Chapter D: C. Power Lab n (7)
`Whitesmiths style' -- popularized by the examples that came with Whitesmiths C, an early commercial C compiler. Basic indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four spaces are occasionally seen.
if (<cond>)
{
<body>
}
`GNU style' -- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software Foundation code, and just about nowhere else. Indents are always four spaces per level, with { and } halfway between the outer and inner indent levels.
if (<cond>)
{
<body>
}
Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most common, with about equal mind shares. K&R/1TBS used to be nearly universal, but is now much less common in C (the opening brace tends to get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an if or while, which is a Bad Thing). Defenders of 1TBS argue that any putative gain in readability is less important than their style's relative economy with vertical space, which enables one to see more code on one's screen at once.
The Java Language Specification legislates not only the capitalization of identifiers, but where nouns, adjectives, and verbs should be in method, class, interface, and variable names (section 6.8). While the specification stops short of also standardizing on a bracing style, all source code originating from Sun Laboratories uses the K&R style. This has set a precedent for Java programmers, which most follow.
Doubtless these issues will continue to be the subject of holy wars.
Node:index of X, Next:infant mortality, Previous:indent style, Up:= I =
index of X n.
See coefficient of X.
Node:infant mortality, Next:infinite, Previous:index of X, Up:= I =
infant mortality n.
It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak by now) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip and wire failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such failures are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems (or, occasionally, as `sudden infant death syndrome'). See bathtub curve, burn-in period.
Node:infinite, Next:infinite loop, Previous:infant mortality, Up:= I =
infinite adj.
[common] Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme. Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage." "He is an infinite loser." The word most likely to follow `infinite', though, is hair. (It has been pointed out that fractals are an excellent example of infinite hair.) These uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning. The term `semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount of some resource, is also heard. "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite amount of time to optimize my program." See also semi.
Node:infinite loop, Next:Infinite-Monkey Theorem, Previous:infinite, Up:= I =
infinite loop n.
One that never terminates (that is, the machine spins or buzzes forever and goes catatonic). There is a standard joke that has been made about each generation's exemplar of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so fast it can execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"
Node:Infinite-Monkey Theorem, Next:infinity, Previous:infinite loop, Up:= I =
Infinite-Monkey Theorem n.
"If you put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the script for Hamlet." (One may also hypothesize a small number of monkeys and a very long period of time.) This theorem asserts nothing about the intelligence of the one random monkey that eventually comes up with the script (and note that the mob will also type out all the possible incorrect versions of Hamlet). It may be referred to semi-seriously when justifying a brute force method; the implication is that, with enough resources thrown at it, any technical challenge becomes a one-banana problem. This argument gets more respect since Linux justified the bazaar mode of development.
This theorem was first popularized by the astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington. It became part of the idiom of techies via the classic SF short story "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, and many younger hackers know it through a reference in Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". On 1 April 2000 the usage acquired its own Internet standard, (Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite).
Node:infinity, Next:inflate, Previous:Infinite-Monkey Theorem, Up:= I =
infinity n.
1. The largest value that can be represented in a particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type, whatever). 2. `minus infinity': The smallest such value, not necessarily or even usually the simple negation of plus infinity. In N-bit twos-complement arithmetic, infinity is 2^(N-1) - 1 but minus infinity is - (2^(N-1)), not -(2^(N-1) - 1). Note also that this is different from time T equals minus infinity, which is closer to a mathematician's usage of infinity.
Node:inflate, Next:Infocom, Previous:infinity, Up:= I =
inflate vt.
To decompress or puff a file. Rare among Internet hackers, used primarily by MS-DOS/Windows types.
Node:Infocom, Next:initgame, Previous:inflate, Up:= I =
Infocom n.
A now-legendary games company, active from 1979 to 1989, that commercialized the MDL parser technology used for Zork to produce a line of text adventure games that remain favorites among hackers. Infocom's games were intelligent, funny, witty, erudite, irreverent, challenging, satirical, and most thoroughly hackish in spirit. The physical game packages from Infocom are now prized collector's items. After being acquired by Activision in 1989 they did a few more "modern" (e.g. graphics-intensive) games which were less successful than reissues of their classics.
The software, thankfully, is still extant; Infocom games were written in a kind of P-code and distributed with a P-code interpreter core, and not only freeware emulators for that interpreter but an actual compiler as well have been written to permit the P-code to be run on platforms the games never originally graced. In fact, new games written in this P-code are still bering written. (Emulators that can run Infocom game ZIPs, and new games, are available at ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu:/doc/misc/if-archive/infocom.)
Node:initgame, Next:insanely great, Previous:Infocom, Up:= I =
initgame /in-it'gaym/ n.
[IRC] An IRC version of the trivia game "Botticelli", 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.
[1996 update: a recognizable version of the initgame has become a staple of some radio talk shows in the U.S. We had it first! - ESR]
Node:insanely great, Next:installfest, Previous:initgame, Up:= I =
insanely great adj.
[Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD Unix people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly elegant that it is imaginable only to someone possessing the most puissant of hacker-natures.
Node:installfest, Next:INTERCAL, Previous:insanely great, Up:= I =
installfest
[Linux community since c.1998] Common portmanteau word for "installation festival"; Linux user groups frequently run these. Computer users are invited to bring their machines to have Linux installed on their machines. The idea is to get them painlessly over the biggest hump in migrating to Linux, which is initially installing and configuring it for the user's machine.
Node:INTERCAL, Next:interesting, Previous:installfest, Up:= I =
INTERCAL /in't*r-kal/ n.
[said by the authors to stand for `Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] A computer language designed by Don Woods and James Lyons in 1972. INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written language, being totally unspeakable. An excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference Manual will make the style of the language clear:
It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem. For example, if one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536 in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is:
DO :1 <- #0$#256
any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd. Since this is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to turn up, as bosses are wont to do. The effect would be no less devastating for the programmer having been correct.
INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even more unspeakable. The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton. The language has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an _alt.lang.intercal_ newsgroup devoted to the study and ... appreciation of the language on Usenet.
Inevitably, INTERCAL has a home page on the Web: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/intercal/. An extended version, implemented in (what else?) Perl and adding object-oriented features, is available at http://dd-sh.assurdo.com/INTERCAL. See also Befunge.
Node:interesting, Next:Internet, Previous:INTERCAL, Up:= I =
interesting adj.
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". Oppose trivial, uninteresting.
Node:Internet, Next:Internet address, Previous:interesting, Up:= I =
Internet n.
The mother of all networks. First incarnated beginning in 1969 as the ARPANET, a U.S. Department of Defense research testbed. Though it has been widely believed that the goal was to develop a network architecture for military command-and-control that could survive disruptions up to and including nuclear war, this is a myth; in fact, ARPANET was conceived from the start as a way to get most economical use out of then-scarce large-computer resources.
As originally imagined, ARPANET's major use would have been to support what is now called remote login and more sophisticated forms of distributed computing, but the infant technology of electronic mail quickly grew to dominate actual usage. Universities, research labs and defense contractors early discovered the Internet's potential as a medium of communication between humans and linked up in steadily increasing numbers, connecting together a quirky mix of academics, techies, hippies, SF fans, hackers, and anarchists. The roots of this lexicon lie in those early years.
Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many ways. The typical machine/OS combination moved from DEC PDP-10s and PDP-20s, running TOPS-10 and TOPS-20, to PDP-11s and VAXes and Suns running Unix, and in the 1990s to Unix on Intel microcomputers. The Internet's protocols grew more capable, most notably in the move from NCP/IP to TCP/IP in 1982 and the implementation of Domain Name Service in 1983. It was around this time that people began referring to the collection of interconnected networks with ARPANET at its core as "the Internet".
The ARPANET had a fairly strict set of participation guidelines - connected institutions had to be involved with a DOD-related research project. By the mid-80s, many of the organizations clamoring to join didn't fit this profile. In 1986, the National Science Foundation built NSFnet to open up access to its five regional supercomputing centers; NSFnet became the backbone of the Internet, replacing the original ARPANET pipes (which were formally shut down in 1990). Between 1990 and late 1994 the pieces of NSFnet were sold to major telecommunications companies until the Internet backbone had gone completely commercial.
That year, 1994, was also the year the mainstream culture discovered the Internet. Once again, the killer app was not the anticipated one - rather, what caught the public imagination was the hypertext and multimedia features of the World Wide Web. Subsequently the Internet has seen off its only serious challenger (the OSI protocol stack favored by European telecom monopolies) and is in the process of absorbing into itself many of the proprietary networks built during the second wave of wide-area networking after 1980. It is now (1996) a commonplace even in mainstream media to predict that a globally-extended Internet will become the key unifying communications technology of the next century. See also the network and Internet address.
Node:Internet address, Next:Internet Death Penalty, Previous:Internet, Up:= I =
Internet address n.
1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of the form [email protected]_, where foo is a user name, bar is a sitename, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periods itself. Contrast with bang path; see also the network and network address. All Internet machines and most UUCP sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so. See also bang path, domainist. 2. More loosely, any network address reachable through Internet; this includes bang path addresses and some internal corporate and government networks.
Reading Internet addresses is something of an art. Here are the four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed by a selection of geographical domains:
_com_
commercial organizations
_edu_
educational institutions
_gov_
U.S. government civilian sites
_mil_
U.S. military sites
Note that most of the sites in the _com_ and _edu_ domains are in the U.S. or Canada.
_us_
sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains
_su_
sites in the ex-Soviet Union (see kremvax).
_uk_
sites in the United Kingdom
Within the _us_ domain, there are subdomains for the fifty states, each generally with a name identical to the state's postal abbreviation. Within the _uk_ domain, there is an _ac_ subdomain for academic sites and a _co_ domain for commercial ones. Other top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways.
Node:Internet Death Penalty, Next:Internet Exploder, Previous:Internet address, Up:= I =
Internet Death Penalty
[Usenet] (often abbreviated IDP) The ultimate sanction against spam-emitting sites - complete shunning at the router level of all mail and packets, as well as Usenet messages, from the offending domain(s). Compare Usenet Death Penalty, with which it is sometimes confused.
Node:Internet Exploder, Next:Internet Exploiter, Previous:Internet Death Penalty, Up:= I =
Internet Exploder
[very common] Pejorative hackerism for Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" web browser (also "Internet Exploiter"). Compare HP-SUX, AIDX, buglix, Macintrash, Telerat, ScumOS, sun-stools, Slowlaris.
Node:Internet Exploiter, Next:interrupt, Previous:Internet Exploder, Up:= I =
Internet Exploiter n.
Another common name-of-insult for Internet Explorer, Microsoft's overweight Web Browser; more hostile than Internet Exploder. Reflects widespread hostility to Microsoft and a sense that it is seeking to hijack, monopolize, and corrupt the Internet. Compare Exploder and the less pejorative Netscrape.
Node:interrupt, Next:interrupt list, Previous:Internet Exploiter, Up:= I =
interrupt
1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event that interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine. See also trap. 2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker. Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt -- have you seen Joe recently?" See priority interrupt. 3. Under MS-DOS, nearly synonymous with `system call', because the OS and BIOS routines are both called using the INT instruction (see interrupt list) and because programmers so often have to bypass the OS (going directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get reasonable performance.
Node:interrupt list, Next:interrupts locked out, Previous:interrupt, Up:= I =
interrupt list n.
[MS-DOS] The list of all known software interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM PCs and compatibles, maintained and made available for free redistribution by Ralf Brown. As of late 1992, it had grown to approximately two megabytes in length.
Node:interrupts locked out, Next:intro, Previous:interrupt list, Up:= I =
interrupts locked out adj.
When someone is ignoring you. In a restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have interrupts locked out". The synonym `interrupts disabled' is also common. Variations abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set" and "interrupts masked out" are also heard. See also spl.
Node:intro, Next:IRC, Previous:interrupts locked out, Up:= I =
intro n.
[demoscene] Introductory screen of some production. 2. A short demo, usually showing just one or two screens. 3. Small, usually 64k, 40k or 4k demo. Sizes are generally dictated by compo rules. See also dentro, demo.
Node:IRC, Next:iron, Previous:intro, Up:= I =
IRC /I-R-C/ n.
[Internet Relay Chat] A worldwide "party line" network that allows one to converse with others in real time. IRC is structured as a network of Internet servers, each of which accepts connections from client programs, one per user. The IRC community and the Usenet and MUD communities overlap to some extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have discovered the wonders of computer networks. Some Usenet jargon has been adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as emoticons. There is also a vigorous native jargon, represented in this lexicon by entries marked `[IRC]'. See also talk mode.
Node:iron, Next:Iron Age, Previous:IRC, Up:= I =
iron n.
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. See also dinosaur.
Node:Iron Age, Next:iron box, Previous:iron, Up:= I =
Iron Age n.
In the history of computing, 1961-1971 -- the formative era of commercial mainframe technology, when ferrite-core dinosaurs ruled the earth. The Iron Age began, ironically enough, with the delivery of the first minicomputer (the PDP-1) and ended with the introduction of the first commercial microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971. See also Stone Age; compare elder days.
Node:iron box, Next:ironmonger, Previous:Iron Age, Up:= I =
iron box n.
[Unix/Internet] A special environment set up to trap a cracker logging in over remote connections long enough to be traced. May include a modified shell restricting the cracker's movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed to keep him interested and logged on. See also back door, firewall machine, Venus flytrap, and Clifford Stoll's account in "The Cuckoo's Egg" of how he made and used one (see the Bibliography in Appendix C). Compare padded cell, honey pot.
Node:ironmonger, Next:ISO standard cup of tea, Previous:iron box, Up:= I =
ironmonger n.
[IBM] A hardware specialist (derogatory). Compare sandbender, polygon pusher.
Node:ISO standard cup of tea, Next:ISP, Previous:ironmonger, Up:= I =
ISO standard cup of tea n.
[South Africa] A cup of tea with milk and one teaspoon of sugar, where the milk is poured into the cup before the tea. Variations are ISO 0, with no sugar; ISO 2, with two spoons of sugar; and so on. This may derive from the "NATO standard" cup of coffee and tea (milk and two sugars), military slang going back to the late 1950s and parodying NATO's relentless bureacratic drive to standardize parts across European and U.S. militaries.
Like many ISO standards, this one has a faintly alien ring in North America, where hackers generally shun the decadent British practice of adulterating perfectly good tea with dairy products and prefer instead to add a wedge of lemon, if anything. If one were feeling extremely silly, one might hypothesize an analogous `ANSI standard cup of tea' and wind up with a political situation distressingly similar to several that arise in much more serious technical contexts. (Milk and lemon don't mix very well.)
[2000 update: There is now, in fact, a `British Standard BS6008: How to make a standard cup of tea.' - ESR]
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ISP /I-S-P/
Common abbreviation for Internet Service Provider, a kind of company that barely existed before 1993. ISPs sell Internet access to the mass market. While the big nationwide commercial BBSs with Internet access (like America Online, CompuServe, GEnie, Netcom, etc.) are technically ISPs, the term is usually reserved for local or regional small providers (often run by hackers turned entrepreneurs) who resell Internet access cheaply without themselves being information providers or selling advertising. Compare NSP.
Node:ITS, Next:IWBNI, Previous:ISP, Up:= I =
ITS /I-T-S/ n.
1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an influential though highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab. Much AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most venerable sort. ITS pioneered many important innovations, including transparent file sharing between machines and terminal-independent I/O. After about 1982, most actual work was shifted to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community. The shutdown of the lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see high moby). 2. A mythical image of operating-system perfection worshiped by a bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and ex-users (see troglodyte, sense 2). ITS worshipers manage somehow to continue believing that an OS maintained by assembly-language hand-hacking that supported only monocase 6-character filenames in one directory per account remains superior to today's state of commercial art (their venom against Unix is particularly intense). See also holy wars, Weenix.
Node:IWBNI, Next:IYFEG, Previous:ITS, Up:= I =
IWBNI //
Abbreviation for `It Would Be Nice If'. Compare WIBNI.
Node:IYFEG, Next:J. Random, Previous:IWBNI, Up:= I =
IYFEG //
[Usenet] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite Ethnic Group'. Used as a meta-name when telling ethnic jokes on the net to avoid offending anyone. See JEDR.
Node:= J =, Next:= K =, Previous:= I =, Up:The Jargon Lexicon
= J =
J. Random:
J. Random Hacker:
jack in:
jaggies:
Java:
JCL:
JEDR:
Jeff K.:
jello:
jiffy:
job security:
jock:
joe code:
jolix:
juggling eggs:
jump off into never-never land:
jupiter:
Node:J. Random, Next:J. Random Hacker, Previous:IYFEG, Up:= J =
J. Random /J rand'm/ n.
[common; generalized from J. Random Hacker] Arbitrary; ordinary; any one; any old. `J. Random' is often prefixed to a noun to make a name out of it. It means roughly `some particular' or `any specific one'. "Would you let J. Random Loser marry your daughter?" The most common uses are `J. Random Hacker', `J. Random Loser', and `J. Random Nerd' ("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to gun down other people?"), but it can be used simply as an elaborate version of random in any sense.
Node:J. Random Hacker, Next:jack in, Previous:J. Random, Up:= J =
J. Random Hacker /J rand'm hak'r/ n.
[very common] A mythical figure like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd. This term is one of the oldest in the jargon, apparently going back to MIT in the 1960s. See random, Suzie COBOL. This may originally have been inspired by `J. Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee whose name was a household word back in the early days of TMRC, and was probably influenced by `J. Presper Eckert' (one of the co-inventors of the electronic computer). See also Fred Foobar.
Node:jack in, Next:jaggies, Previous:J. Random Hacker, Up:= J =
jack in v.
To log on to a machine or connect to a network or BBS, esp. for purposes of entering a virtual reality simulation such as a MUD or IRC (leaving is "jacking out"). This term derives from cyberpunk SF, in which it was used for the act of plugging an electrode set into neural sockets in order to interface the brain directly to a virtual reality. It is primarily used by MUD and IRC fans and younger hackers on BBS systems.
Node:jaggies, Next:Java, Previous:jack in, Up:= J =
jaggies /jag'eez/ n.
The `stairstep' effect observable when an edge (esp. a linear edge of very shallow or steep slope) is rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).
Node:Java, Next:JCL, Previous:jaggies, Up:= J =
Java
An object-oriented language originally developed at Sun by James Gosling (and known by the name "Oak") with the intention of being the successor to C++ (the project was however originally sold to Sun as an embedded language for use in set-top boxes). After the great Internet explosion of 1993-1994, Java was hacked into a byte-interpreted language and became the focus of a relentless hype campaign by Sun, which touted it as the new language of choice for distributed applications.
Java is indeed a stronger and cleaner design than C++ and has been embraced by many in the hacker community - but it has been a considerable source of frustration to many others, for reasons ranging from uneven support on different Web browser platforms, performance issues, and some notorious deficiencies of some of the standard toolkits (AWT in particular). Microsoft's determined attempts to corrupt the language (which it rightly sees as a threat to its OS monopoly) have not helped. As of 1999, these issues are still in the process of being resolved.
Despite many attractive features and a good design, it is difficult to find people willing to praise Java who have tried to implement a complex, real-world system with it (but to be fair it is early days yet, and no other language has ever been forced to spend its childhood under the limelight the way Java has). On the other hand, Java has already been a big win in academic circles, where it has taken the place of Pascal as the preferred tool for teaching the basics of good programming to the next generation of hackers.
Node:JCL, Next:JEDR, Previous:Java, Up:= J =
JCL /J-C-L/ n.
1. IBM's supremely rude Job Control Language. JCL is the script language used to control the execution of programs in IBM's batch systems. JCL has a very fascist syntax, and some versions will, for example, barf if two spaces appear where it expects one. Most programmers confronted with JCL simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the file names. Someone who actually understands and generates unique JCL is regarded with the mixed respect one gives to someone who memorizes the phone book. It is reported that hackers at IBM itself sometimes sing "Who's the breeder of the crud that mangles you and me? I-B-M, J-C-L, M-o-u-s-e" to the tune of the "Mickey Mouse Club" theme to express their opinion of the beast. 2. A comparative for any very rude software that a hacker is expected to use. "That's as bad as JCL." As with COBOL, JCL is often used as an archetype of ugliness even by those who haven't experienced it. See also IBM, fear and loathing.
A (poorly documented, naturally) shell simulating JCL syntax is available at the Retrocomputing Museum http://www.ccil.org/retro.
Node:JEDR, Next:Jeff K., Previous:JCL, Up:= J =
JEDR // n.
Synonymous with IYFEG. At one time, people in the Usenet newsgroup _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 the 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.
Node:Jeff K., Next:jello, Previous:JEDR, Up:= J =
Jeff K.
The spiritual successor to B1FF and the archetype of script kiddies. Jeff K. is a sixteen-year-old suburbanite who fancies himself a "l33t haX0r", although his knowledge of computers seems to be limited to the procedure for getting Quake up and running. His Web page http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk features a number of hopelessly naive articles, essays, and rants, all filled with the kind of misspellings, studlycaps, and number-for-letter substitutions endemic to the script kiddie and warez d00dz communities. Jeff's offerings, among other things, include hardware advice (such as "AMD VERSIS PENTIUM" and "HOW TO OVARCLOAK YOUR COMPUTAR"), his own Quake clan (Clan 40 OUNSCE), and his own comic strip (Wacky Fun Computar Comic Jokes).
Like B1FF, Jeff K. is (fortunately) a hoax. Jeff K. was created by internet game journalist Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, whose web site Something Awful (http://www.somethingawful.com) highlights unintentionally humorous news items and Web sites, as a parody of the kind of teenage luser who infests Quake servers, chat rooms, and other places where computer enthusiasts congregate. He is well-recognized in the PC game community and his influence has spread to hacker fora like Slashdot as well.
Node:jello, Next:jiffy, Previous:Jeff K., Up:= J =
jello n.
[Usenet: by analogy with spam] A message that is both excessively cross-posted and too frequently posted, as opposed to spam (which is merely too frequently posted) or velveeta (which is merely excessively cross-posted). This term is widely recognized but not commonly used; most people refer to both kinds of abuse or their combination as spam.
Node:jiffy, Next:job security, Previous:jello, Up:= J =
jiffy n.
1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on your computer (see tick). Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec has become common. "The swapper runs every 6 jiffies" means that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second. 2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond wall time interval. 3. Even more confusingly, physicists semi-jokingly use `jiffy' to mean the time required for light to travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to be close to one nanosecond. 4. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and possibly never. This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use of the word. Oppose nano. See also Real Soon Now.
Node:job security, Next:jock, Previous:jiffy, Up:= J =
job security n.
When some piece of code is written in a particularly obscure fashion, and no good reason (such as time or space optimization) can be discovered, it is often said that the programmer was attempting to increase his job security (i.e., by making himself indispensable for maintenance). This sour joke seldom has to be said in full; if two hackers are looking over some code together and one points at a section and says "job security", the other one may just nod.
Node:jock, Next:joe code, Previous:job security, Up:= J =
jock n.
1. A programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat brute-force programs. See brute force. 2. When modified by another noun, describes a specialist in some particular computing area. The compounds `compiler jock' and `systems jock' seem to be the best-established examples.
Node:joe code, Next:jolix, Previous:jock, Up:= J =
joe code /joh' kohd`/ n.
1. Code that is overly tense and unmaintainable. "Perl may be a handy program, but if you look at the source, it's complete joe code." 2. Badly written, possibly buggy code.
Correspondents wishing to remain anonymous have fingered a particular Joe at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and observed that usage has drifted slightly; the original sobriquet `Joe code' was intended in sense 1.
1994 update: This term has now generalized to `<name> code', used to designate code with distinct characteristics traceable to its author. "This section doesn't check for a NULL return from malloc()! Oh. No wonder! It's Ed code!". Used most often with a programmer who has left the shop and thus is a convenient scapegoat for anything that is wrong with the project.
Node:jolix, Next:juggling eggs, Previous:joe code, Up:= J =
jolix /joh'liks/ n.,adj.
386BSD, the freeware port of the BSD Net/2 release to the Intel i386 architecture by Bill Jolitz, Lynne Greer Jolitz, and friends. Used to differentiate from BSDI's port based on the same source tape, which used to be called BSD/386 and is now BSD/OS. See BSD.
Node:juggling eggs, Next:jump off into never-never land, Previous:jolix, Up:= J =
juggling eggs vi.
Keeping a lot of state in your head while modifying a program. "Don't bother me now, I'm juggling eggs", means that an interrupt is likely to result in the program's being scrambled. In the classic 1975 first-contact SF novel "The Mote in God's Eye", by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, an alien describes a very difficult task by saying "We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity." See also hack mode and on the gripping hand.
Node:jump off into never-never land, Next:jupiter, Previous:juggling eggs, Up:= J =
jump off into never-never land v.
[from J. M. Barrie's "Peter Pan"] Same as branch to Fishkill, but more common in technical cultures associated with non-IBM computers that use the term `jump' rather than `branch'. Compare hyperspace.
Node:jupiter, Next:K, Previous:jump off into never-never land, Up:= J =
jupiter vt.
[IRC] To kill an IRC bot 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. Now commonly shortened to `jupe'.
Node:= K =, Next:= L =, Previous:= J =, Up:The Jargon Lexicon
= K =
K:
K&R:
k-:
kahuna:
kamikaze packet:
kangaroo code:
ken:
kernel-of-the-week club:
kgbvax:
KIBO:
kiboze:
kibozo:
kick:
kill file:
killer app:
killer micro:
killer poke:
kilo-:
KIPS:
KISS Principle:
kit:
klone:
kludge:
kluge:
kluge around:
kluge up:
Knights of the Lambda Calculus:
knobs:
Knuth:
koan:
kremvax:
kyrka:
Node:K, Next:K&R, Previous:jupiter, Up:= K =
K /K/ n.
[from kilo-] A kilobyte. Used both as a spoken word and a written suffix (like meg and gig for megabyte and gigabyte). See quantifiers.
Node:K&R, Next:k-, Previous:K, Up:= K =
K&R [Kernighan and Ritchie] n.
Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's book "The C Programming Language", esp. the classic and influential first edition (Prentice-Hall 1978; ISBN 0-13-110163-3). Syn. White Book, Old Testament. See also New Testament.
Node:k-, Next:kahuna, Previous:K&R, Up:= K =
k- pref.
[rare; poss fr. `kilo-' prefix] Extremely. Rare among hackers, but quite common among crackers and warez d00dz in compounds such as `k-kool' /K'kool'/, `k-rad' /K'rad'/, and `k-awesome' /K'aw`sm/. Also used to intensify negatives; thus, `k-evil', `k-lame', `k-screwed', and `k-annoying'. Overuse of this prefix, or use in more formal or technical contexts, is considered an indicator of lamer status.
Node:kahuna, Next:kamikaze packet, Previous:k-, Up:= K =
kahuna /k*-hoo'n*/ n.
[IBM: from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] Synonym for wizard, guru.
Node:kamikaze packet, Next:kangaroo code, Previous:kahuna, Up:= K =
kamikaze packet n.
The `official' jargon for what is more commonly called a Christmas tree packet. RFC-1025, "TCP and IP Bake Off" says:
10 points for correctly being able to process a "Kamikaze" packet (AKA nastygram, christmas tree packet, lamp test segment, et al.). That is, correctly handle a segment with the maximum combination of features at once (e.g., a SYN URG PUSH FIN segment with options and data).
See also Chernobyl packet.
Node:kangaroo code, Next:ken, Previous:kamikaze packet, Up:= K =
kangaroo code n.
Syn. spaghetti code.
Node:ken, Next:kernel-of-the-week club, Previous:kangaroo code, Up:= K =
ken /ken/ n.
1. [Unix] Ken Thompson, principal inventor of Unix. In the early days he used to hand-cut distribution tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still use his first name (sometimes uncapitalized, because it's a login name and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely understood (on Usenet, in particular) that without a last name `Ken' refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as _dmr_). See also demigod, Unix. 2. A flaming user. This was originated by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken.
Node:kernel-of-the-week club, Next:kgbvax, Previous:ken, Up:= K =
kernel-of-the-week club
The fictional society that BSD bigots claim [Linux] users belong to, alluding to the release-early-release-often style preferred by the kernel maintainers. See bazaar. This was almost certainly inspired by the earlier bug-of-the-month club.
Node:kgbvax, Next:KIBO, Previous:kernel-of-the-week club, Up:= K =
kgbvax /K-G-B'vaks/ n.
See kremvax.
Node:KIBO, Next:kiboze, Previous:kgbvax, Up:= K =
KIBO /ki:'boh/
1. [acronym] Knowledge In, Bullshit Out. A summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an organization (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. 2. James Parry <[email protected]>, a Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is mentioned. He has a website at http://www.kibo.com/.
Node:kiboze, Next:kibozo, Previous:KIBO, Up:= K =
kiboze v.
[Usenet] To grep the Usenet news for a string, especially with the intention of posting a follow-up. This activity was popularised by Kibo (see KIBO, sense 2).
Node:kibozo, Next:kick, Previous:kiboze, Up:= K =
kibozo /ki:-boh'zoh/ n.
[Usenet] One who kibozes but is not Kibo (see KIBO, sense 2).
Node:kick, Next:kill file, Previous:kibozo, Up:= K =
kick v.
1. [IRC] To cause somebody to be removed from a IRC channel, an option only available to channel ops. This is an extreme measure, often used to combat extreme flamage or flooding, but sometimes used at the CHOP's whim. Compare gun. 2. To reboot a machine or kill a running process. "The server's down, let me go kick it."
Node:kill file, Next:killer app, Previous:kick, Up:= K =
kill file n.
[Usenet; very common] (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used by some Usenet reading programs (originally Larry Wall's rn(1)) to discard summarily (without presenting for reading) articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted) patterns of subject, author, or other header lines. Thus to add a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for that person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future. By extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in other media. See also plonk.
Node:killer app, Next:killer micro, Previous:kill file, Up:= K =
killer app
The application that actually makes a sustaining market for a promising but under-utilized technology. First used in the mid-1980s to describe Lotus 1-2-3 once it became evident that demand for that product had been the major driver of the early business market for IBM PCs. The term was then restrospectively applied to VisiCalc, which had played a similar role in the success of the Apple II. After 1994 it became commonplace to describe the World Wide Web as the Internet's killer app. One of the standard questions asked about each new personal-computer technology as it emerges has become "what's the killer app?"
Node:killer micro, Next:killer poke, Previous:killer app, Up:= K =
killer micro n.
[popularized by Eugene Brooks] A microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers. Used esp. of RISC architectures.
The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is doubtless reinforced by the title of the movie "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" (one of the canonical examples of so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers). This has even more flavor now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively parallel computers).
[1996 update: Eugene Brooks was right. Since this term first entered the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively vanished, the mainframe sector is in deep and apparently terminal decline (with IBM but a shadow of its former self), and even the supercomputer business has contracted into a smaller niche. It's networked killer micros as far as the eye can see. --ESR]
Node:killer poke, Next:kilo-, Previous:killer micro, Up:= K =
killer poke n.
A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine via insertion of invalid values (see poke) into a memory-mapped control register; used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks on bitty boxes without hardware memory management (such as the IBM PC and Commodore PET) that can overload and trash analog electronics in the monitor. See also HCF.
Node:kilo-, Next:KIPS, Previous:killer poke, Up:= K =
kilo- pref.
[SI] See quantifiers.
Node:KIPS, Next:KISS Principle, Previous:kilo-, Up:= K =
KIPS /kips/ n.
[abbreviation, by analogy with MIPS using K] Thousands (not 1024s) of Instructions Per Second. Usage: rare.
Node:KISS Principle, Next:kit, Previous:KIPS, Up:= K =
KISS Principle /kis' prin'si-pl/ n.
"Keep It Simple, Stupid". A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off creeping featurism and control development complexity. Possibly related to the marketroid maxim on sales presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple".
Node:kit, Next:klone, Previous:KISS Principle, Up:= K =
kit n.
[Usenet; poss. fr. 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.
Node:klone, Next:kludge, Previous:kit, Up:= K =
klone /klohn/ n.
See clone, sense 4.
Node:kludge, Next:kluge, Previous:klone, Up:= K =
kludge 1. /klooj/ n.
Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of kluge (US). These two words have been confused in American usage since the early 1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since the end of World War II. 2. [TMRC] A crock that works. (A long-ago "Datamation" article by Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.") 3. v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around it for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."
This word appears to have derived from Scots `kludge' or `kludgie' for a common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became confused with U.S. kluge during or after World War II; some Britons from that era use both words in definably different ways, but kluge is now uncommon in Great Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish differs in meaning from `kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses; a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated too closely with. Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British mainstream slang than `kluge' is in the U.S.
Node:kluge, Next:kluge around, Previous:kludge, Up:= K =
kluge /klooj/
[from the German `klug', clever; poss. related to Polish `klucz' (a key, a hint, a main point)] 1. n. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or software. 2. n. A clever programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves ad-hockery and verges on being a crock. 3. n. Something that works for the wrong reason. 4. vt. To insert a kluge into a program. "I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug, but there's probably a better way." 5. [WPI] n. A feature that is implemented in a rude manner.
Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling `kludge'. Reports from old farts are consistent that `kluge' was the original spelling, reported around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of hardware kluges. In 1947, the "New York Folklore Quarterly" reported a classic shaggy-dog story `Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces, in which a `kluge' was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial function. Other sources report that `kluge' was common Navy slang in the WWII era for any piece of electronics that worked well on shore but consistently failed at sea.
However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade older. Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of a device called a "Kluge paper feeder", an adjunct to mechanical printing presses. Legend has it that the Kluge feeder was designed before small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it relied on a fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to both power and synchronize all its operations from one motive driveshaft. It was accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair -- but oh, so clever! People who tell this story also aver that `Kluge' was the name of a design engineer.
There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business that manufactures printing equipment - interestingly, their name is pronounced /kloo'gee/! Henry Brandtjen, president of the firm, told me (ESR, 1994) that his company was co-founded by his father and an engineer named Kluge /kloo'gee/, who built and co-designed the original Kluge automatic feeder in 1919. Mr. Brandtjen claims, however, that this was a simple device (with only four cams); he says he has no idea how the myth of its complexity took hold.
TMRC and the MIT hacker culture of the early '60s seems to have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used some WWII military slang (see also foobar). It seems likely that `kluge' came to MIT via alumni of the many military electronics projects that had been located in Cambridge (many in MIT's venerable Building 20, in which TMRC is also located) during the war.
The variant `kludge' was apparently popularized by the Datamation article mentioned above; it was titled "How to Design a Kludge" (February 1962, pp. 30, 31). This spelling was probably imported from Great Britain, where kludge has an independent history (though this fact was largely unknown to hackers on either side of the Atlantic before a mid-1993 debate in the Usenet group _alt.folklore.computers_ over the First and Second Edition versions of this entry; everybody used to think kludge was just a mutation of kluge). It now appears that the British, having forgotten the etymology of their own `kludge' when `kluge' crossed the Atlantic, repaid the U.S. by lobbing the `kludge' orthography in the other direction and confusing their American cousins' spelling!
The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers pronounce the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its meaning and pronunciation, as `kludge'. (Phonetically, consider huge, refuge, centrifuge, and deluge as opposed to sludge, judge, budge, and fudge. Whatever its failings in other areas, English spelling is perfectly consistent about this distinction.) British hackers mostly learned /kluhj/ orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are at least consistent. European hackers have mostly learned the word from written American sources and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning!
Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's meaning.
Node:kluge around, Next:kluge up, Previous:kluge, Up:= K =
kluge around vt.
To avoid a bug or difficult condition by inserting a kluge. Compare workaround.
Node:kluge up, Next:Knights of the Lambda Calculus, Previous:kluge around, Up:= K =
kluge up vt.
To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this is milder than cruft together and has some of the connotations of hack up (note, however, that the construction `kluge on' corresponding to hack on is never used). "I've kluged up this routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe place."
Node:Knights of the Lambda Calculus, Next:knobs, Previous:kluge up, Up:= K =
Knights of the Lambda Calculus n.
A semi-mythical organization of wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The name refers to a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which LISP is intimately connected. There is no enrollment list and the criteria for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known to give out buttons and, in general, the members know who they are....
Node:knobs, Next:Knuth, Previous:Knights of the Lambda Calculus, Up:= K =
knobs pl.n.
Configurable options, even in software and even those you can't adjust in real time. Anything you can twiddle is a knob. "Has this PNG viewer got an alpha knob?" Software may be described as having "knobs and switches" or occasionally "knobs and lights".
Node:Knuth, Next:koan, Previous:knobs, Up:= K =
Knuth /ka-nooth'/ n.
[Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming"] Mythically, the reference that answers all questions about data structures or algorithms. A safe answer when you do not know: "I think you can find that in Knuth." Contrast the literature. See also bible. There is a Donald Knuth home page at http://www-cs-faculty.Stanford.EDU/~knuth.
Node:koan, Next:kremvax, Previous:Knuth, Up:= K =
koan /koh'an/ n.
A Zen teaching riddle. Classically, koans are attractive paradoxes to be meditated on; their purpose is to help one to enlightenment by temporarily jamming normal cognitive processing so that something more interesting can happen (this practice is associated with Rinzei Zen Buddhism). Hackers are very fond of the koan form and compose their own koans for humororous and/or enlightening effect. See Some AI Koans, has the X nature, hacker humor.
Node:kremvax, Next:kyrka, Previous:koan, Up:= K =
kremvax /krem-vaks/ n.
[from the then large number of Usenet VAXen with names of the form _foovax_] Originally, a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, 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.
In fact, it was only six years later that the first genuine site in Moscow, _demos.su_, joined Usenet. Some readers needed convincing that the postings from it weren't just another prank. Vadim Antonov, senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from there up to mid-1991, was quite aware of all this, referred to it frequently in his own postings, and at one point twitted some credulous readers by blandly asserting that he was a hoax!
Eventually he even arranged to have the domain's gateway site named _kremvax_, thus neatly turning fiction into fact and demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends cultural barriers. [Mr. Antonov also contributed the Russian-language material for this lexicon. --ESR]
In an even more ironic historical footnote, _kremvax_ became an electronic center of the anti-communist resistance during the bungled hard-line coup of August 1991. During those three days the Soviet UUCP network centered on _kremvax_ became the only trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR. Though the sysops were concentrating on internal communications, cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the demonstrations in Moscow's streets. In those hours, years of speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer networking were proved devastatingly accurate -- and the original _kremvax_ joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian revolutionaries of `glasnost' and `perestroika' made _kremvax_ one of the timeliest means of their outreach to the West.
Node:kyrka, Next:lace card, Previous:kremvax, Up:= K =
kyrka /chur'ka/ n.
[Swedish] See feature key.
Node:= L =, Next:= M =, Previous:= K =, Up:The Jargon Lexicon
= L =
lace card:
lag:
lamer:
language lawyer:
languages of choice:
LART:
larval stage:
lase:
laser chicken:
lasherism:
laundromat:
LDB:
leaf site:
leak:
leaky heap:
leapfrog attack:
leech:
leech mode:
legal:
legalese:
LER:
LERP:
let the smoke out:
letterbomb:
lexer:
lexiphage:
life:
Life is hard:
light pipe:
lightweight:
like kicking dead whales down the beach:
like nailing jelly to a tree:
line 666:
line eater the:
line noise:
line starve:
linearithmic:
link farm:
link rot:
link-dead:
lint:
Lintel:
Linus:
Linux:
lion food:
Lions Book:
LISP:
list-bomb:
lithium lick:
little-endian:
live:
live data:
Live Free Or Die!:
livelock:
liveware:
lobotomy:
locals the:
locked and loaded:
locked up:
logic bomb:
logical:
loop through:
loose bytes:
lord high fixer:
lose:
lose lose:
loser:
losing:
loss:
lossage:
lost in the noise:
lost in the underflow:
lots of MIPS but no I/O:
low-bandwidth:
LPT:
Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
Lumber Cartel:
lunatic fringe:
lurker:
luser:
Node:lace card, Next:lag, Previous:kyrka, Up:= L =
lace card n. obs.
A punched card with all holes punched (also called a `whoopee card' or `ventilator card'). Card readers tended to jam when they got to one of these, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to produce these things owing to power-supply problems. When some practical joker fed a lace card through the reader, you needed to clear the jam with a `card knife' -- which you used on the joker first.
Node:lag, Next:lamer, Previous:lace card, Up:= L =
lag n.
[MUD, IRC; very common] When used without qualification this is synomous with netlag. Curiously, people will often complain "I'm really lagged" when in fact it is their server or network connection that is lagging.
Node:lamer, Next:language lawyer, Previous:lag, Up:= L =
lamer n.
[prob. originated in skateboarder slang] 1. Synonym for luser, not used much by hackers but common among warez d00dz, crackers, and phreakers. A person who downloads much, but who never uploads. (Also known as `leecher'). Oppose elite. Has the same connotations of self-conscious elitism that use of luser does among hackers. 2. Someone who tries to crack a BBS. 3. Someone who annoys the sysop or other BBS users - for instance, by posting lots of silly messages, uploading virus-ridden software, frequently dropping carrier, etc.
Crackers also use it to refer to cracker wannabees. In phreak culture, a lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than doing cracks or really understanding the fundamental concepts. In warez d00dz culture, where the ability to wave around cracked commercial software within days of (or before) release to the commercial market is much esteemed, the lamer might try to upload garbage or shareware or something incredibly old (old in this context is read as a few years to anything older than 3 days).
`Lamer' is also much used in the IRC world in a similar sense to the above.
Node:language lawyer, Next:languages of choice, Previous:lamer, Up:= L =
language lawyer n.
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The Jargon File, Version 4.2.2, 20 Aug 2000Chapter D: C. Power Lab n (7)
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