by John Ousterhout, but also available from within C or Perl. Tk is available for X Window System, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Tk looks very similar to Motif.", "tk":"networking The country code for Tokelau.", "TLA":"three-letter acronym", "TLAs":"jargon As of 2014-08-14, this dictionary included 1285 three-letter acronyms, which is 7% of the 26^3 = 17576 possible.", "TLB":"Translation Look-aside Buffer", "TLD":"top-level domain", "TLI":"Transport Layer Interface", "TLS":"Transport Layer Security protocol", "TM":"1. Turing Machine.", "tm":"networking The country code for Turkmenistan.", "TMDL":"Target-Machine Description Language", "TMG":"TransMoGrifier.", "TMRC":"/tmerk'/ The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary see especially foo, mung, and frob.", "TMRCie":"/tmerk'ee/, MIT A denizen of TMRC.", "tn":"networking The country code for Tunisia.", "TNC":"hardware A threaded version of a BNC.", "TNSTAAFL":"TANSTAAFL", "TNX":"chat Thanks. Also TNX 1.0E6 or TNXE6 - thanks a million.", "to":"networking The country code for Tonga.", "toast":"jargon 1. Any completely inoperable system or component, especially one that has just crashed and burned: Uh, oh ... I think the serial board is toast.", "toaster":"jargon 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology but see elevator controller. DWIM for an assembler? That'd be as silly as running Unix on your toaster!", "toasternet":"networking 1. A low cost, low tech, publicly accessible local community network. This is probably an extension of the term toaster used to mean a small, cheap, slow computer.", "toggle":"To change a bit from whatever state it is in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from toggle switches, such as standard light switches, though the word toggle actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two positions. There are four things you can do to a bit: set it force it to be 1, clear or zero it, leave it alone, or toggle it.", "TOK":"Referred to in Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home. Seems to be similar to the original BASIC.", "token":"1. grammar A basic, grammatically indivisible unit of a language such as a keyword, operator or identifier.", "TomeRaider":"application, file format A cross-platform reference and e-book reader program and file format. TomeRaider files are highly compressed and cross-referenced. The reader displays the text and can follow the hypertext links embedded in the text.", "tone":"brightness", "tool":"1. tool A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify, or analyse other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a cross-referencing program. Opposite: app, operating system.", "toolbar":"operating system A common graphical user interface component, consisting of a permanently visible row of button icons that, when clicked with the mouse, cause the program to perform some action such as printing the current document or changing the mode of operation.", "toolbook":"tool A Microsoft Windows utility to make easy-to-use applications with a graphical user interface. E.g. a guided tour of some software.", "Toolbuilder":"Tool Builder Kit", "TOOLS":"Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems", "toolsmith":"The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who specialises in making the tools with which other programmers create applications. Many hackers consider this more fun than applications per se; to understand why, see uninteresting.", "TOP":"Technical/Office Protocol", "topology":"1. mathematics The branch of mathematics dealing with continuous transformations.", "Tornado":"programming The software development environment previously distributed with VxWorks.", "torrent":"BitTorrent", "TORTOS":"Terminal Oriented Real Time Operating System", "TOS":"operating system /toss/", "TOSS":"Terminal Oriented Social Science", "toto":"programming /toh-toh'/ The default scratch file name among French-speaking programmers; the French equivalent of foo.", "touchpad":"hardware Or trackpad A stationary pointing device used mainly on laptop computers. Touchpads provide a small, flat surface that you slide your finger over using the same movements as you would a mouse. They were originally developed to provide a more natural and intuitive connection for the computer user than the mouse.", "tourist":"jargon A guest on the system, especially one who generally logs in over a network from a remote location for comm mode, electronic mail, games and other trivial purposes. A tourist is one step below a luser.", "toy":"A computer system; always used with qualifiers.", "tp":"networking The country code for East Timor.", "TPA":"Transient Program Area", "TPF":"Transaction Processing Facility", "TPL":"1. Table Producing Language. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Table Producing Language TPL, R.C. Mendelssohn, Proc ACM Annual Conf 1974.", "TPO":"twisted pair only", "TPS":"Tree Pruning System. An Adaptive Tree Pruning System: A Language for Programming Heuristic Tree Searches, E.W. Kozdrowicki, Proc ACM 23rd Natl Conf 1968.", "tptc":"A Turbo Pascal to Turbo C translator. Comes with full source.", "TPU":"Text Processing Utility", "TPX":"Terminal Productivity eXecutive", "tr":"networking The country code for Turkey.", "TRAC":"Text Reckoning And Compiling", "traceroute":"networking A TCP/IP utility, originally Unix, which allows the user to determine the route packets are taking to a particular host. Traceroute works by increasing the time to live value of packets and seeing how far they get, until they reach the given destination; thus, a lengthening trail of hosts passed through is built up.", "track":"storage The part of a disk which passes under one read/write head while the head is stationary. The number of tracks on a disk surface therefore corresponds to the number of different radial positions of the heads. The collection of all tracks on all surfaces at a given radial position is known a cylinder and each track is divided into sectors.", "tracking":"text The horizontal spacing between characters in a line of text. Tracking is set when a font is designed but can often be altered in order to change the appearance of the text or for special effects. It applies to both proportional fonts and monospaced fonts.", "trackpad":"touchpad", "TrackPoint":"hardware Or pointing stick, nipple A small knob found in the middle of some keyboards that works like a very short isometric joystick. Pressing it toward or away from you or from side to side moves the pointer on the screen. Ted Selker brought the concept of an in-keyboard pointing device to IBM in September 1987. TrackPoint was introduced in 1992 on the IBM ThinkPad and later on some desktops.", "TrafoLa":"language A functional programming language designed in the PROSPECTRA ESPRIT project to support declarative specification of program transformations. It provides higher-order pattern matching on expression trees with backtracking.", "trampoline":"An incredibly hairy technique, found in some HLL and program-overlay implementations e.g. on the Macintosh, that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable and, likely as not, self-modifying code objects to do indirection between code sections. These pieces of live data are called trampolines. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true trampoline. See also snap.", "TRANDIR":"TRANslation DIRector. A language for syntax-directed compiling. Sammet 1969, p.640.", "TRANQUIL":"1966. ALGOL-like language with sets and other extensions, for the Illiac IV. TRANQUIL: A Language for an Array Processing Computer, N.E. Abel et al, Proc SJCC 34 1969.", "TRANS":"TRAffic Network Simulation Language. A Model for Traffic Simulation and a Simulation Language for the General Transportation Problem, Proc FJCC 37 1970.", "transaction":"A unit of interaction with a DBMS or similar system. It must be treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions. See atomic.", "transceiver":"networking Transmitter-receiver, any device that performs both functions.", "TRANSCODE":"language An early system on the Ferut computer.", "transducer":"1. A device for converting sound, temperature, pressure, light or other signals to or from an electronic signal.", "transfer":"1. data data transfer.", "transformation":"program transformation", "transient":"1. electronics A sudden, brief increase in current or voltage in a circuit that can damage sensitive components and instruments.", "transistor":"electronics A three terminal semiconductor amplifying device, the fundamental component of most active electronic circuits, including digital electronics. The transistor was invented on 1947-12-23 at Bell Labs.", "TRANSIT":"language A subsystem of ICES.", "transitive":"A relation R is transitive if x R y & y R z = x R z.", "transparent":"1. jargon Not visible, hidden; said of a system which functions in a manner not evident to the user. For example, the Domain Name System transparently resolves a fully qualified domain name into an IP address without the user being aware of it.", "transputer":"processor, parallel Note lower case A family of microprocessors from Inmos with interprocessor links, programmable in occam.", "trap":"1. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.", "trash":"To destroy, e.g. the contents of a data structure. The most common of the family of near-synonyms including mung, mangle, and scribble.", "traversal":"data Processing nodes in a graph one at a time, usually in some specified order. Traversal of a tree is recursively defined to mean visiting the root node and traversing its children. Visiting a node usually involves transforming it in some way or collecting data from it.", "traverse":"traversal", "trawl":"To sift through large volumes of data e.g. Usenet postings, FTP archives, or the Jargon File looking for something of interest.", "tree":"mathematics, data A directed acyclic graph; i.e. a graph wherein there is only one route between any pair of nodes, and there is a notion of toward top of the tree i.e. the root node, and its opposite direction, toward the leaves.", "TREET":"E.C. Haines, 1964. An experimental variant of LISP1.5, implemented on the STRETCH computer. Basic structure was a trinary tree.", "TREETRAN":"A Fortran IV subroutine package for tree manipulation.", "treeware":"jargon /tree'weir/ Printouts, books, documentation, and other information media made from pulped dead trees by a tree-killer.", "Trellis":"1. An object-oriented language from the University of Karlsruhe? with static type-checking and encapsulation.", "Trident":"company A video card manufacturer.", "trigger":"database An action causing the automatic invocation of a procedure, for instance to preserve referential integrity.", "TRIGMAN":"A system for symbolic mathematics, especially celestial mechanics.", "trillion":"mathematics In Britain, France, and Germany, 10^18 or a million cubed.", "Trilogy":"language A strongly typed logic programming language with numerical constraint-solving over the natural numbers, developed by Paul Voda voda@voda.ii.fmph.uniba.sk at UBC in 1988. Trilogy is syntactically a blend of Prolog, Lisp, and Pascal. It contains three types of clauses: predicates backtracking but no assignable variables, procedures if-then-else but no backtracking; assignable variables, and subroutines like procedures, but with input and system calls; callable only from top level or from other subroutines.", "trit":"unit /trit/ By analogy with bit One base-3 digit; the amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three equally likely outcomes. Trits arise, for example, in the context of a flag that should actually be able to assume *three* values - such as yes, no, or unknown. Trits are sometimes jokingly called 3-state bits. A trit may be semi-seriously referred to as a bit and a half, although it is linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits that is, log23 bits.", "Triton":"processor Intel's Pentium core logic chip set. In addition to the traditional features, this chip set supports: EDO DRAM to increase the bandwidth of the DRAM interface; pipelined burst SRAM for a cheaper, faster second level cache; bus master IDE control logic to reduce processor load; a plug and play port for easy implementation of functions such as audio.", "TRO":"tail recursion optimisation", "troff":"text, tool /T'rof/ or /trof/ The grey eminence of Unix text processing; a formatting and phototypesetting program, written originally in PDP-11 assembly code and then in barely-structured early C by the late Joseph Ossanna, modelled after the earlier ROFF which was in turn modelled after Multics' RUNOFF by Jerome Saltzer *that* name came from the expression to run off a copy. A companion program, nroff, formats output for terminals and line printers.", "troglodyte":"jargon Commodore 1. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle.", "trojan":"Trojan horse", "TROLL":"An array language for continuous simulation, econometric modelling or statistical analysis.", "troll":"An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other electronic communication which is intentionally incorrect, but not overtly controversial compare flame bait, or the act of sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key. A really subtle troll makes some people lose their minds.", "TRON":"1. project The Real-Time Operating System Nucleus.", "tron":"jargon NRL, CMU, probably from the film Tron To become inaccessible except via electronic mail or talk especially when one is normally available via telephone or in person.", "TRS":"term rewriting system", "TRUENAME":"operating system An undocumented DOS command to find the UNC name of a file or directory on a network drive.", "TrueType":"text, standard An outline font standard first developed by Apple Computer, and later embraced by Microsoft, as a competitor to Adobe Systems, Inc.'s PostScript which is still more popular.", "Trumpet":"A news reader for Microsoft Windows, using the WinSock library. There is also an MS-DOS version. Trumpet is shareware from Australia.", "TRUSIX":"TRUSted Unix operating system", "TS":"Typed Smalltalk.", "TSAP":"Transport Service Access Point", "TSEE":"Technical and Engineering Environment: part of the RTEE toolset.", "TSIA":"messaging Title Says It All. Something to put in the body of a electronic mail message or bulletin board posting when no body is really necessary because the title or subject header contains the whole message.", "Tsim":"Time Simulator", "TSO":"Time Sharing Option", "TSP":"travelling salesman problem", "TSR":"Terminate and Stay Resident", "TSV":"tab-separated values", "tt":"networking The country code for Trinidad and Tobago.", "TTD":"Telecommunications Device for the Deaf", "TTFN":"chat ta-ta for now - goodbye for now. Used in the UK, USA and probably elsewhere.", "TTL":"1. transistor-transistor logic.", "TTS":"Text To Speech", "tty":"hardware /tit'ee/ ITS pronunciation, but some Unix people say it this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have sexual undertones, /T T Y/", "TTYL":"chat talk to you later.", "TUB":"Technische Universita't Berlin. Berlin technical university.", "TUBA":"networking, protocol An Internet protocol, described in RFC 1347, RFC 1526 and RFC 1561, and based on the OSI Connectionless Network Protocol CNLP.", "tube":"1. hardware A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckler movie.", "Tuckals":"An old statistical package still in use on some VM computers.", "TUI":"interface", "Tuki":"An intermediate code for functional languages. Another Implementation Technique for Applicative Languages, H. Glaser et al, ESOP86, LNCS 213, Springer 1986.", "tunafish":"humour, operating system In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the manual pages of tunefs8 in the original 4.2BSD distribution. The joke was removed in later releases once commercial sites started using 4.2. Tunefs relates to the tuning of file-system parameters for optimum performance, and at the bottom of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a BUGS section consisting of the line You can tune a file system, but you can't tunafish. Variants of this can be seen in other BSD versions, though it has been excised from some versions by humourless management droids. The [nt]roff source for SunOS 4.1.1 contains a comment apparently designed to prevent this: Take this out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from now until the time_t's wrap around.", "tune":"jargon From musical, possibly via automotive, usage To optimise a program or system for a particular environment, especially by adjusting numerical parameters designed as hooks for tuning, e.g. by changing #define lines in C.", "tunneling":"spelling US spelling of tunnelling.", "tunnelling":"networking US: tunneling A networking technique used to carry data encoded in one protocol, A, over a channel using another protocol, B. Protocol A is said to be encapsulated in protocol B and treats B as though it were a data link layer.", "TUPLE":"Toyohashi University Parallel Lisp Environment", "tuple":"programming In functional languages, a data object containing two or more components. Also known as a product type or pair, triple, quad, etc. Tuples of different sizes have different types, in contrast to lists where the type is independent of the length. The components of a tuple may be of different types whereas all elements of a list have the same type.", "tupling":"A program transformation where several results are returned from a single traversal of a data structure. E.g.", "Turing":"1. Alan Turing.", "Turingol":"language A high-level language for programming Turing Machines by Donald Knuth. It was the subject of the first construction of a nontrivial attribute grammar.", "turist":"/too'rist/ Variant spelling of tourist. Possibly influenced by luser and Turing.", "TURN":"messaging, protocol An SMTP command with which a client asks the server to open an SMTP connection to the client, thus reversing their roles.", "TUTOR":"A Scripting language on PLATO systems from CDC.", "Tuxedo":"database, networking Cross-platform distributed transaction monitor middleware marketed by BEA systems.", "TV":"television", "tv":"networking The country code for Tuvalu.", "tw":"networking The country code for Taiwan.", "TWAIN":"graphics, standard An image capture API for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems that enables the user to control a scanner or digital camera from image processing software.", "tweak":"1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value. Also used synonymously with twiddle. If a program is almost correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you might just keep tweaking it until it works. See frobnicate and fudge factor; also see shotgun debugging.", "tweening":"graphics An interpolation technique where an animation program generates extra frames between the key frames that the user has created. This gives smoother animation without the user having to draw every frame.", "tweeter":"woofer", "TWENEX":"operating system /twe'neks/ The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC - the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 - preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 that is, by those who were not ITS or WAITS partisans. TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own.", "Twentel":"A functional language.", "twiddle":"1. character The tilde character.", "TWIG":"Tree-Walking Instruction Generator.", "twink":"/twink/ [UCSC] Equivalent to read-only user. Also reported on the Usenet group soc.motss; may derive from gay slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs compare mainstream chick.", "twinning":"storage Keeping a mirror of a magnetic tape.", "twip":"unit, graphics TWentIeth of a Point 1/20 of a Postscript point, or 1/1440th of an inch. There are thus 1440 twips to an inch or about 567 twips to a centimeter.", "Twitter":"messaging A free Internet service for posting short messages, known as tweets, via a central server, which are then sent to all users who have chosen to follow you or to a specific user. A variety of client programs are available in addition to the website. Launched in about 2008.", "twm":"Tab Window Manager.", "twonkie":"/twon'kee/ The software equivalent of a Twinkie a variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or in gay slang the male equivalent of chick; a useless feature added to look sexy and placate a marketroid.", "TXL":"Tree Transformation Language", "TYMNET":"networking, history A United States-wide commercial computer network, created by Tymshare, Inc. some time before 1970, and used for remote login and file transfer. The network public went live in November 1971.", "type":"theory, programming Or data type A set of values from which a variable, constant, function, or other expression may take its value. A type is a classification of data that tells the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to use it. For example, the process and result of adding two variables differs greatly according to whether they are integers, floating point numbers, or strings.", "TypedProlog":"language A strongly typed logic programming language.", "typeface":"text The style or design of a font. Other independent parameters are size, boldness thickness of lines, and obliqueness a sheer transformation applied to the characters, not to be confused with a specifically designed italic font.", "typo":"typographical error", "typography":"text Arranging the characters in a peice of text to make it readable and appealing when displayed. Typography involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing and kerning.", "TYPOL":"language A specialised logic programming language.", "tyt":"chat Take your time.", "TZ":"operating system The Unix environment variable containing the current time zone identifier, e.g. GMT, EST.", "tz":"networking The country code for Tanzania.", "ua":"networking The country code for the Ukraine.", "UAN":"User Action Notation. A notation from VPI for representation of activity in a graphical user interface.", "UART":"Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter", "UAT":"User Acceptance Testing", "UAW":"spelling Misspelling of IAW?", "UBASIC":"Yuji Kida kida@rkmath.rikkyo.ac.jp.", "UBD":"User Brain Damage", "UCB":"University of California at Berkeley", "UCHO":"audio, software Polish for ear A program by Stanislaw Raczynski for analysing wav audio files to determine which musical notes are sounding at each instant. UCHO can output the results as a MIDI file.", "UCP":"Universal Computer Protocol", "UCS":"Universal Character Set", "UCX":"Universal Communications X", "udb":"Universal Debugger", "UDDI":"Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration", "UDF":"Universal Disk Format", "UDMA":"ATA-4", "UDP":"User Datagram Protocol", "uemacs":"MicroEmacs. u looks a bit like the Greek letter micro.", "UFO":"language United Functions and Objects A hybrid functional and object-oriented language designed by John Seargant at Manchester University for general-purpose parallel computation.", "ug":"networking The country code for Uganda.", "UGLIAC":"language An early system on the Datatron 200 series.", "UHELP":"A linear programming system.", "UI":"1. user interface.", "uid":"programming, database", "UIDL":"Unique ID Listing", "UIL":"User Interface Language", "UIMS":"User Interface Management System: a system supporting the development and execution of user interfaces, usually on top of windowing systems.", "UIMX":"An interface builder for Motif from Visual Edge.", "UIS":"graphics, programming A VMS graphics programming interface package for VAXstations.", "uk":"networking The country code for United Kingdom.", "UKC":"University of Kent at Canterbury", "UKERNA":"United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association", "ULCC":"University of London Computing Centre", "ULP":"1. language A small structured language for use on microprocessors.", "Ultrix":"operating system A version of Unix based on the Berkeley version, designed and implemented by DEC to run on their VAX and DECstation processors.", "um":"networking The country code for United States minor outlying islands.", "UMB":"1. Upper Memory Block.", "UMDL":"University of Michigan Digital Library Project", "UML":"Unified Modeling Language", "uML":"Micro ML", "UMTS":"Universal Mobile Telecommunications System", "unary":"1. programming or monadic A description of a function or operator which takes one argument, e.g. the unary minus operator which negates its argument. The term is part of the same sequence as nullary and binary.", "UNC":"Universal Naming Convention", "UNCL":"Universal Naming Code Locater", "UNCOL":"UNiversal Computer Oriented Language. A universal intermediate language, discussed but never implemented.", "uncompression":"compression", "uncountable":"countable", "uncurry":"uncurrying", "uncurrying":"programming Transforming a curried function of the form f x y z = ... to one of the form f x, y, z = ... , i.e. all arguments are passed as one tuple.", "undefined":"programming The value of a variable that has not been set or a function that does not return anything. In some programming languages, e.g. Perl, JavaScript, undefined is a named constant that can be used to explicitly set a variable or return undefined or can be passed as an actual argument. Other languages, e.g. Java, call it null, but note that the null in relational database programming is subtly different.", "underflow":"programming or floating point underflow, floating underflow, after overflow A condition that can occur when the result of a floating-point operation would be smaller in magnitude closer to zero, either positive or negative than the smallest quantity representable. Underflow is actually negative overflow of the exponent of the floating point quantity. For example, an eight-bit twos complement exponent can represent multipliers of 2^-128 to 2^127. A result less than 2^-128 would cause underflow.", "Undernet":"networking An Internet Relay Chat network dating from the 1990s, when it broke away from the main still larger IRC network, EFNet.", "underscore":"character _, ASCII 95.", "unfold":"inline", "UNI":"1. standard, body Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione.", "unicast":"networking Sending packets to a single destination, used in contrast to broadcast or multicast. The term is generally only used when talking about low level communications, typically at the network layer, e.g. Internet Protocol.", "Unicode":"1. character A 16-bit character set standard, designed and maintained by the non-profit consortium Unicode Inc.", "UniCOMAL":"COMmon Algorithmic Language", "Unicorny":"humour, programming A feature that's so early in the planning stages that it might as well be imaginary.", "unicos":"A Unix variant for Cray computers.", "Uniface":"1. database, programming, product A 4GL development environment and system integration tool marketed by Compuware. Uniface is database independent, with interfaces to more than 14 database management systems and file retrieval systems including DB2, IMS, SQL Server, Oracle, RDB, Sybase. It is currently supported on MS Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, various Unix flavours, Linux, OpenVMS, IBM iSeries AS/400, IBM zSeries MVS and various web servers. Uniface can integrate with SAP, COM, Java, BEA Tuxedo, CICS, and various CORBA implementations.", "unification":"programming The generalisation of pattern matching that is the logic programming equivalent of instantiation in logic. When two terms are to be unified, they are compared. If they are both constants then the result of unification is success if they are equal else failure. If one is a variable then it is bound to the other, which may be any term which satisfies an occurs check, and the unification succeeds. If both terms are structures then each pair of sub-terms is unified recursively and the unification succeeds if all the sub-terms unify.", "unifier":"The unifier of a set of expressions is a set of substitutions of terms for variables such that the expressions are all equal.", "UNIFORM":"An intermediate language developed for reverse engineering both COBOL and Fortran.", "Unify":"database, product A relational database produced by Unify Corporation.", "unify":"algorithm To perform unification.", "Unihan":"Han character", "uninstaller":"operating system A utility program to remove another application program from a computer's disks.", "uninteresting":"jargon 1. Said of a problem that, although nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it.", "union":"1. theory An operation on two sets which returns the set of all elements that are a member of either or both of the sets; normally written as an infix upper-case U symbol. The operator generalises to zero or more sets by taking the union of the current partial result initially the empty set with the next argument set, in any order.", "uniprocessor":"processor From uni - one A computer with a single central processing unit, in contrast to a parallel processor. Most personal computers are currently March 1997 uniprocessors. Some more expensive computers, typically servers, have multiple processors to provide increased throughput.", "UNIQUE":"language A portable job control language.", "UNISAP":"An early system on UNIVAC I or II.", "UNITY":"A high-level parallel language.", "Univac":"processor, company A brand of computer.", "Unix":"operating system /yoo'niks/ Or UNIX, in the authors' words, A weak pun on Multics Plural Unices. An interactive time-sharing operating system invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his scavenged PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C, is considered a co-author of the system.", "Unixism":"operating system, jargon A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multitasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory Unix systems.", "UnixWare":"operating system Novell's implementation of Unix System 5 heavily based on Release 4.2 but with enhancements and new bundled products.", "Unlicense":"legal A template for dedicating software to the public domain. It combines a copyright waiver like that of the SQLite project with the no-warranty statement from the MIT/X11 license.", "unnormalised":"normalisation", "unproto":"A translator from ANSI C to K&R C by Wietse Venema wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl.", "unshar":"A Unix utility that removes e-mail and news header lines from its input, and feeds the remainder which is presumed to be a shar file to /bin/sh to unpack it. unshar is designed for unpacking archives directly from the news or mail systems simply by piping a message into it.", "unswizzle":"The opposite of swizzle.", "until":"while loop", "untyped":"programming A variable which can hold values of any type or a programming language in which some or all variables are like this.", "unzip":"1. tool, compression To extract files from an archive created with PKWare's PKZIP archiver.", "up":"jargon Working, in order. E.g. The down escalator is up.", "uparrow":"character The graphic which the 1963 version of ASCII had in place of the caret character, ASCII 94.", "UPenn":"University of Pennsylvania", "upgradability":"jargon Or upgradeability How easily upgrades to a system can be produced and applied. E.g. Buying a PC with more PCI slots gives you increased upgradeability.", "upgrade":"1. A new or better version of some hardware or software.", "upgradeability":"upgradability", "upload":"/uhp'lohd/ To transfer programs or data over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral client system to a larger or central host one.", "UPS":"1. uninterruptible power supply.", "upstream":"networking Fewer network hops away from a backbone or hub. For example, a small ISP that connects to the Internet through a larger ISP that has their own connection to the backbone is downstream from the larger ISP, and the larger ISP is upstream from the smaller ISP.", "upthread":"Earlier in the discussion see thread, i.e. above. See also followup.", "Uranus":"Hideyuki Nakashima nakashim@el.go.jp, 1993. A logic-based knowledge representation language. An extension of Prolog written in Common Lisp, with Lisp-like syntax. Extends Prolog with a multiple world mechanism, plus term descriptions to provide functional programming.", "URC":"Uniform Resource Citation previously Universal.", "urchin":"munchkin", "URI":"Universal Resource Identifier", "URL":"Uniform Resource Locator", "URN":"Uniform Resource Name", "URouLette":"After URL and roulette, the gambling game A World-Wide Web service which selects other web pages at random.", "US":"Unit Separator", "us":"networking The country code for the United States.", "usability":"programming The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn and remember; efficient, visually pleasing and fun to use; and quick to recover from errors.", "USAModSim":"language United States Army ModSim compiler.", "USB":"1. architecture Universal Serial Bus.", "USE":"language An early system on the IBM 1130.", "Usenet":"messaging /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ Or Usenet news, from Users' Network A distributed bulletin board system and the people who post and read articles thereon. Originally implemented in 1979 - 1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott and Steve Daniel at Duke University, and supported mainly by Unix machines, it swiftly grew to become international in scope and, before the advent of the web, probably the largest decentralised information utility in existence.", "Usenetter":"networking A regular user of Usenet.", "USENIX":"body Since 1975, the USENIX Association has provided a forum for the communication of the results of innovation and research in Unix and modern open systems. It is well known for its technical conferences, tutorial programs, and the wide variety of publications it has sponsored over the years.", "user":"1. person Someone doing real work with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions without thinking for two seconds or looking in the documentation. Someone who uses a program, however skillfully, without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports bugs instead of just fixing them. See also luser, real user.", "usim":"simulation A Motorola 6809 emulator and assembler.", "USL":"1. Query language, close to natural English.", "USP":"unique sales point", "USR":"U.S. Robotics, Inc.", "usr":"User. The /usr directory hierarchy on Unix systems. Once upon a time, in the early days of Unix, this area actually held users' home directories and files. Since these tend to expand much faster than system files, /usr would be mounted on the biggest disk on the system. The root directory, / in contrast, contains only what is needed to boot the kernel, after which /usr and other disks could be mounted as part of the multi-user start-up process.", "USSA":"Object-oriented state language by B. Burshteyn, Pyramid, 1992.", "UTC":"Coordinated Universal Time", "UTF":"UCS transformation format", "utility":"utility software", "UTOPIST":"language A specification language for attribute grammars developed by E. Tyugu of the Academy of Science Estonia, Tallinn in 1983.", "UTP":"unshielded twisted pair", "UTRC":"United Technologies Research Cente", "UTSL":"Use the Source Luke", "uucp":"Unix to Unix Copy", "UUCPNET":"The international store and forward network consisting of all the world's connected Unix machines and others running some clone of the UUCP software. Any machine reachable only via a bang path is on UUCPNET. See network address.", "uudecode":"A Unix program to convert the ASCII output of uuencode back to binary. See uuencode for details.", "uuencode":"communications Unix-to-Unix encode A Unix program for encoding binary data as ASCII. Uuencode was originally used with uucp to transfer binary files over serial lines which did not preserve the top bit of characters, but is now used for sending binary files by e-mail and posting to Usenet newsgroups etc. The program uudecode reverses the effect of uuencode, recreating the original binary file exactly.", "UUPC":"UUCP for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and OS/2.", "UX":"user experience", "uy":"networking The country code for Uruguay.", "uz":"networking The country code for Uzbekistan.", "V":"Upper case V, ASCII character 86, known in INTERCAL as book.", "va":"networking The country code for the Vatican.", "vadding":"games /vad'ing/ From VAD, a permutation of ADV, i.e. ADVENT, used to avoid a particular admin's continual search-and-destroy sweeps for the game A leisure-time activity of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the secret parts of large buildings - basements, roofs, freight elevators, maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like. A few go so far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesise vadding keys. The verb is to vad compare phreaking; see also hack, sense 9. This term dates from the late 1970s, before which such activity was simply called hacking; the older usage is still prevalent at MIT.", "VAL":"1. Value-oriented Algorithmic Language. J.B. Dennis, MIT 1979. Single assignment language, designed for MIT dataflow machine. Based on CLU, has iteration and error handling, lacking in recursion and I/O. A Value- Oriented Algorithmic Language, W.B. Ackermann et al, MIT LCS TR-218, June 1979.", "valency":"degree", "Valid":"A dataflow language.", "validation":"The stage in the software life-cycle at the end of the development process where software is evaluated to ensure that it complies with the requirements.", "value":"brightness", "valve":"electronics UK term for a vacuum tube.", "VAN":"Value Added Network", "vanilla":"1. Default flavour of ice cream in the US Ordinary flavour, standard. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavoured with vanilla extract! For example, vanilla wonton soup means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and software, as in Vanilla Version 7 Unix can't run on a vanilla PDP 11/34. Also used to orthogonalise chip nomenclature; for instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from a 74LS00, etc. This word differs from canonical in that the latter means default, whereas vanilla simply means ordinary. For example, when hackers go to a chinese restaurant, hot-and-sour wonton soup is the canonical wonton soup to get because that is what most of them usually order even though it isn't the vanilla wonton soup.", "vannevar":"jargon /van'*-var/ A bogus technological prediction or a foredoomed engineering concept, especially one that fails by implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly, incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are common, and competition is the rule. The prototype was Vannevar Bush's prediction of electronic brains the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for their tubes and relays, a prediction made at a time when the semiconductor effect had already been demonstrated. Other famous vannevars have included magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines, videotex, and a paper from the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal density for integrated circuits that was in fact less than the routine densities of 5 years later.", "vaporware":"jargon /vay'pr-weir/ UK vapourware Products announced far in advance of any release which may or may not actually take place. The term came from Atari users and was later applied by Infoworld to Microsoft's continuous lying about Microsoft Windows.", "vapourware":"spelling UK spelling of vaporware.", "VAR":"Value Added Reseller or retailer.", "var":"variable", "varchar":"database A database data type for storing variable-length strings of ASCII data. The amount of storage space used depends on the length of the strings, in contrast to the ordinary char type. The maximum length of string must still be specified, e.g. varchar256.", "variable":"programming Sometimes var /veir/ or /var/ A named memory location in which a program can store intermediate results and from which it can read it them. Each programming language has different rules about how variables can be named, typed, and used. Typically, a value is assigned to a variable in an assignment statement. The value is obtained by evaluating an expression and then stored in the variable. For example, the assignment", "VAX":"computer /vaks/ Virtual Address eXtension The most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11. Between its release in 1978 and its eclipse by killer micros after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favourite machine, especially after the 1982 release of 4.2BSD Unix.", "VAXectomy":"jargon /vak-sek't*-mee/ By analogy with vasectomy Removal of a VAX. DEC's Microvaxen, especially, are much slower than newer RISC-based workstations such as the SPARC. Thus, if one knows one has a replacement coming, VAX removal can be cause for celebration.", "VAXen":"/vak'sn/ From oxen, perhaps influenced by vixen The plural canonically used among hackers for the DEC VAX computers. Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty vaxen.", "vaxherd":"/vaks'herd/ [oxherd] An operator who tends one or more VAXen.", "vaxism":"/vak'sizm/ A piece of code that exhibits vaxocentrism in critical areas. Compare PC-ism, Unixism.", "vaxocentrism":"/vaksoh-sentrizm/ [analogy with ethnocentrism] A notional disease said to afflict C programmers who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are valid especially under Unix on VAXen but false elsewhere. Among these are:", "VAXset":"A set of software development tools from DEC, including a language-sensitive editor, compilers etc.", "VAXstation":"A family of workstations from DEC based on their VAX computer architecture.", "VB":"Visual BASIC", "VBA":"Visual Basic for Applications", "vbell":"visible bell", "VBScript":"Visual BASIC Script", "vbx":"filename extension The filename extension for Visual Basic Extension.", "vc":"networking The country code for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.", "VCD":"Video Compact Disc", "VCID":"Virtual Circuit Identifier", "VCL":"Visual Component Library", "VCODE":"1. The intermediate language used in the compilation of NESL.", "VCPI":"Virtual Control Program Interface", "VCR":"Video Cassette Recorder", "vdiff":"/vee'dif/ Visual diff. The operation of finding differences between two files by eyeball search. The term optical diff has also been reported, and is sometimes more specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot differences. Though this method is poor for detecting omissions in the rear file, it can also be used with printouts of graphics, a claim few if any diff programs can make. See diff.", "VDL":"Vienna Definition Language", "VDM":"1. Vienna Definition Method", "VDSL":"Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line", "VDT":"video display terminal", "VDU":"Visual Display Unit", "vdx":"virtual network bios driver", "ve":"networking The country code for Venezuela.", "vector":"1. mathematics A member of a vector space.", "VECTRAN":"language Fortran with array extensions.", "VEE":"HP VEE", "veeblefeetzer":"veeblefetzer", "veeblefester":"jargon, abuse /vee'b*l-festr/ From Born Loser comix via Commodore; probably originally from Mad Magazine's Veeblefeetzer parodies ca. 1960 Any obnoxious person engaged in the alleged professions of marketing or management.", "veeblefetzer":"jargon /vee'b*l-fetz'*/ Or veeblefeetzer? A purposely nonsensical sounding word applied to any sort of obscure or complicated object, e.g. a piece of computer code, model railroad equipment, auto parts, etc.", "VEL":"LISP70", "verbage":"spelling, jargon /ver'b*j/ Speech or writing with an excess of words or of obscure words.", "verbiage":"jargon documentation, especially documentation that is verbose and/or obscure as in the common meaning of the term.", "Verdi":"named after the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901 Provable systems language. Descendant of Ottawa Euclid.", "verification":"The process of determining whether or not the products of a given phase in the life-cycle fulfil a set of established requirements.", "Verilog":"language A Hardware Description Language for electronic design and gate level simulation by Cadence Design Systems.", "Veronica":"information science Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives. Veronica offers a keyword search of most gopher menu titles in the entire gopher web. As archie is to FTP archives, Veronica is to Gopherspace.", "version":"programming One of a sequence of copies of a program, each incorporating new modifications. Each version is usually identified by a number, commonly of the form X.Y where X is the major version number and Y is the release number.", "VESA":"Video Electronics Standards Association", "VESPA":"Very Efficient Speculative Parallel Architecture", "VFAT":"operating system A standard developed by Microsoft to enable long file names on standard FAT partitions. VFAT suffers from all the drawbacks of FAT and adds more problems but moving to it is very easy.", "vg":"networking The country code for the British Virgin Islands.", "VGA":"hardware Video Graphics Array not Adapter.", "VGQF":"A query language.", "vgrep":"jargon /vee'grep/ Or optical grep Visual grep.", "VGX":"Variational Graphics eXtended", "VHDL":"Very High Speed Integrated Circuit VHSIC Hardware Description Language. A large high-level VLSI design language with Ada-like syntax. The DoD standard for hardware description, now standardised as IEEE 1076.", "VHE":"Virtual Home Environment", "VHLL":"Very-High-Level Language.", "vhost":"virtual host", "VHS":"1. Very High Speed.", "vi":"1. tool Visual Interface.", "video":"graphics Moving images presented as a sequence of static images called frames representing snapshots of the scene, taken at regularly spaced time intervals, e.g. 50 frames per second. Apart from the frame rate, other important properties of a video are the resolution and colour depth of the individual images.", "videotex":"An obsolete electronic service offering people the privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they brush their teeth. The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't government-subsidised, because by the time videotex was practical the installed base of personal computers could hook up to time-sharing services and do the things for which videotex might have been worthwhile better and cheaper.", "Vietnamese":"human language An Asian language that, like other CJKV languages, requires 16-bit character encodings but, unlike them, does not use Han characters.", "viewer":"tool A program to allow a file to be read or played but not changed. Viewers are often freely distributable, even when the editor application is not. This allows you to create files with the editor and make the viewer available to other users to view your files, e.g. on a website. Examples include the Word and Adobe Acrobat viewers.", "ViewPoints":"programming A framework for distributed and concurrent software engineering which provides an alternative approach to traditional centralised software development environments.", "Views":"A Smalltalk extension for computer algebra. An Object Oriented Approach to Algebra System Design, K. Abdali et al, in Symp Symb Alg Manip, ACM 1986, pp.24-30.", "VIF":"VHDL Interface Format. Intermediate language used by the Vantage VHDL compiler. A VHDL Compiler Based on Attribute Grammar Methodology, R. Farrow et al, SIGPLAN NOtices 247:120-130 Jul 1989.", "VIM":"1. messaging Vendor Independent Messaging.", "vines":"networking, product A family of local area networking products from Banyan.", "Viola":"An experimental hypercard-like interpreted hypertext system by Pei Y. Wei of Berkeley.", "virgin":"Unused; pristine; in a known initial state. Let's bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again. Especially useful after contracting a virus through SEX. Also, by extension, buffers and the like within a program that have not yet been used.", "virgule":"character Rare, and ambiguous: slash or comma.", "Viron":"[Five Paradigm Shifts in Programming Language Design and Their Realisation in Viron, a Dataflow Programming Environment, V. Pratt, 10th POPL, ACM 1983, pp. 1-9].", "virtual":"jargon, architecture Via the technical term virtual memory, probably from the term virtual image in optics 1. Common alternative to logical; often used to refer to the artificial objects like addressable virtual memory larger than physical memory created by a computer system to help the system control access to shared resources.", "virus":"security By analogy with biological viruses, via science fiction A program or piece of code, a type of malware, written by a cracker, that infects one or more other programs by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the infection. This normally happens invisibly to the user.", "viruses":"virus", "VisiCalc":"application, tool, business, history /vi'zi-calk/ The first spreadsheet program, conceived in 1978 by Dan Bricklin, while he was an MBA student at Harvard Business School. Inspired by a demonstration given by Douglas Engelbart of a point-and-click user interface, Bricklin set out to design an application that would combine the intuitiveness of pencil and paper calculations with the power of a programmable pocket calculator.", "visionary":"1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to see things using TV cameras. There isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer.", "visit":"programming To process a node while traversing a graph.", "visualisation":"graphics Making a visible presentation of numerical data, particularly a graphical one. This might include anything from a simple X-Y graph of one dependent variable against one independent variable to a virtual reality which allows you to fly around the data.", "VisualWorks":"language A modern commercial implementation of the Smalltalk programming language. VisualWorks descends directly from the original Smalltalk-80 by Xerox PARC and was originally developed for some time under the name Objectworks\\Smalltalk by ParcPlace Systems. VisualWorks relies on dynamic translation as its virtual machine technology.", "VITAL":"A semantics language using FSL, developed by Mondshein in 1967.", "VIVID":"A numerical constraint-oriented language.", "viz":"A visual language for specification and programming.", "VLAN":"Virtual Local Area Network", "VLB":"VESA local bus", "VLDB":"Very Large DataBase", "Vlisp":"language", "VLIW":"Very Long Instruction Word", "VLM":"1. architecture Very Large Memory.", "VLSI":"Very Large Scale Integration", "VLSM":"Variable Length Subnet Masks", "VM":"Virtual Machine", "VME":"1. hardware Versa Module Europa.", "VMEbus":"A widely accepted backplane interconnection bus system developed by a consortium of companies led by Motorola, now standardised as IEEE 1014.", "VML":"VODAK Model Language. Language for an extensible object-oriented database.", "VMS":"Virtual Memory System", "vn":"networking The country code for Vietnam.", "vocoder":"communications Hardware or software which implements a compression algorithm particular to voice.", "vocoding":"vocoder", "VoD":"video on demand", "VoIP":"Voice over IP", "volatile":"1. programming volatile variable.", "voltage":"electronics Or potential difference, electro-motive force EMF A quantity measured as a signed difference between two points in an electrical circuit which, when divided by the resistance in Ohms between those points, gives the current flowing between those points in Amperes, according to Ohm's Law. Voltage is expressed as a signed number of Volts V. The voltage gradient in Volts per metre is proportional to the force on a charge.", "VOS":"operating system An operating system used in Stratus computers.", "voxel":"jargon By analogy with pixel Volume element.", "VPL":"1. visual programming language.", "VPN":"Virtual Private Network", "VQF":"Twin Vector Quantization", "VR":"virtual reality", "VRAM":"video random-access memory", "VRC":"Vertical Redundancy Check", "VRML":"Virtual Reality Modeling Language", "VRTX":"Virtual Real-Time Executive.", "VSAM":"Virtual Storage Access Method", "VSAT":"Very Small Aperture Terminal", "VSCM":"language, LISP A highly portable implementation of Scheme, written in ANSI C and Scheme. VSCM features exception and interrupt handling, executable portable memory images, coroutines and continuations with multiple arguments.", "VSE":"Virtual Storage Extended", "VSF":"Virtual Software Factory", "VSP":"Very Simple Prolog+.", "VSTa":"operating system Valencia Simple Tasker.", "VSX":"Verification Suite for X/open.", "VT":"character Vertical Tab, the mnemonic for ASCII 11.", "VTAM":"Virtual Telecommunications Access Method", "VTC":"video teleconferencing", "VTOC":"Volume Table Of Contents", "VTS":"A suite of test programs for Motif from OSF.", "VTW":"Voters Telecommunications Watch", "vu":"networking The country code for Vanuatu.", "VUE":"Visual User Environment: a desktop manager for Unix from Hewlett-Packard.", "VUIT":"Visual User Interface Tool: a WYSIWYG editor from DEC for building human interfaces to applications using OSF/Motif.", "VULCAN":"1. database A version of JPLDIS ported to CP/M by Wayne Ratliff around 1980. VULCAN evolved into dBASE II.", "vulnerability":"security A bug or feature of a system that exposes it to possible attack, a flaw in the system's security.", "VUP":"VAX MIPS", "VxD":"Virtual Device Driver", "VXI":"VMEbus Extension for Instrumentation", "VxWorks":"operating system A real-time multitasking operating system from Wind River Systems. Originally it used the VRTX kernel but this has been replaced by Wind River's own Wind kernel 2.4.", "wabbit":"/wab'it/ [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal line You wascawwy wabbit!] 1. A legendary early hack reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978; this may have descended if only by inspiration from hack called RABBITS reported from 1969 on a Burroughs 55000 at the University of Washington Computer Center. The program would make two copies of itself every time it was run, eventually crashing the system.", "Wabi":"Windows Application Binary Interface", "WabiServer":"operating system, tool An addition to Wabi which allows the Microsoft Windows application to run on a server, e.g. a powerful Intel-based computer, with users accessing it from their desktop which can be a cheap computer such as an X terminal.", "wacco":"A BNF-based LL? parser generator.", "Wafe":"programming From Widget Athena front end A package by Gustaf Neumann Gustaf.Neumann@uni-essen.de implementing a symbolic interface to the Athena widgets and OSF/Motif. A typical Wafe application consists of two parts: a front-end Wafe and an application program which runs as a separate process. The distribution contains sample application programs in Perl, GAWK, Prolog, TCL, C, and Ada talking to the same Wafe binary.", "WAFL":"WArwick Functional Language. Warwick U, England. LISP-like.", "WAIS":"Wide Area Information Servers", "WAITS":"/wayts/ The mutant cousin of TOPS-10 used on a handful of systems at SAIL up to 1990. There was never an official expansion of WAITS the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways process, but it was frequently glossed as West-coast Alternative to ITS. Though WAITS was less visible than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted enormous indirect influence. The early screen modes of Emacs, for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's E editor - one of a family of editors that were the first to do real-time editing, in which the editing commands were invisible and where one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting. The modern style of multi-region windowing is said to have originated there, and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere played major roles in the developments that led to the XEROX Star, the Macintosh, and the Sun workstations. Bucky bits were also invented there thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS legacy. One notable WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was a news-wire interface that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and UPI dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a still-unusual level of support for what is now called multimedia computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched to programming terminals.", "waldo":"/wol'doh/ [Robert A. Heinlein's story Waldo] 1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb.", "walk":"programming To Traverse a data structure, especially an array or linked-list in core.", "wall":"communications Unix's write all command which sends a message to everyone currently logged in.", "wallpaper":"1. A file containing a listing e.g. assembly listing or a transcript, especially a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. The idea was that the paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.", "WAM":"Intermediate language for compiled Prolog, used by the Warren Abstract Machine. An Abstract Prolog Instruction Set, D.H.D. Warren, TR 309, SRI 1983.", "WAN":"Wide Area Network", "wango":"/wang'goh/ Random bit-level grovelling going on in a system during some unspecified operation. Often used in combination with mumble. For example: You start with the .o file, run it through this postprocessor that does mumble-wango - and it comes out a snazzy object-oriented executable.", "wank":"/wangk/ [Columbia University: probably by mutation from Commonwealth slang wank, to masturbate] Used much as hack is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever technique or person or the result of such cleverness. May describe negatively the act of hacking for hacking's sake Quit wanking, let's go get supper! or more positively a wizard. wanky describes something particularly clever a person, program, or algorithm. Conversations can also get wanky when there are too many wanks involved. This excess wankiness is signalled by an overload of the wankometer compare bogometer.", "wannabee":"/won'*-bee/ Or, more plausibly, spelled wannabe [Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol; probably originally from biker slang] A would-be hacker. The connotations of this term differ sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject. Used of a person who is in or might be entering larval stage, it is semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most hackers remember that they, too, were once such creatures. When used of any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or suit, it is derogatory, implying that said person is trying to cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of hacker terms is often an indication of the wannabee nature. Compare newbie.", "WAP":"Wireless Application Protocol", "warchalk":"networking A system of runes and annotations chalked on walls or other surfaces to indicate to interested parties the presence of a wireless network node in the vicinity.", "wardialer":"security Almost certainly a shortened version of WarGames dialer, from the film WarGames.", "wardriving":"security From wardialer in the carrier scanner sense of that word To drive around with a laptop with a wireless card, and an antenna, looking for accessible wireless networks.", "warez":"software, legal /weirz/ A term software pirates use to describe cracked games or applications made available to the Internet, at no cost, usually via FTP or telnet. Often the pirate will make use of a site with lax security.", "WarGames":"recreation Not War Games A 1983 film about a schoolboy cracker using a wardialer to try to break into a games company's computer and accidentally connecting to a backdoor into Whopper, a ficticious C3 computer at Norad USAF.", "warlording":"jargon The act of excoriating a bloated, ugly or derivative sig block. Common grounds for warlording include the presence of a signature rendered in a BUAF, over-used or cliched sig quotes, ugly ASCII art, or simply excessive size. The original Warlord was a BIFF-like newbie c. 1991 who featured in his sig a particularly large and obnoxious ASCII graphic resembling the sword of Conan the Barbarian in the 1981 John Milius movie; the group name alt.fan.warlord was sarcasm, and the characteristic mode of warlording is devastatingly sarcastic praise.", "Warp":"OS/2", "wart":"A small, crocky feature that sticks out of an otherwise clean design. Something conspicuous for localised ugliness, especially a special-case exception to a general rule. For example, in some versions of csh1, single quotes literalise every character inside them except !. In ANSI C, the ? syntax used for obtaining ASCII characters in a foreign environment is a wart. See also miswart.", "Wasserman":"A.I. Wasserman Tony, president of IDE.", "WATBOL":"WATerloo COBOL.", "WATFIV":"WATerloo Fortran IV. U Waterloo, Canada. Student-friendly variant of Fortran IV.", "WATFOR":"WATerloo FORtran. U Waterloo, Canada. Student-friendly variant of Fortran. WATFOR - The University of Waterloo Fortran IV Compiler, P.W. Shantz et al, CACM 101:41-44 Jan 1967.", "wav":"multimedia, file format, filename extension waveform /wav/, /dot wav/ A sound format developed by Microsoft and used extensively in Microsoft Windows. Conversion tools are available to allow most other operating systems to play .wav files.", "WAVE":"language, robotics A robotics language.", "wavelet":"mathematics A waveform that is bounded in both frequency and duration. Wavelet tranforms provide an alternative to more traditional Fourier transforms used for analysing waveforms, e.g. sound.", "wavetable":"hardware, music A type of sound generator often built in a sound card. A wavetable contains digitised samples of real instrument sounds or effect FX sounds. A wavetable chip often also contains a drum kit sound to faciliate rhythm accompaniment.", "WaZOO":"protocol Warp-zillion Opus-to-Opus. Fidonet's session layer protocol. Although it mentions Opus a specific BBS from the 1980s, WaZOO is the session protocol used for the Fidonet network. Because WaZOO is much more efficient than other mechanisms e.g., FTP, it is sometimes used for automated or batch communications in other parts of the Internet.", "wb":"chat Welcome Back.", "WBEM":"Web-Based Enterprise Management", "WBMP":"wireless bitmap", "WBS":"Work Breakdown Structure", "WCDMA":"Wideband Code Division Multiple Access", "WCL":"A Common Lisp implementation in a shared library by Wade Hennessey wade@leland.Stanford.edu. WCL is not a complete Common Lisp, but it does have the full development environment including dynamic file loading and debugging. A modified version of GDB provides mixed-language debugging.", "WD":"Western Digital", "WDASM":"tool Probably Windows disassembler An interactive Intel 486 disassembler for Windows 3.1 written by Eric Grass at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. WDASM supports multiple disassembly formats.", "WDM":"wavelength division multiplexing", "WE":"A hypertext authoring system developed at the University of North Carolina.", "weasel":"jargon, abuse Cambridge A naive user, one who deliberately or accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised.", "web":"1. hypertext World-Wide Web.", "webcam":"web, hardware, video web camera Any video camera whose output is available for viewing via the Internet or an intranet. Typically a webcam would be a slow-scan CCD video camera connected to a video capture card in a computer. Images from the camera are captured periodically and made available on a web page. In 1999 there are hundreds of webcams in operation around the world showing everything from bedrooms to traffic.", "webcasting":"multimedia, web From web and broadcast, sometimes just called push Multicasting on the Internet. Webcasting implies real-time streaming transmission of encoded video or audio under the control of the server to multiple recipients who all receive the same content at the same time. This is in contrast to normal web browsing which is controlled from the browser by individual users and may take arbitrarily long to deliver a complete document.", "WebCGM":"graphics, file format A Web-oriented version of the Computer Graphic Metafile file format.", "WebCOMAL":"COMmon Algorithmic Language", "WebCrawler":"web A free web search engine developed by Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington and now moved to America Online, Inc. WebCrawler collects URLs by searching the Internet and allows users to perform keyword searches through a web browser.", "WebDAV":"Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning", "webhead":"web A compulsive or frequent user of, or contributor to, the web.", "weblint":"hypertext, tool After lint A syntax checker and style checker for HTML. Weblint is a Perl script which does for HTML pages what the traditional lint picks does for C programs.", "webmaster":"web Sometimes webmistress The alias or role of the persons responsible for the development and maintenance of one or more web servers and/or some or all of the web pages at a website. The term does not imply any particular level of skill or mastery see webmonkey.", "webmistress":"webmaster", "webmonkey":"web a largely unskilled Web worker - one with a passable understanding of HTML but little else.", "WebObjects":"operating system Apple Computer, Inc.'s application server framework for developing dynamic web applications.", "website":"web Or web site Any computer on the Internet running a web server process. A particular website is usually identified by the hostname part of a URL. Multiple hostnames may actually map to the same computer in which case they are known as virtual servers.", "Webster":"1. Webster's Dictionary.", "wedged":"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 the system is wedged, it is trying to do something but cannot make progress; it may be capable of doing a few things, but not be fully operational. For example, a process may become wedged if it deadlocks with another but not all instances of wedging are deadlocks. See also gronk, locked up, hosed. 2. Often refers to humans suffering misconceptions. He's totally wedged - he's convinced that he can levitate through meditation. 3. [Unix] Specifically used to describe the state of a TTY left in a losing state by abort of a screen-oriented program or one that has messed with the line discipline in some obscure way.", "wedgie":"Fairchild A bug. Probably related to wedged.", "wedgitude":"/wedj'i-t[y]ood/ The quality or state of being wedged.", "Weeble":"/wee'b*l/ An egg-shaped plastic toy person with a weight in the bottom so that, if tipped over, they would right themselves and stand up again. They were popular in the UK during the 1970s and were famous for the slogan Weebles wobble but they don't fall down, unlike some computers pretty tenuous link with computing.", "weeds":"1. Refers to development projects or algorithms that have no possible relevance or practical application. Comes from off in the weeds. Used in phrases like lexical analysis for microcode is serious weeds.", "weenie":"1. [on BBSes] Any of a species of luser resembling a less amusing version of BIFF that infests many BBSes. The typical weenie is a teenage boy with poor social skills travelling under a grandiose handle derived from fantasy or heavy-metal rock lyrics. Among sysops, the weenie problem refers to the marginally literate and profanity-laden flamage weenies tend to spew all over a newly-discovered BBS.", "Weenix":"/wee'niks/ An ITS fan's derogatory term for Unix, derived from Unix weenie. According to one noted ex-ITSer, it is the operating system preferred by Unix Weenies: typified by poor modularity, poor reliability, hard file deletion, no file version numbers, case sensitivity everywhere, and users who believe that these are all advantages. Some ITS fans behave as though they believe Unix stole a future that rightfully belonged to them.", "WEP":"Wired Equivalent Privacy", "Westmount":"company A Dutch software engineering vendor of RTEE and other products.", "wetware":"jargon /wet'weir/ Probably from the novels of Rudy Rucker, or maybe Stanislav Lem The human nervous system, as opposed to electronic computer hardware or software. Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers. Also, human beings programmers, operators, administrators attached to a computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or software.", "wf":"networking The country code for the Wallis and Futuna Islands.", "WFL":"Work Flow Language. Burroughs, ca 1973. A job control language for the B6700/B7700 under MCP. WFL was a compiled block-structured language similar to ALGOL 60, with subroutines and nested begin-end's.", "WfMC":"Workflow Management Coalition", "WFW":"Windows for Workgroups", "WFWG":"Windows for Workgroups", "WG":"Working Group", "WGL":"Waveform Generation Language", "whack":"According to arch-hacker James Gosling, to ...modify a program with no idea whatsoever how it works. See whacker. It is actually possible to do this in nontrivial circumstances if the change is small and well-defined and you are very good at glarking things from context. As a trivial example, it is relatively easy to change all stderr writes to stdout writes in a piece of C filter code which remains otherwise mysterious.", "whacker":"[University of Maryland: from hacker] 1. A person, similar to a hacker, who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities.", "whales":"like kicking dead whales down the beach", "whalesong":"The peculiar clicking and whooshing sounds made by a PEP modem such as the Telebit Trailblazer as it tries to synchronise with another PEP modem for their special high-speed mode. This sound isn't anything like the normal two-tone handshake between conventional modems and is instantly recognizable to anyone who has heard it more than once. It sounds, in fact, very much like whale songs. This noise is also called the moose call or moose tones.", "whatis":"tool 1. A Unix command which searches for a given string in the headings of all man pages.", "wheel":"[slang big wheel for a powerful person] A person who has an active wheel bit. We need to find a wheel to unwedge the hung tape drives. See wedged.", "Whetstone":"benchmark The first major synthetic benchmark program, intended to be representative for numerical floating-point intensive programming. It is based on statistics gathered by Brian Wichmann at the National Physical Laboratory in England, using an Algol 60 compiler which translated Algol into instructions for the imaginary Whetstone machine. The compilation system was named after the small town of Whetstone outside the City of Leicester, England, where it was designed.", "while":"while loop", "Whirlwind":"computer An early computer from the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics.", "whitespace":"character From the colour it produces on white paper Any contiguous sequence of spaces, tabs, carriage returns, and/or line feeds. Whitespace might also possibly include form feed characters. The term is common on Unix.", "WHNF":"weak head normal form", "whois":"An Internet directory service for looking up names of people on a remote server. Many servers respond to TCP queries on port 43, in a manner roughly analogous to the DDN NIC whois service described in RFC 954. Other sites provide this directory service via the finger protocol or accept queries by electronic mail for directory information. On Unix the client command is", "Whopper":"WarGames", "WHQL":"Windows Hardware Quality Labs", "WIBNI":"Bell Labs Wouldn't It Be Nice If.", "WIC":"WAN Interface Card", "widget":"1. jargon A placeholder term used to stand for a real object in didactic examples especially database tutorials. Legend has it that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips. But suppose the parts list for a widget has 52 entries...", "wiggles":"[scientific computation] In solving partial differential equations by finite difference and similar methods, wiggles are sawtooth up-down-up-down oscillations at the shortest wavelength representable on the grid. If an algorithm is unstable, this is often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate the solution. Alternatively, stable though inaccurate wiggles can be generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon.", "wiki":"web Any collaborative website that users can easily modify via the web, often without restriction. A wiki allows anyone, using a web browser, to create, edit or delete content that has been placed on the site, including the work of other authors.", "WiLAN":"wireless local area network", "WIMP":"operating system Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers or maybe Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pull-down menus.", "win":"jargon Said of people, computers, algorithms, programs To be a success at a given task.", "winchester":"hardware An informal generic term for floating head magnetic disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the disk surface on an air cushion.", "windowing":"window system", "Windows":"operating system See Microsoft Windows, Windows NT.", "Windoze":"Microsloth Windows", "winkey":"chat winkey face.", "WINS":"Windows Internet Naming Service", "Winsock":"Windows sockets", "wintel":"jargon, architecture A term describing any computer platform consisting of some version of Microsoft Windows running on an Intel 80x86 processor or compatible.", "WINZIP":"tool A Microsoft Windows archiving and compression program, distributed by Nico Mak Computing, Inc. WINZIP has a graphical user interface front end and is compatible with PKZIP. WINZIP can be obtained as shareware, on evaluation, or as a licenced copy. It is much easier to use then PKZIP for DOS, and includes a helpful, help file.", "wired":"hard-wired", "wirehead":"jargon /wi:r'hed/ Probably from SF slang for an electrical brain-stimulation addict 1. A hardware hacker, especially one who concentrates on communications hardware.", "wireless":"networking A term describing a computer network where there is no physical connection either copper cable or fibre optics between sender and receiver, but instead they are connected by radio.", "wirewater":"jargon programming fluid. This melds the mainstream slang adjective wired stimulated, up, hyperactive with firewater; however, it refers to caffeinacious rather than alcoholic beverages.", "WISCII":"character, data A version of ASCII used by Wang on their personal computers and mini computers in the 1980s.", "Wisp":"[An Experiment with a Self-Compiling Compiler for a Simple List-Processing Language, M.V. Wilkes, Ann Rev Automatic Programming 4:1-48. 1964].", "wizard":"1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works that is, who groks it; especially someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency. Someone is a hacker if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a wizard with respect to something only if he or she has specific detailed knowledge of that thing. A good hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study it.", "wizardly":"Pertaining to wizards. A wizardly feature is one that only a wizard could understand or use properly.", "WizDOM":"Software for distributed Unix system management from TIVOLI Systems of Austin, Texas, USA.", "WLAN":"wireless local area network", "WLL":"Wireless Local Loop", "WMA":"Windows Media Audio", "wmf":"filename extension The filename extension for a Windows Metafile.", "WMI":"Windows Management Interface", "WML":"Wireless Markup Language", "WMV":"Windows Media Video", "WNPP":"Work Needed and Prospective Packages", "WO":"WebObjects", "WOM":"write-only memory", "woman":"tool A replacement for the Unix man documentation browsing command. Version 1.157 of woman runs under/on 386BSD, OSF, Apollo Domain/OS, BSD, HP-UX, IBM RS-6000, Irix, Linux, Solaris, Sony NEWS, SunOS, Ultrix, Unicos.", "WOMBAT":"Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.", "wombat":"1. programming A metasyntactic variable in Commonwealth Hackish.", "WonderPop":"language WPOP An implementation of POP for the PDP-10 made by Robert Rae rhr@aiai.ed.ac.uk in Edinburgh in 1976.", "Woodenman":"HOLWG, DoD, 1975. Second of the series of DoD requirements that led to Ada. Woodenman Set of Criteria and Needed Characteristics for a Common DoD High Order Programming Language, David A. Fisher, Inst for Def Anal Working Paper, Aug 1975. See Strawman, Tinman, Ironman, Steelman.", "woofer":"jargon University of Waterloo Some varieties of wide paper for printers have a perforation 8.5 inches from the left margin that allows the 3.5 inch excess on the right-hand side to be torn off when the print format is 80 columns or less wide. If done with sufficient aplomb this makes a sound like the woof of a dog. If the large part is the woofer then the small part must obviously be the tweeter, following the names for the large and small cones in a hi-fi loudspeaker.", "WOOL":"Window Object Oriented Language. A small Common Lisp-like extension language. It claims to be the fastest interpreted language in C with run-time types. Colas Nahaboo colas@sophia.inria.fr. Version 1 is used as the kernel language of the GWM window manager. Version 2 has an object system.", "Word":"Microsoft Word", "word":"storage A fundamental unit of storage in a computer. The size of a word in a particular computer architecture is one of its chief distinguishing characteristics.", "WordNet":"human language A large lexical database of English, developed under the direction of George A. Miller. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms synsets, each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations. The resulting network of words and concepts can be navigated with the browser. WordNet is freely available for download. WordNet's structure makes it a useful tool for computational linguistics and natural language processing.", "WordPerfect":"1. text, tool, product A word processor for a wide range of computers. The first version was sold in 1980 for Data General machines, and by the end of 1993 versions were on sale for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh computers. WordPerfect 6.0 for Unix was scheduled for introduction in May 1994.", "WordTech":"company Manufacturers of Quicksilver.", "workaround":"jargon, programming A temporary kluge used to bypass, mask or otherwise avoid a bug or misfeature in some system.", "workflow":"1. operating system The scheduling of independent jobs on a computer.", "workgroup":"Computer Supported Cooperative Work", "worksheet":"spreadsheet", "workstation":"computer A general-purpose computer designed to be used by one person at a time and which offers higher performance than normally found in a personal computer, especially with respect to graphics, processing power and the ability to carry out several tasks at the same time.", "WORM":"Write-Once Read-Many", "worm":"networking, security From Tapeworm in John Brunner's novel The Shockwave Rider, via XEROX PARC A program that propagates itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. Compare virus. Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is assumed that only crackers write worms.", "wormhole":"back door", "WOSA":"Windows Open Services Architecture", "WPA":"Wi-Fi Protected Access", "WPG":"Workstation Products Group", "WPI":"Worcester Polytechnic Institute", "WPOP":"WonderPop", "wps":"unit Obsolete Words per second mostly used for Telex and TWX transmission.", "WRAM":"Window Random Access Memory", "wrapper":"programming Code which is combined with another piece of code to determine how that code is executed. The wrapper acts as an interface between its caller and the wrapped code.", "wrb":"Web Request Broker", "write":"1. chat Unix's simple talk command and protocol.", "WRITEACOURSE":"language A CAI language for IBM 360.", "WRT":"with regard to, with respect to.", "ws":"networking The country code for Samoa.", "WSBPEL":"Web Services Business Process Execution Language", "WSDL":"Web Service Definition Language", "WSFN":"Which Stands For Nothing", "WSL":"Waterloo Systems Language. A C-like systems programming language.", "WTF":"who/what/why the fuck? The universal interrogative particle.", "WTFPL":"Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License", "WTH":"who/what/why the hell? Also WTF.", "WTLS":"Wireless Transport Layer Security", "Wumpus":"Hunt the Wumpus", "WWW":"world-wide web", "WWWW":"web Worm", "WYGIWYNTYH":"What You Get Is What You Never Thought You Had", "WYSIAYG":"What You See Is All You Get", "WYSIWYG":"What You See Is What You Get", "WYSWYG":"What You See Is What You Get", "X":"1. convention Used in various speech and writing contexts also in lowercase in roughly its algebraic sense of unknown within a set defined by context compare N. Thus, the abbreviation 680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030 or 68040, and 80x86 stands for Intel 80186, Intel 80286, Intel 80386 or Intel 80486. A Unix hacker might write these as 680[0-4]0 and 80[1-4]86 or 680?0 and 80?86 respectively; see glob.", "XA":"Extended Architecture", "Xaw":"The Athena Widget Set. A set of widgets distributed with the X Window System.", "Xbase":"Generic term for the dBASE family of database languages.", "xbeeb":"A BBC Microcomputer emulator for Unix and X11 by James Fidell jfid@mfltd.co.uk. Posted to alt.sources.", "xbm":"filename extension X bit map. The filename extension for files containing bitmaps for use in the X Window System.", "XC":"A declarative extension of C++.", "Xcoral":"A multiwindow mouse-based text editor, for the X Window System with a built-in browser to navigate through C functions and C++ classes hierarchies. Xcoral provides variables width fonts, menus, scrollbars, buttons, search, regions, kill-buffers and 3D look. Commands are accessible from menus or standard key bindings. Xcoral is a direct Xlib client and runs on colour or monochrome X displays.", "xdbx":"programming, tool An X Window System front end for dbx developed by Po Cheung at MCC.", "XDL":"language An object-oriented extension to ITU-T's SDL.", "XDR":"eXternal Data Representation", "xDSL":"Digital Subscriber Line", "Xemacs":"text, tool Originally Lucid Emacs A text editor for the X Window System, based on GNU Emacs version 19, produced by a collaboration of Lucid, Inc., SunPro a division of Sun Microsystems, Inc., and the University of Illinois.", "XENIX":"operating system A commercial version of Unix for microprocessor-based computers, released by Microsoft in 1980. In 1992, SCO became Microsoft's co-development partner and the alternate source for the product.", "Xeon":"Pentium II Xeon", "xerox":"XEROX Corporation", "XFS":"Extensions for Financial Services", "Xfun":"A polymorphic functional language which is a cross between SML and Russell, developed by S. Dalmas dalmas@sophia.inria.fr of INRIA in 1991, and intended for computer algebra.", "XGA":"eXtended Graphics Array", "XHTML":"Extensible HyperText Markup Language", "Xi":"A VLSI design language.", "XIE":"X Image Extension", "Xlib":"X library: program interface to the X Window System.", "xlisp":"eXperimental LISP", "xls":"filename extension Excel spreadsheet.", "XML":"Extensible Markup Language", "XMM":"Extended Memory Manager", "XMODEM":"communications Ward Christensen's file transfer protocol, probably the most widely available protocol used for file transfer over serial lines e.g. between modems.", "xmosaic":"Mosaic for the X Window System.", "XMS":"storage Extended Memory Specification.", "XNF":"Xilinx Netlist Format", "XNS":"Xerox Network System or Xerox Network Services.", "XOFF":"control-S", "XON":"control-Q", "Xopen":"X/Open", "xor":"exclusive or", "XP":"Windows XP", "XPC":"eXplicitly Parallel C.", "XperCASE":"A structure diagram editor for developing, re-engineering, maintaining and documenting programs, developed by Siemens AG, Austria. It runs under Microsoft Windows.", "XPG":"X/open Portability Guide", "XPL":"language A small dialect of PL/I developed at Stanford in 1967-69, used for compiler writing. XPL has one-dimensional arrays. I/O is achieved with character pseudo-variable INPUT and OUTPUT, e.g.", "xpm":"file format X11 Pixmap.", "XPOP":"language An extensible macro assembly language with user-redefinable grammar, for use with FAP.", "xref":"/X'ref/ 1. cross-reference.", "XRemote":"A serial line protocol for the X Window System.", "XRN":"A newsreader program for Usenet news running under the X Window System.", "XSB":"logic programming XSB extends the standard functionality of Prolog being a descendant of PSB- and SB-Prolog to include implementations of OLDT tabling and HiLog terms. OLDT resolution is extremely useful for recursive query computation, allowing programs to terminate correctly in many cases where Prolog does not. HiLog supports a type of higher-order programming in which predicate symbols can be variable or structured. This allows unification to be performed on the predicate symbols themselves in addition to the arguments of the predicates. Of course, Tabling and HiLog can be used together.", "XScheme":"language Scheme in C with object-oriented extensions by David Betz.", "XSD":"XML Schema Definition", "XSI":"X/Open System Interface", "XSL":"Extensible Stylesheet Language", "XSLT":"Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations", "XT":"IBM PC XT", "Xt":"The intrinsics of the X Window System Toolkit.", "xterm":"operating system A terminal emulator program for the X Window System. A user can have many different invocations of xterm running at once on the same display, each of which provides independent input and output for the process running in it normally a shell.", "XTI":"X/open Transport Interface", "XTP":"Xpress Transport Protocol", "XTRAN":"Fortran-like, interactive language.", "XUI":"X User Interface: program interface to the X Window System supported by DEC.", "XUL":"XML User-Interface Language", "XVGA":"eXtended Video Graphics Array", "XView":"A toolkit from Sun, derived from SunView, providing an Open Look user interface for X applications.", "XVT":"eXtensible Virtual Toolkit: a product allowing applications to be developed independent of GUI.", "XWIP":"X Window Interface for Prolog. A package for Prologs following the Quintus foreign function interface e.g. SICStus Prolog. XWIP provides a low-level Xlib-style interface to X. The current version was developed and tested on SICStus 0.7 and MIT X11 R5 under SunOS 4.1.1. It should be adaptable to many other Unix configurations. Version 0.6.", "xxgdb":"An X11 front end for gdb by Pierre Willard pierre@la.tce.com. Version 1.06.", "XXX":"/X-X-X/ A marker that attention is needed. Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged or need to be. Some hackers liken XXX to the notional heavy-porn movie rating. Compare FIXME.", "xyzzy":"games The canonical magic word from the ADVENT adventure game, in which the idea is to explore an underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures you find there. If you type xyzzy at the appropriate time, you can move instantly between two otherwise distant points. If, therefore, you encounter some bit of magic, you might remark on this quite succinctly by saying simply Xyzzy! Ordinarily you can't look at someone else's screen if he has protected it, but if you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will let you do it anyway. Xyzzy! Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an undocumented no-op command on several OSes; in Data General's AOS/VS, for example, it would typically respond Nothing happens, just as ADVENT did if the magic was invoked at the wrong spot or before a player had performed the action that enabled the word. In more recent 32 bit versions, by the way, AOS/VS responds Twice as much happens.", "Y":"1. General purpose language syntactically like RATFOR, semantically like C. Lacks structures and pointers. Used as a source language for Jack W. Davidson and Christopher W. Fraser's peephole optimiser which inspired GCC RTL and other optimisation ideas.", "Yaa":"Yet Another Assembler - Macro assembler for GCOS 8 and Mark III on Bull DPS-8 machines. Available from Bull as part of U Waterloo Tools package maintained by pjf@thinkage.on.ca.", "YABA":"/ya'b*/ [Cambridge] Yet Another Bloody Acronym. Whenever some program is being named, someone invariably suggests that it be given a name that is acronymic. The response from those with a trace of originality is to remark ironically that the proposed name would then be YABA-compatible. Also used in response to questions like What is WYSIWYG? See also YA-, TLA.", "yacc":"Yet Another Compiler Compiler", "YADE":"Yet Another DSSSL Engine", "YAFIYGI":"abuse /yaf'ee-y*-gee/ You asked for it, you got it.", "YAGNI":"You aren't gonna need it", "Yahoo":"web Yet Another Hierarchical Officious/Obstreperous/Odiferous/Organized Oracle.", "Yamaha":"company A Japanese company best known for consumer electronics and motorbikes. They make music synthesizers, CD-Rom Writers and HiFi sound equipment.", "YAML":"YAML Ain't Markup Language", "yank":"jargon From the colloquial meaning to pull suddenly To insert a copy of some saved text at the current position in a document being edited.", "YAPS":"Yet Another Production System? College Park Software. A commercial production system rule language, simpler than OPS5. YAPS allows knowledge bases to be attached to instances of CLOS objects.", "YASOS":"Yet Another Scheme Object System", "YAUN":"/yawn/ Yet Another Unix Nerd.", "Yay":"Yet Another Yacc", "ye":"networking The country code for Yemen.", "Yellow":"A language from SRI proposed to meet the Ironman requirements which led to Ada.", "Yerk":"language After Yerkes Observatory An object-oriented language based on a Forth Kernel with some major modifications. It was originally known as Neon, developed and sold as a product by Kriya Systems from 1985 to 1989.", "YGMTPO":"chat Usenet You Greatly Misunderstood The Purpose Of.", "YLISP":"A variant of Xlisp from Hewlett-Packard for the HP-95LX palmtop.", "YMMV":"Your mileage may vary", "YMODEM":"A file transfer protocol used between modems. YMODEM was developed by Chuck Forsberg as the successor to XMODEM and was itself succeeded by ZMODEM. XMODEM used 128-byte packets, YMODEM can also use 1 kilobyte packets. Whereas YMODEM is a batch protocol, YMODEM-G is a non-stop version.", "yottabyte":"unit, data YB A unit of data equal to 10^24 bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions. A yottabyte is 1000^8 bytes or 1000 zettabytes.", "Yourdon":"1. programming The Yourdon methodology.", "YP":"Yellow Pages. The original name for Sun's Network Information Service.", "YSM":"Yourdon Structured Method", "yt":"networking The country code for Mayotte.", "YTalk":"Version: V3.0 Patch Level 1.", "yu":"networking The country code for the former Yugoslavia.", "Z":"/zed/ language, specification 1. After Zermelo-Fränkel set theory A specification language developed by the Programming Research Group at Oxford University around 1980.", "za":"networking The country code for South Africa.", "ZAP":"1. language A language for expressing program transformations.", "zap":"jargon 1. To modify, usually to correct; especially used when the action is performed with a debugger or binary patching tool. Also implies surgical precision. Zap the debug level to 6 and run it again.", "ZAPP":"Zero Assignment Parallel Processor. A virtual tree machine architecture in which a process tree is dynamically mapped onto a fixed, strongly connected network of processors communicating by message passing. The basic operation of each node is to apply a divide and conquer function which takes four arguments: 1 a function 'primitive' which takes a problem description PD and returns true if it can be solved without division, 2 a function 'solve' which takes a primitive PD and returns its solution, 3 a function 'divide' which takes a PD and returns a list of PDs of smaller problems and 4 a function 'combine' which returns the solution to a problem by combining a list of solutions of subproblems.", "ZEBRA":"A data management package in the CERN Program Library.", "Zed":"1978. Software Portability Group, U Waterloo. Eh, with types added. Similar to C. Implementation language for the Thoth realtime operating system. Added a few simple types for greater efficiency on byte-addressed machines. String constants in case statements. Enforces the naming convention: MANIFESTS, Externals and locals. Porting the Zed Compiler, G.B. Bonkowski et al, SIGPLAN Notices 148:92-97 Aug 1979.", "Zen":"[Kehoe, B., Zen and the Art of the Internet, February 1992.]", "zen":"jargon To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally applied to problems of life in general. How'd you figure out the buffer allocation problem? Oh, I zenned it.", "ZENO":"U Rochester 1978. Euclid with asynchronous message-passing.", "zepto":"prefix", "ZERO":"language An object oriented extension of Z.", "zero":"1. character 0, ASCI character 48. Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter O the 15th letter of the English alphabet. In their unmodified forms they look a lot alike, and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct have compounded the confusion.", "zeroth":"jargon First.", "ZEST":"An object-oriented extension of Z.", "ZetaLisp":"language The Maclisp dialect used on the LISP Machine.", "zettabyte":"unit, data ZB A unit of data equal to 10^21 bytes but see binary prefix for other definitions. A zetabyte is 1000^7 bytes or 1000 exabytes.", "Zeus":"Berkeley Yacc", "ZFC":"mathematics Zermelo Fränkel set theory plus the Axiom of Choice. A favourite axiomatisation of set theory.", "ZIF":"Zero Insertion Force", "zigamorph":"/zig'*-morf/ 1. Hex FF 11111111 when used as a delimiter or fence character. Usage: primarily at IBM shops.", "ZIL":"games Zork Implementation Language. Language used by Infocom's Interactive Fiction adventure games. Interpreted by the zmachine, for Unix and Amiga.", "Zilog":"company The microprocessor manufacturer who produced the Zilog Z80 in July 1976 as used by Sinclair in the ZX-80, ZX-81 and ZX Spectrum computers and later the Zilog Z8000.", "zip":"1. tool, compression, file format A compressed archive containing one or more files, the act of creating it and its filename extension. Originally, such a zip file was created using PKWare, Inc.'s PKZIP utility program for MS-DOS.", "Zipcode":"language A parallel language at Lawrence Livermore?.", "zipped":"zip", "zipperhead":"abuse An IBM term for a person with a closed mind.", "zm":"networking The country code for Zambia.", "ZMODEM":"protocol A file transfer protocol with error checking and crash recovery. Developed by Chuck Forsberg. Its transfer rate is similar to YMODEM-g. Like YMODEM-g, ZMODEM does not wait for positive acknowledgement after each block is sent, but rather sends blocks in rapid succession. If a ZMODEM transfer is cancelled or interrupted for any reason, the transfer can be resurrected later and the previously transferred information need not be resent.", "ZOG":"hypertext A high-performance hypertext system developed at Carnegie-Mellon University.", "zombie":"1. operating system zombie process.", "zone":"A logical group of network devices on AppleTalk.", "Zoo":"Berkeley Yacc", "zoo":"tool, file format A data compression program and format by Rahul Dhesi. Zoo is reported to use the same Lempel Ziv algorithm as LHA. It is available for many platforms and source is available. .zoo archives are handled by many other PC archiving programs.", "zoom":"graphics To show a smaller area of an image at a higher magnification zoom in or a larger area at a lower magnification zoom out, as though using a zoom lense on a camera.", "Zoomer":"computer A PDA from Casio, based on the GEOS microkernel operating system.", "ZOPL":"language A block structured, untyped low-level language used on computers manufactured by Geac.", "zorch":"/zorch/ 1. [TMRC] To attack with an inverse heat sink.", "Zork":"games /zork/ The second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming; see ADVENT. Zork was originally written on MIT-DM during the late 1970s, later distributed with BSD Unix as a patched, sourceless RT-11 Fortran binary see retrocomputing and commercialised as The Zork Trilogy by Infocom. The Fortran source was later rewritten for portability and released to Usenet under the name Dungeon.", "zorkmid":"games /zork'mid/ The canonical unit of currency in hacker-written games. This originated in Zork but has spread to nethack and is referred to in several other games.", "zr":"networking The old country code for Zaire.", "zsh":"Z shell", "ZUG":"A low-level Awk? from Geac.", "ZUSE":"language An LL1 parser generator by Arthur Pyster of the University of California at Santa Barbara. ZUSE requires Pascal.", "Zuse":"language After Konrad Zuse A descendant of Ada, Modula-2, Mesa and Oberon-1, described by Christian Collberg collberg@dna.lth.se in his PhD thesis 1991.", "zw":"networking The country code for Zimbabwe.", "zxnrbl":"jargon /sner'b*l/ Incorrect data introduced by transmission errors; any corrupted or uninterpretable data."}
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