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

LISP

code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. This usage was associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare; {prettyprint} was and is the generic term for such operations. 2. [UNIX] To generate the formatted version of a document from the nroff, troff, TeX, or Scribe source. The BSD

program vgrind(1)' grinds code for printing on a Versatec bitmapped printer. 3. To run seemingly interminably, esp. (but not necessarily) if performing some tedious and inherently useless task. Similar to {crunch} or {grovel}. Grinding has a connotation of using a lot of CPU time, but it is possible to grind a disk, network, etc. See also {hog}. 4. To make the whole system slow. "Troff really grinds a PDP-11." 5.grind grind'

excl. Roughly, "Isn't the machine slow today!"

:grind crank: n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not refer to a grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriate gesture and noise. See {grind} and {wugga wugga}.

Historical note: At least one real machine actually had a grind crank --- the R1, a research machine built toward the end of the days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959. R1 (also known as The Rice Institute Computer' (TRIC) and later asThe Rice University Computer' (TRUC)) had a single-step/free-run switch for use when debugging programs. Since single-stepping through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button.

This allowed one to `crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep on cranking.

:gripenet: [IBM] n. A wry (and thoroughly unoffical) name for IBM's internal VNET system, deriving from its common use by IBMers to voice pointed criticism of IBM management that would be taboo in more formal channels.

:gritch: /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a {glitch}).

vi. To complain. Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3. A synonym for {glitch} (as verb or noun).

:grok: /grok/, var. /grohk/ [from the novel Stranger in a Strange Land', by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literallyto drink' and metaphorically to be one with'] vt. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. Contrast {zen}, similar supernal understanding as a single brief flash. See also {glark}. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok thevoid' type these days."

:gronk: /gronk/ [popularized by Johnny Hart's comic strip "B.C." but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To clear the state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than `to {frob}'. 2. [TMRC] To cut, sever, smash, or similarly disable. 3. The sound made by many 3.5-inch diskette drives. In particular, the microfloppies on a Commodore Amiga go "grink, gronk".

:gronk out: vi. To cease functioning. Of people, to go home and go to sleep. "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."

:gronked: adj. 1. Broken. "The teletype scanner was gronked, so we took the system down." 2. Of people, the condition of feeling very tired or (less commonly) sick. "I've been chasing that bug for 17 hours now and I am thoroughly gronked!" Compare {broken}, which means about the same as {gronk} used of hardware, but connotes depression or mental/emotional problems in people.

:grovel: vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress.

Often used transitively with over' orthrough'. "The file scavenger has been groveling through the file directories for 10

minutes now." Compare {grind} and {crunch}. Emphatic form: `grovel obscenely'. 2. To examine minutely or in complete detail.

"The compiler grovels over the entire source program before beginning to translate it." "I grovelled through all the documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted."

:grunge: /gruhnj/ n. 1. That which is grungy, or that which makes it so. 2. [Cambridge] Code which is inaccessible due to changes in other parts of the program. The preferred term in North America is {dead code}.

:gubbish: /guhb'*sh/ [a portmanteau of garbage' andrubbish'?]

n. Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?" The opposite portmanteau `rubbage' is also reported.

:guiltware: /gilt'weir/ n. 1. A piece of {freeware} decorated with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on it and intimating that one is a no-good freeloader if one does not immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money.

{Shareware} that works.

:gumby: /guhm'bee/ [from a class of Monty Python characters, poss. with some influence from the 1960s claymation character] n.

An act of minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in gumby maneuver' orpull a gumby'.

:gun: [ITS: from the `:GUN' command] vt. To forcibly terminate a program or job (computer, not career). "Some idiot left a background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I gunned it." Compare {can}.

:gunch: /guhnch/ [TMRC] vt. To push, prod, or poke at a device that has almost produced the desired result. Implies a threat to {mung}.

:gurfle: /ger'fl/ interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He said we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week.

Gurfle!" Compare {weeble}.

:guru: n. [UNIX] An expert. Implies not only {wizard} skill but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others. Less often, used (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems, as in `VMS guru'. See {source of all good bits}.

:guru meditation: n. Amiga equivalent of `panic' in UNIX

(sometimes just called a guru' orguru event'). When the system crashes, a cryptic message "GURU MEDITATION

#XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" appears, indicating what the problem was. An Amiga guru can figure things out from the numbers. Generally a {guru} event must be followed by a {Vulcan nerve pinch}.

This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days of the Amiga. There used to be a device called a `Joyboard' which was basically a plastic board built onto on a joystick-like device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari game machine.

It is said that whenever the prototype OS crashed, the system programmer responsible would calm down by concentrating on a solution while sitting cross-legged on a Joyboard trying to keep the board in balance. This position resembled that of a meditating guru. Sadly, the joke was removed in AmigaOS 2.04.

:gweep: /gweep/ [WPI] 1. v. To {hack}, usually at night. At WPI, from 1977 onwards, this often indicated that the speaker could be found at the College Computing Center punching cards or crashing the {PDP-10} or, later, the DEC-20; the term has survived the demise of those technologies, however, and is still live in late 1991. "I'm going to go gweep for a while. See you in the morning" "I gweep from 8pm till 3am during the week." 2. n. One who habitually gweeps in sense 1; a {hacker}. "He's a hard-core gweep, mumbles code in his sleep."

= H =

=====

:h: [from SF fandom] infix. A method of `marking' common words, i.e., calling attention to the fact that they are being used in a nonstandard, ironic, or humorous way. Originated in the fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod!" from decades ago.

H-infix marking of `Ghod' and other words spread into the 1960s counterculture via underground comix, and into early hackerdom either from the counterculture or from SF fandom (the three overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has become an expected feature of benchmark names (Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc.); this is prob. patterning on the original Whetstone (the name of a laboratory) but influenced by the fannish/counterculture h infix.

:ha ha only serious: [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK, `Ha Ha Only Kidding'] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody.

This lexicon contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a {wannabee}, or in {larval stage}. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also {{Humor, Hacker}}, and {AI koans}.

:hack: 1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well. 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.

vt. To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!" 4. vt. To work on something (typically a program). In an immediate sense: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO."

In a general (time-extended) sense: "What do you do around here?"

"I hack TECO." More generally, "I hack foo'" is roughly equivalent to "foo' is my major interest (or project)". "I hack solid-state physics." 5. vt. To pull a prank on. See sense 2 and {hacker} (sense 5). 6. vi. To interact with a computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed