Chapter V: Rare: book (4)

:crash and burn: vi.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the
conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and
many subsequent imitators (compare {die horribly}). Sun-3
monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on
VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash and burn generators. The
construction `crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer
used exclusively for alpha or {beta} testing, or reproducing
bugs (i.e., not for development). The implication is that it
wouldn't be such a disaster if that machine crashed, since only the
testers would be inconvenienced.

:crawling horror: n. Ancient crufty hardware or software that is
kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers
at a site. Like {dusty deck} or {gonkulator}, but connotes
that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active
menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but
they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II application from
nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...." Compare
{WOMBAT}.

:cray: /kray/ n. 1. (properly, capitalized) One of the line of
supercomputers designed by Cray Research. 2. Any supercomputer at
all. 3. The {canonical} {number-crunching} machine.

The term is actually the lowercased last name of Seymour Cray, a
noted computer architect and co-founder of the company. Numerous
vivid legends surround him, some true and some admittedly invented
by Cray Research brass to shape their corporate culture and image.

:cray instability: n. A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that
manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a
powerful machine (see {cray}). Generally more subtle than bugs
that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation
or mini.

:crayola: /kray-oh'l*/ n. A super-mini or -micro computer that
provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer performance
for an unreasonably low price. Might also be a {killer micro}.

:crayon: n. 1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More
specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk,
probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective of
gender). Systems types who have a UNIX background tend not to be
described as crayons. 2. A {computron} (sense 2) that
participates only in {number-crunching}. 3. A unit of
computational power equal to that of a single Cray-1. There is a
standard joke about this that derives from an old Crayola crayon
promotional gimmick: When you buy 64 crayons you get a free
sharpener.

:creationism: n. 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 designer(s) 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.

:creep: v. To advance, grow, or multiply inexorably. In hackish usage
this verb has overtones of menace and silliness, evoking the
creeping horrors of low-budget monster movies.

:creeping elegance: n. Describes a tendency for parts of a design to
become {elegant} past the point of diminishing return. This
often happens at the expense of the less interesting parts of the
design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the
{Real World}. See also {creeping featurism}, {second-system
effect}, {tense}.

:creeping featurism: /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ n. 1. Describes a
systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and {feature}s onto
systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed
when originally designed. See also {feeping creaturism}. "You
know, the main problem with {BSD} UNIX has always been creeping
featurism." 2. More generally, the tendency for anything
complicated to become even more complicated because people keep
saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature too".
(See {feature}.) The result is usually a patchwork because it
grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being planned.
Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one extra
little feature to help someone ... and then another ... and
another.... When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's
like a cancer. Usually this term is used to describe computer
programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the
IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes
afflicts conscious redesigns; see {second-system effect}. See
also {creeping elegance}.

:creeping featuritis: /kree'ping fee'-chr-i:`t*s/ n. Variant of
{creeping featurism}, with its own spoonerization: `feeping
creaturitis'. Some people like to reserve this form for the
disease as it actually manifests in software or hardware, as
opposed to the lurking general tendency in designers' minds.
(After all, -ism means `condition' or `pursuit of', whereas
-itis usually means `inflammation of'.)

:cretin: /kret'n/ or /kree'tn/ n. Congenital {loser}; an obnoxious
person; someone who can't do anything right. It has been observed
that many American hackers tend to favor the British pronunciation
/kre'tn/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is thought this may
be due to the insidious phonetic influence of Monty Python's Flying
Circus.

:cretinous: /kret'n-*s/ or /kreet'n-*s/ adj. Wrong; stupid;
non-functional; very poorly designed. Also used pejoratively of
people. See {dread high-bit disease} for an example.
Approximate synonyms: {bletcherous}, `bagbiting' (see
{bagbiter}), {losing}, {brain-damaged}.

:crippleware: n. 1. Software that has some important functionality
deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a
working version. 2. [Cambridge] {Guiltware} that exhorts you to
donate to some charity (compare {careware}). 3. Hardware
deliberately crippled, which can be upgraded to a more expensive
model by a trivial change (e.g., cutting a jumper).

An excellent example of crippleware (sense 3) is Intel's 486SX
chip, which is a standard 486DX chip with the co-processor
disabled. To upgrade, you buy another 486 chip with everything
*but* the co-processor disabled. When you put them together
you have two crippled chips doing the work of one. Don't you love
Intel?

:critical mass: n. In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable
material required to sustain a chain reaction. Of a software
product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one
bug introduces one plus {epsilon} bugs. When software achieves
critical mass, it can only be discarded and rewritten.

:crlf: /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often
capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR) followed by a line
feed (LF). More loosely, whatever it takes to get you from the
end of one line of text to the beginning of the next line. See
{newline}, {terpri}. Under {{UNIX}} influence this usage
has become less common (UNIX uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').

:crock: [from the obvious mainstream scatologism] n. 1. An awkward
feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.
Using small integers to represent error codes without the
program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIX
`make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process that dies due
to {segfault}). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which
is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example
depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so
that you can use instructions as data words too; a tightly woven,
almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge},
{brittle}. Also in the adjectives `crockish' and
`crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude'.

:cross-post: [USENET] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to
several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting the article
repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it
multiple times (this is very bad form). Gratuitous cross-posting
without a Followup-To line directing responses to a single followup
group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause {followup} articles
to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one
part of the original posting.

:crudware: /kruhd'weir/ n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of
megabytes of low-quality {freeware} circulated by user's groups
and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another*
set of disk catalog utilities for {{MS-DOS}}? What crudware!"

:cruft: /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. n. An
unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is
cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a
broom only produces more. 2. n. The results of shoddy
construction. 3. vt. [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft']
To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by
a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. n. Excess; superfluous
junk. Esp. used of redundant or superseded code.

This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of
its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at
Harvard University which is part of the old physics building; it's
said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII.
To this day (early 1992) the windows appear to be full of random
techno-junk. MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the
term as a knock on the competition.

:cruft together: vt. (also `cruft up') To throw together
something ugly but temporarily workable. Like vt. {kluge up},
but more pejorative. "There isn't any program now to reverse all
the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one together in about
10 minutes." See {hack together}, {hack up}, {kluge up},
{crufty}.

:cruftsmanship: /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from {cruft}] The
antithesis of craftsmanship.

:crufty: /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or
`cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The
{canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty DEC
software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of
`crufty' holds that was originally a mutation of `crusty'
applied to DEC software so old that the `s' characters were tall
and skinny, looking more like `f' characters. 2. Unpleasant,
especially to the touch, often with encrusted junk. Like spilled
coffee smeared with peanut butter and catsup. 3. Generally
unpleasant. 4. (sometimes spelled `cruftie') n. A small crufty
object (see {frob}); often one that doesn't fit well into the
scheme of things. "A LISP property list is a good place to store
crufties (or, collectively, {random} cruft)."

:crumb: n. Two binary digits; a {quad}. Larger than a {bit},
smaller than a {nybble}. Considered silly. Syn. {tayste}.

:crunch: 1. vi. 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}." 2. vt. To
reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking like a paper document
would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.) Since such
compression usually takes more computations than simpler methods
such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly appropriate. (This
meaning is usually used in the construction `file crunch(ing)' to
distinguish it from {number-crunching}.) See {compress}.
3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other
places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze program source into a
minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute.
The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the
BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order to make it run more
quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of
characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest} entries are often
crunched; see the first example under that entry.

:cruncha cruncha cruncha: /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj.
An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a
serious {grovel}. Also describes a notional sound made by
groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, {grind} (sense 3).

:cryppie: /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements
cryptographic software or hardware.

:CTSS: /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early
(1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing
operating systems, ancestral to {{Multics}}, {{UNIX}}, and
{{ITS}}. The name {{ITS}} (Incompatible Time-sharing System)
was a hack on CTSS, meant both as a joke and to express some basic
differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be
presented to user programs.

:CTY: /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [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'.

:cube: n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan
offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in
my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).

:cubing: [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel
Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing
*again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles,
either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable form of
self-torture (see sense 1 or 2).

:cursor dipped in X: n. There are a couple of metaphors in English
of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common values of X
are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol'). These map over neatly to this
hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind,
when one is composing on-line). "Talk about a {nastygram}! He
must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"

:cuspy: /kuhs'pee/ [WPI: from the DEC abbreviation CUSP, for `Commonly
Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people]
adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A
program that performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.
See {rude}. 3. [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one
regarded as available. Implies a certain curvaceousness.

:cut a tape: vi. To write a software or document distribution on
magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically
cutting the medium! Early versions of this lexicon claimed that
one never analogously speaks of `cutting a disk', but this has
since been reported as live usage. Related slang usages are
mainstream business's `cut a check', the recording industry's
`cut a record', and the military's `cut an order'.

All of these usages reflect physical processes in obsolete
recording and duplication technologies. The first stage in
manufacturing an old-style vinyl record involved cutting grooves in
a stamping die with a precision lathe. More mundanely, the
dominant technology for mass duplication of paper documents in
pre-photocopying days involved "cutting a stencil", punching away
portions of the wax overlay on a silk screen. More directly,
paper tape with holes punched in it was an inportant early storage
medium.

:cybercrud: /si:'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory
tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The computer
equivalent of bureaucratese.

:cyberpunk: /si:'ber-puhnk/ [orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke
and/or editor Gardner Dozois] n.,adj. 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'
(see "{True Names ... and Other Dangers}" in
appendix C) 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 na"ive and tremendously stimulating.
Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See
{cyberspace}, {ice}, {jack in}, {go flatline}.

:cyberspace: /si:'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional `information-space'
loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer
interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of
{cyberpunk} SF. At the time of this writing (mid-1991),
serious efforts to construct {virtual reality} interfaces
modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are 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}). 2. Occasionally, the metaphoric location
of the mind of a person in {hack mode}. Some hackers report
experiencing strong eidetic imagery when in hack mode;
interestingly, independent reports from multiple sources suggest
that there are common features to the experience. In particular,
the dominant colors of this subjective `cyberspace' are often
gray and silver, and the imagery often involves constellations of
marching dots, elaborate shifting patterns of lines and angles, or
moire patterns.

:cycle: 1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker
wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a
"cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so
many `clock cycles'. Often the computer can access its
memory once on every clock cycle, and so one speaks also of
`memory cycles'. These are technical meanings of {cycle}. The
jargon meaning comes from the observation that there are only so
many cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
cycles get divided up among the users. The more cycles the
computer spends working on your program rather than someone else's,
the faster your program will run. That's why every hacker wants
more cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the computer to
respond. 2. By extension, a notional unit of *human* thought
power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical
hacker's think time. "I refused to get involved with the Rubik's
Cube back when it was big. Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if
I let myself." 3. vt. Syn. {bounce}, {120 reset}; from the
phrase `cycle power'. "Cycle the machine again, that serial port's
still hung."

:cycle crunch: n. A situation where the number of people trying to
use the computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one
can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the
system has probably begun to {thrash}. This is an inevitable
result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing. Usually the only
solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this has rapidly become
easier in recent years, so much so that the very term `cycle
crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most hackers now use
workstations or personal computers as opposed to traditional
timesharing systems.

:cycle drought: n. A scarcity of cycles. It may be due to a {cycle
crunch}, but it could also occur because part of the computer is
temporarily not working, leaving fewer cycles to go around.
"The {high moby} is {down}, so we're running with only
half the usual amount of memory. There will be a cycle drought
until it's fixed."

:cycle of reincarnation: [coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970] n.
Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a
computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose
peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward
more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that
it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the
architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at
which point the cycle begins again. Several iterations of this
cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least
one or two in communications and floating-point processors. Also
known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other
variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea.

:cycle server: n. A powerful machine that exists primarily for
running large {batch} jobs. Implies that interactive tasks such as
editing are done on other machines on the network, such as
workstations.

= D = =====

:D. C. Power Lab: n. The former site of {{SAIL}}. Hackers thought
this was very funny because the obvious connection to electrical
engineering was nonexistent --- the lab was named for a Donald C.
Power. Compare {Marginal Hacks}.

:daemon: /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ [from the mythological meaning,
later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor'] n.
A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting
for some condition(s) 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). For example, under {{ITS}}
writing a file on the {LPT} spooler's directory would invoke the
spooling daemon, which would then print the file. The advantage is
that programs wanting (in this example) files printed need not
compete for access to the {LPT}. They simply enter their
implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them.
Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may
either live forever or be regenerated at intervals. Daemon and
{demon} are often used interchangeably, but seem to have
distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced to
computing by {CTSS} people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and
used it to refer to what ITS called a {dragon}. Although the
meaning and the pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary
reflects current (1991) usage.

:dangling pointer: n. A reference that doesn't actually lead
anywhere (in C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't
actually point at anything valid). Usually this is because it
formerly pointed to something that has moved or disappeared. Used
as jargon in a generalization of its techspeak meaning; for
example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved to
the other coast is a dangling pointer.

:dark-side hacker: n. A criminal or malicious hacker; a
{cracker}. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the
dark side of the Force". The implication that hackers form a
sort of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended. Oppose
{samurai}.

:Datamation: /day`t*-may'sh*n/ n. A magazine that many hackers
assume all {suit}s 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, but it has since become much
more exclusively {suit}-oriented and boring.

:day mode: n. See {phase} (sense 1). Used of people only.

:dd: /dee-dee/ [UNIX: from IBM {JCL}] vt. Equivalent to
{cat} or {BLT}. This was originally the name of a UNIX copy
command with special options suitable for block-oriented devices.
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". The UNIX `dd(1)' was
designed with a weird, distinctly non-UNIXy keyword option syntax
reminiscent of IBM System/360 JCL (which had an elaborate DD `Data
Definition' specification for I/O devices); though the command
filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank. The
jargon usage is now very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly
obsolete even there, as `dd(1)' has been {deprecated} for a
long time (though it has no exact replacement). Replaced by
{BLT} or simple English `copy'.

:DDT: /D-D-T/ n. 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
`dbx', `adb', `gdb', or `sdb'. 2. [ITS] Under
MIT's fabled {{ITS}} operating system, DDT (running under the alias
HACTRN) was also used as the {shell} or top level command
language used to execute other programs. 3. Any one of several
specific DDTs (sense 1) supported on early DEC hardware. The DEC
PDP-10 Reference Handbook (1969) contained a footnote on the first
page of the documentation for DDT which illuminates the origin of
the term:

Historical footnote: DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1
computer in 1961. At that time DDT stood for "DEC Debugging Tape".
Since then, the idea of an on-line debugging program has propagated
throughout the computer industry. DDT programs are now available
for all DEC computers. Since media other than tape are now
frequently used, the more descriptive name "Dynamic Debugging
Technique" has been adopted, retaining the DDT abbreviation.
Confusion between DDT-10 and another well known pesticide,
dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (C14-H9-Cl5) should be minimal
since each attacks a different, and apparently mutually exclusive,
class of bugs.

Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the
handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more
`businesslike'.

The history above is known to many old-time hackers. But there's
more: Peter Samson, author of the {TMRC} lexicon, reports that
he named `DDT' after a similar tool on the TX-0 computer, the
direct ancestor of the PDP-1 built at MIT's Lincoln Lab in 1957.
The debugger on that ground-breaking machine (the first
transistorized computer) rejoiced in the name FLIT (FLexowriter
Interrogation Tape).

:de-rezz: /dee-rez'/ [from `de-resolve' via the movie "Tron"]
(also `derez') 1. vi. To disappear or dissolve; the image that goes
with it is of an object breaking up into raster lines and static
and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a person who seems to
have suddenly `fuzzed out' mentally rather than physically.
Usage: extremely silly, also rare. This verb was actually invented
as *fictional* hacker jargon, and adopted in a spirit of irony
by real hackers years after the fact. 2. vt. On a Macintosh, many
program structures (including the code itself) are managed in small
segments of the program file known as `resources'. The standard
resource compiler is Rez. The standard resource decompiler is
DeRez. Thus, decompiling a resource is `derezzing'. Usage: very
common.

:dead: adj. 1. Non-functional; {down}; {crash}ed. Especially
used of hardware. 2. At XEROX PARC, software that is working but
not undergoing continued development and support.

:dead code: n. Routines that can never be accessed because all calls
to them have been removed, or code that cannot be reached because
it is guarded by a control structure that provably must always
transfer control somewhere else. The presence of dead code may
reveal either logical errors due to alterations in the program or
significant changes in the assumptions and environment of the
program (see also {software rot}); a good compiler should report
dead code so a maintainer can think about what it means. Syn.
{grunge}.

:DEADBEEF: /ded-beef/ n. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for
freshly allocated memory (decimal -21524111) under a number of
IBM environments, including the RS/6000. As in "Your program is
DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory); if you
start from an odd half-word boundary, of course, you have
BEEFDEAD.

:deadlock: n. 1. [techspeak] A situation wherein two or more
processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of
the others to do something. A common example is a program
communicating to a server, which may find itself waiting for output
from the server before sending anything more to it, while the
server is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling
program before outputting anything. (It is reported that this
particular flavor of deadlock is sometimes called a `starvation
deadlock', though the term `starvation' is more properly used for
situations where a program can never run simply because it never
gets high enough priority. Another common flavor is
`constipation', where each process is trying to send stuff to
the other but all buffers are full because nobody is reading
anything.) See {deadly embrace}. 2. Also used of
deadlock-like interactions between humans, as when two people meet
in a narrow corridor, and each tries to be polite by moving aside
to let the other pass, but they end up swaying from side to side
without making any progress because they always both move the same
way at the same time.

:deadly embrace: n. Same as {deadlock}, though usually used only when
exactly 2 processes are involved. This is the more popular term in
Europe, while {deadlock} predominates in the United States.

:death code: n. A routine whose job is to set everything in the
computer --- registers, memory, flags, everything --- to zero,
including that portion of memory where it is running; its last act
is to stomp on its own "store zero" instruction. Death code
isn't very useful, but writing it is an interesting hacking
challenge on architectures where the instruction set makes it
possible, such as the PDP-8 (it has also been done on the DG Nova).
Death code is much less common, and more anti-social, on modern
multi-user machines. It was very impressive on earlier hardware
that provided front panel switches and displays to show register
and memory contents, esp. when these were used to prod the corpse
to see why it died.

Perhaps the ultimate death code is on the TI 990 series, where all
registers are actually in RAM, and the instruction "store immediate
0" has the opcode "0". The PC will immediately wrap around core as
many times as it can until a user hits HALT. Any empty memory
location is death code. Worse, the manufacturer recommended use of
this instruction in startup code (which would be in ROM and
therefore survive).

:Death Star: [from the movie "Star Wars"] 1. The AT&T corporate
logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny
resemblance to the `Death Star' in the movie. This usage is
particularly common among partisans of {BSD} UNIX, who tend to
regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy. Copies
still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape
with a space fighter labeled 4.2 BSD streaking away from a broken
AT&T logo wreathed in flames. 2. AT&T's internal magazine,
`Focus', uses `death star' for an incorrectly done AT&T logo
in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light
--- a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.

:DEC Wars: n. A 1983 {USENET} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve
Tarr spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some
years later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to
exploit a great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-longer
complete rewrite called "UNIX WARS"; the two are often
confused.

:DEChead: /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}. Not flattering.
2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.

:deckle: /dek'l/ [from dec- and {nybble}; the original
spelling seems to have been `decle'] n. Two {nickle}s;
10 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.

:deep hack mode: n. See {hack mode}.

:deep magic: [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An
awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one
not generally published and available to hackers at large (compare
{black art}); one that could only have been composed by a true
{wizard}. Compiler optimization techniques and many aspects of
{OS} design used to be {deep magic}; many techniques in
cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are.
Compare {heavy wizardry}. Esp. found in comments of the form
"Deep magic begins here...". Compare {voodoo programming}.

:deep space: n. 1. Describes the notional location of any program
that has gone {off the trolley}. Esp. used of programs that
just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some
output is expected. "Uh oh. I should have gotten a prompt ten
seconds ago. The program's in deep space somewhere." Compare
{buzz}, {catatonic}, {hyperspace}. 2. The metaphorical
location of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some
esoteric form of {bogosity} that he or she no longer responds
coherently to normal communication. Compare {page out}.

:defenestration: [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of
assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic
retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was
*awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" 2. The act of
exiting a window system in order to get better response time from a
full-screen program. This comes from the dictionary meaning of
`defenestrate', which is to throw something out a window. 3. The
act of discarding something under the assumption that it will
improve matters. "I don't have any disk space left." "Well,
why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?"
4. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface.
"It has to run on a VT100." "Curses! I've been
defenestrated!"

:defined as: adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart
sense. "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer." Compare
{logical}.

:dehose: /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a {hosed} condition.

:delint: /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected
when {lint}ing. Confusingly, this is also referred to as
`linting' code.

:delta: n. 1. [techspeak] 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.) 2. [UNIX] A {diff}, especially a {diff} stored
under the set of version-control tools called SCCS (Source Code
Control System) or RCS (Revision Control System). 3. n. A small
quantity, but not as small as {epsilon}. The jargon usage of
{delta} and {epsilon} stems from the traditional use of these
letters in mathematics for very small numerical quantities,
particularly in `epsilon-delta' proofs in limit theory (as in the
differential calculus). The term {delta} is often used, once
{epsilon} has been mentioned, to mean a quantity that is
slightly bigger than {epsilon} but still very small. "The cost
isn't epsilon, but it's delta" means that the cost isn't totally
negligible, but it is nevertheless very small. Common
constructions include `within delta of ---', `within epsilon of
---': that is, close to and even closer to.

:demented: adj. 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. Compare
{wonky}, {bozotic}.

:demigod: n. 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 recognizably
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 M. 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. See also {net.god}, {true-hacker}.

:demo: /de'moh/ [short for `demonstration'] 1. v. To
demonstrate a product or prototype. A far more effective way of
inducing bugs to manifest than any number of {test} runs,
especially when important people are watching. 2. n. The act of
demoing. 3. n. Esp. as `demo version', can refer to either a
special version of a program (frequently with some features
crippled) which is distributed at little or no cost to the user for
demonstration purposes.

:demo mode: [Sun] n. 1. The state of being {heads down} in order
to finish code in time for a {demo}, usually due yesterday.
2. A mode in which video games sit there by themselves running
through a portion of the game, also known as `attract mode'.
Some serious {app}s have a demo mode they use as a screen saver,
or may go through a demo mode on startup (for example, the
Microsoft Windows opening screen --- which lets you impress your
neighbors without actually having to put up with {Microsloth
Windows}).

:demon: n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program that is not invoked
explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
occur. See {daemon}. The distinction is that demons are
usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually
programs running on an operating system. Demons are particularly
common in AI programs. For example, a knowledge-manipulation
program might implement inference rules as demons. Whenever a new
piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which
demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create
additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective
inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in
turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through
chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue with
whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used
equivalently to {daemon} --- especially in the {{UNIX}} world,
where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly
archaic.

:depeditate: /dee-ped'*-tayt/ [by (faulty) analogy with
`decapitate'] vt. 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.

:deprecated: adj. Said of a program or feature that is considered
obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in
favor 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
which write them decide that a sufficient number of users have
written code which depends on specific features which are out of
favor.

:deserves to lose: adj. Said of someone who willfully does the
{Wrong Thing}; humorously, if one uses a feature known to be
{marginal}. What is meant is that one deserves the consequences
of one's {losing} actions. "Boy, anyone who tries to use
{mess-dos} deserves to {lose}!" ({{ITS}} fans used to say this
of {{UNIX}}; many still do.) See also {screw}, {chomp},
{bagbiter}.

:desk check: n.,v. To {grovel} over hardcopy of source code,
mentally simulating the control flow; a method of catching bugs.
No longer common practice in this age of on-screen editing, fast
compiles, and sophisticated debuggers --- though some maintain
stoutly that it ought to be. Compare {eyeball search},
{vdiff}, {vgrep}.

:Devil Book: n. `The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD
UNIX Operating System', by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk
McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley
Publishers, 1989) --- the standard reference book on the internals
of {BSD} UNIX. So called because the cover has a picture
depicting a little devil (a visual play on {daemon}) in
sneakers, holding a pitchfork (referring to one of the
characteristic features of UNIX, the `fork(2)' system call).

:devo: /dee'voh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A person in a
development group. See also {doco} and {mango}.

:dickless workstation: n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for
`diskless workstation', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50
and other machines designed exclusively to network with an
expensive central disk server. These combine all the disadvantages
of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of distributed personal
computers; typically, they cannot even {boot} themselves without
help (in the form of some kind of {breath-of-life packet}) from
the server.

:dictionary flame: [USENET] n. An attempt to sidetrack a debate
away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that
presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise.
A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to
disputes about reality.

:diddle: 1. vt. To work with or modify in a not particularly
serious manner. "I diddled a copy of {ADVENT} so it didn't
double-space all the time." "Let's diddle this piece of code and
see if the problem goes away." See {tweak} and {twiddle}.
2. n. The action or result of diddling. See also {tweak},
{twiddle}, {frob}.

:die: v. Syn. {crash}. Unlike {crash}, which is used
primarily of hardware, this verb is used of both hardware and
software. See also {go flatline}, {casters-up mode}.

:die horribly: v. The software equivalent of {crash and burn},
and the preferred emphatic form of {die}. "The converter
choked on an FF in its input and died horribly".

:diff: /dif/ n. 1. A change listing, especially giving differences
between (and additions to) source code or documents (the term is
often used in the plural `diffs'). "Send me your diffs for the
Jargon File!" Compare {vdiff}. 2. Specifically, such a listing
produced by the `diff(1)' command, esp. when used as
specification input to the `patch(1)' utility (which can
actually perform the modifications; see {patch}). This is a
common method of distributing patches and source updates in the
UNIX/C world. See also {vdiff}, {mod}.

:digit: n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation. See also
{VAX}, {VMS}, {PDP-10}, {{TOPS-10}}, {DEChead}, {double
DECkers}, {field circus}.

:dike: vt. 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',
esp. a heavy-duty metal-cutting device, but may also refer to a
kind of wire-cutters used by electronics techs. 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.

:ding: n.,vi. 1. Synonym for {feep}. Usage: rare among hackers,
but commoner in the {Real World}. 2. `dinged': What happens
when someone in authority gives you a minor bitching about
something, esp. something trivial. "I was dinged for having a
messy desk."

:dink: /dink/ n. 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.

:dinosaur: n. 1. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special
power. Used especially of old minis and mainframes, in contrast
with newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famous quote from
the 1988 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in the massive
IBM display with a grazing dinosaur "with a truck outside pumping
its bodily fluids through it". IBM was not amused. Compare
{big iron}; see also {mainframe}. 2. [IBM] A very conservative
user; a {zipperhead}.

:dinosaur pen: n. A traditional {mainframe} computer room complete with
raised flooring, special power, its own ultra-heavy-duty air
conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire extinguishers. See
{boa}.

:dinosaurs mating: n. Said to occur when yet another {big iron}
merger or buyout occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that
these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the
{mainframe} industry. In its glory days of the 1960s, it was
`IBM and the Seven Dwarves': Burroughs, Control Data, General
Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac. RCA and GE sold out
early, and it was `IBM and the Bunch' (Burroughs, Univac, NCR,
Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while. Honeywell was bought out
by Bull; Burroughs merged with Univac to form Unisys (in 1984 ---
this was when the phrase `dinosaurs mating' was coined); and as
this is written (early 1991) AT&T is attempting to recover from a
disastrously bad first six years in the hardware industry by
absorbing NCR. More such earth-shaking unions of doomed giants
seem inevitable.

:dirtball: [XEROX PARC] n. A small, perhaps struggling outsider;
not in the major or even the minor leagues. For example, "Xerox
is not a dirtball company".

[Outsiders often observe in the PARC culture an institutional
arrogance which usage of this term exemplifies. The brilliance and
scope of PARC's contributions to computer science have been such
that this superior attitude is not much resented. --- ESR]

:dirty power: n. Electrical mains voltage that is unfriendly to
the delicate innards of computers. Spikes, {drop-outs}, average
voltage significantly higher or lower than nominal, or just plain
noise can all cause problems of varying subtlety and severity
(these are collectively known as {power hit}s).

:disclaimer: n. [USENET] n. 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 organization running the machine through which the article
entered the network.

:Discordianism: /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of
{Eris}, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers.
Discordianism was popularized by Robert Shea and Robert Anton
Wilson's `{Illuminatus!}' trilogy as a sort of
self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners --- it should on no account
be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes.
Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from
`Principia Discordia': "A Discordian is Prohibited of
Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with
an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long
warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a
malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati.
See {Religion} under {appendix B}, {Church of the
SubGenius}, and {ha ha only serious}.

:disk farm: n. (also {laundromat}) A large room or rooms filled
with disk drives (esp. {washing machine}s).

:display hack: n. A program with the same approximate purpose as a
kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous display hacks
include {munching squares}, {smoking clover}, the BSD UNIX
`rain(6)' program, `worms(6)' on miscellaneous UNIXes,
and the {X} `kaleid(1)' program. Display hacks can also be
implemented without programming by creating text files containing
numerous escape sequences for interpretation by a video terminal;
one notable example displayed, on any VT100, a Christmas tree with
twinkling lights and a toy train circling its base. The {hack
value} of a display hack is proportional to the esthetic value of
the images times the cleverness of the algorithm divided by the
size of the code. Syn. {psychedelicware}.

:Dissociated Press: [play on `Associated Press'; perhaps inspired
by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up,
Doc?"] n. An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially
humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a
{marketroid}. You start by printing any N consecutive
words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step you search for
any random occurrence in the original text of the last N
words (or letters) already printed and then print the next word or
letter. {EMACS} has a handy command for this. Here is a short
example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier
version of this Jargon File:

wart: n. A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of
an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively
benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be
not worth paying attention to the medium in question.

Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied
to the same source:

window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer
to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a
chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech
makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual
abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!

A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press
to a random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes of finding
an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, `window
sysIWYG' and `informash' show some promise.) Iterated applications
of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar
techniques called `travesty generators' have been employed with
considerable satirical effect to the utterances of USENET flamers;
see {pseudo}.

:distribution: n. 1. A software source tree packaged for
distribution; but see {kit}. 2. A vague term encompassing
mailing lists and USENET newsgroups (but not {BBS} {fora}); any
topic-oriented message channel with multiple recipients. 3. An
information-space domain (usually loosely correlated with
geography) to which propagation of a USENET message is restricted;
a much-underutilized feature.

:do protocol: [from network protocol programming] vi. To perform an
interaction with somebody or something that follows a clearly
defined procedure. For example, "Let's do protocol with the
check" at a restaurant means to ask for the check, calculate the
tip and everybody's share, collect money from everybody, generate
change as necessary, and pay the bill. See {protocol}.

:doc: /dok/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for
`documentation'. Often used in the plural `docs' and in the
construction `doc file' (documentation available on-line).

:doco: /do'koh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A
documentation writer. See also {devo} and {mango}.

:documentation:: n. The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded,
steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern
software or hardware products (see also {tree-killer}). Hackers
seldom read paper documentation and (too) often resist writing it;
they prefer theirs to be terse and on-line. A common comment on
this is "You can't {grep} dead trees". See {drool-proof
paper}, {verbiage}.

:dodgy: adj. Syn. with {flaky}. Preferred outside the U.S.

:dogcow: /dog'kow/ n. See {Moof}.

:dogwash: /dog'wosh/ [From a quip in the `urgency' field of a very
optional software change request, ca. 1982. It was something like
"Urgency: Wash your dog first".] 1. n. A project of minimal
priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. 2. v.
To engage in such a project. Many games and much {freeware} get
written this way.

:domainist: /doh-mayn'ist/ adj. 1. Said of an {{Internet
address}} (as opposed to a {bang path}) because the part to the
right of the `@' specifies a nested series of `domains';
for example, [email protected] specifies the machine
called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus within the
top-level domain called com. See also {big-endian}, sense 2.
2. Said of a site, mailer, or routing program which knows how to
handle domainist addresses. 3. Said of a person (esp. a site
admin) who prefers domain addressing, supports a domainist mailer,
or prosyletizes for domainist addressing and disdains {bang
path}s. This is now (1991) semi-obsolete, as most sites have
converted.

:Don't do that, then!: [from an old doctor's office joke about a
patient with a trivial complaint] Stock response to a user
complaint. "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a
halt for thirty seconds." "Don't do that, then!" (or "So don't
do that!"). Compare {RTFM}.

:dongle: /dong'gl/ n. 1. A security or {copy protection}
device for commercial microcomputer programs consisting of a
serialized EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which
must be connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program
is run. Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and
at programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users
can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay
for each dongle. The idea was clever, but it was initially a
failure, as users disliked tying up a serial port this way. Most
dongles on the market today (1991) will pass data through the port
and monitor for {magic} codes (and combinations of status lines)
with minimal if any interference with devices further down the line
--- this innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained dongles
for multiple pieces of software. The devices are still not widely
used, as the industry has moved away from copy-protection schemes
in general. 2. By extension, any physical electronic key or
transferrable ID required for a program to function. See
{dongle-disk}.

[Note: in early 1992, advertising copy from Rainbow Technologies (a
manufacturer of dongles) included a claim that the word derived from
"Don Gall", allegedly the inventor of the device. The company's
receptionist will cheerfully tell you that the story is a myth
invented for the ad copy. Nevertheless, I expect it to haunt my
life as a lexicographer for at least the next ten years. ---ESR]

:dongle-disk: /don'gl disk/ n. See {dongle}; a `dongle-disk'
is a floppy disk which is required in order to perform some task.
Some contain special coding that allows an application to identify
it uniquely, others *are* special code that does something
that normally-resident programs don't or can't. (For example,
AT&T's "Unix PC" would only come up in {root mode} with a
special boot disk.) Also called a `key disk'.

:donuts: n.obs. A collective noun for any set of memory bits. This
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.

:doorstop: n. 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."
Compare {boat anchor}.

:dot file: [UNIX] n. A file which is not visible by default to
normal directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named with a
leading dot are, by convention, not normally presented in directory
listings). Many programs define one or more dot files in which
startup or configuration information may be optionally recorded; a
user can customize the program's behavior by creating the
appropriate file in the current or home directory. (Therefore, dot
files tend to {creep} --- with every nontrivial application
program defining at least one, a user's home directory can be
filled with scores of dot files, of course without the user's
really being aware of it.) See also {rc file}.

:double bucky: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The
command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F."