The Hacker's Dictionary, - [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

n. 1. Syn. {K&R}. 2. Adobe's fourth book in the PostScript series, describing the previously-secret format of Type 1 fonts; `Adobe Type 1 Font Format, version 1.1', (Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-57044-0). See also {Red Book}, {Green Book}, {Blue Book}.

:whizzy: [Sun] adj. (alt. `wizzy') Describes a {cuspy} program; one that is feature-rich and well presented.

:WIBNI: // [Bell Labs: Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most requirements documents and specifications consist entirely of.

Compare {IWBNI}.

:widget: n. 1. A meta-thing. Used to stand for a real object in didactic examples (especially database tutorials). Legend has it that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips. "But suppose the parts list for a widget has 52 entries...."

[poss. evoking `window gadget'] A user interface object in {X} graphical user interfaces.

:wiggles: n. [scientific computation] In solving partial differential equations by finite difference and similar methods, wiggles are sawtooth (up-down-up-down) oscillations at the shortest wavelength representable on the grid. If an algorithm is unstable, this is often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate the solution. Alternatively, stable (though inaccurate) wiggles can be generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon.

:WIMP environment: n. [acronymic from `Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing device (or Pull-down menu)'] A graphical-user-interface-based environment such as {X} or the Macintosh interface, as described by a hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior flexibility and extensibility. See {menuitis}, {user-obsequious}.

:win: [MIT] 1. vi. To succeed. A program wins if no unexpected conditions arise, or (especially) if it sufficiently {robust} to take exceptions in stride. 2. n. Success, or a specific instance thereof. A pleasing outcome. A {feature}. Emphatic forms: moby win',super win', hyper-win' (often used interjectively as a reply). For some reasonsuitable win' is also common at MIT, usually in reference to a satisfactory solution to a problem. Oppose {lose}; see also {big win}, which isn't quite just an intensification of `win'.

:win big: vi. To experience serendipity. "I went shopping and won big; there was a 2-for-1 sale." See {big win}.

:win win: interj. Expresses pleasure at a {win}.

:Winchester:: n. Informal generic term for `floating-head'

magnetic-disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the disk surface on an air cushion. The name arose because the original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30 became `Winchester' when somebody noticed the similarity to the common term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the latter, the first 30

referred to caliber and the second to the grain weight of the charge).

:winged comments: n. Comments set on the same line as code, as opposed to {boxed comments}. In C, for example: d = sqrt(xx + yy); / distance from origin /

Generally these refer only to the action(s) taken on that line.

:winkey: n. (alt. `winkey face') See {emoticon}.

:winnage: /win'*j/ n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or when something is winning.

:winner: 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer, or person. "So it turned out I could use a {lexer} generator instead of hand-coding my own pattern recognizer. What a win!"

`real winner': Often sarcastic, but also used as high praise (see also the note under {user}). "He's a real winner --- never reports a bug till he can duplicate it and send in an example."

:winnitude: /win'*-t[y]ood/ n. The quality of winning (as opposed to {winnage}, which is the result of winning). "Guess what?

They tweaked the microcode and now the LISP interpreter runs twice as fast as it used to." "That's really great! Boy, what winnitude!" "Yup. I'll probably get a half-hour's winnage on the next run of my program." Perhaps curiously, the obvious antonym `lossitude' is rare.

:wired: n. See {hardwired}.

:wirehead: /wi:r'hed/ n. [prob. from SF slang for an electrical-brain-stimulation addict] 1. A hardware hacker, especially one who concentrates on communications hardware. 2. An expert in local-area networks. A wirehead can be a network software wizard too, but will always have the ability to deal with network hardware, down to the smallest component. Wireheads are known for their ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from spare resistors, for example.

:wirewater: n. Syn. {programming fluid}. This melds the mainstream slang adjective wired' (stimulated, up, hyperactive) withfirewater'.

:wish list: n. A list of desired features or bug fixes that probably won't get done for a long time, usually because the person responsible for the code is too busy or can't think of a clean way to do it. "OK, I'll add automatic filename completion to the wish list for the new interface." Compare {tick-list features}.

:within delta of: adj. See {delta}.

:within epsilon of: adj. See {epsilon}.

:wizard: n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works (that is, who {grok}s it); esp. someone who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency. Someone is a {hacker} if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a wizard with respect to something only if he or she has specific detailed knowledge of that thing. A good hacker could become a wizard for something given the time to study it. 2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary people; one who has {wheel}

privileges on a system. 3. A UNIX expert, esp. a UNIX systems programmer. This usage is well enough established that `UNIX

Wizard' is a recognized job title at some corporations and to most headhunters. See {guru}, {lord high fixer}. See also {deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}, {incantation}, {magic}, {mutter}, {rain dance}, {voodoo programming}, {wave a dead chicken}.

:Wizard Book: n. Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman's `Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN

0-262-01077-1, an excellent computer science text used in introductory courses at MIT. So called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the {bible}s of the LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the {Purple Book}.

:wizard mode: [from {rogue}] n. A special access mode of a program or system, usually passworded, that permits some users godlike privileges. Generally not used for operating systems themselves (root mode' orwheel mode' would be used instead).

:wizardly: adj. Pertaining to wizards. A wizardly {feature} is one that only a wizard could understand or use properly.

:womb box: n. 1. [TMRC] Storage space for equipment. 2. [proposed]

A variety of hard-shell equipment case with heavy interior padding and/or shaped carrier cutouts in a foam-rubber matrix; mundanely called a `flight case'. Used for delicate test equipment, electronics, and musical instruments.

:WOMBAT: [Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time] adj. Applied to problems which are both profoundly {uninteresting} in themselves and unlikely to benefit anyone interesting even if solved. Often used in fanciful constructions such as `wrestling with a wombat'. See also {crawling horror}, {SMOP}. Also note the rather different usage as a metasyntactic variable in {{Commonwealth Hackish}}.

:wonky: /wong'kee/ [from Australian slang] adj. Yet another approximate synonym for {broken}. Specifically connotes a malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or amusingly perverse. "That was the day the printer's font logic went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar." Also in `wonked out'. See {funky}, {demented}, {bozotic}.

:woofer: [University of Waterloo] n. Some varieties of wide paper for printers have a perforation 8.5 inches from the left margin that allows the excess on the right-hand side to be torn off when the print format is 80 columns or less wide. The right-hand excess may be called `woofer'. This term (like {tweeter}, which see) has been in use at Waterloo since 1972, but is elsewhere unknown.

In audio jargon, the word refers to the bass speaker(s) on a hi-fi.

:workaround: n. A temporary {kluge} inserted in a system under development or test in order to avoid the effects of a {bug} or {misfeature} so that work can continue. Theoretically, workarounds are always replaced by {fix}es; in practice, customers often find themselves living with workarounds in the first couple of releases. "The code died on NUL characters in the input, so I fixed it to interpret them as spaces." "That's not a fix, that's a workaround!"

:working as designed: [IBM] adj. 1. In conformance to a wrong or inappropriate specification; useful, but misdesigned.

Frequently used as a sardonic comment on a program's utility.

Unfortunately also used as a bogus reason for not accepting a criticism or suggestion. At {IBM}, this sense is used in official documents! See {BAD}.

:worm: [from tapeworm' in John Brunner's novelThe Shockwave Rider', via XEROX PARC] n. A program that propagates itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. Compare {virus}. Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is assumed that only {cracker}s write worms. Perhaps the best-known example was Robert T. Morris's Internet Worm' of 1988, abenign' one that got out of control and hogged hundreds of Suns and VAXen across the U.S. See also {cracker}, {RTM}, {Trojan horse}, {ice}, and {Great Worm, the}.

:wound around the axle: adj. In an infinite loop. Often used by older computer types.

:wrap around: vi. (also n. wraparound' and v. shorthandwrap') 1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over at zero or at `minus infinity' (see {infinity}) after its maximum value has been reached, and continues incrementing, either because it is programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as