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

to use busy routes. A true spod will start any conversation with "Are you male or female?" (and follow it up with "Got any good numbers/IDs/passwords?") and will not talk to someone physically present in the same terminal room until they log onto the same machine that he is using and enter talk mode. Compare {newbie}, {tourist}, {weenie}, {twink}, {terminal junkie}.

:sponge: [UNIX] n. A special case of a {filter} that reads its entire input before writing any output; the canonical example is a sort utility. Unlike most filters, a sponge can conveniently overwrite the input file with the output data stream. If your file system has versioning (as ITS did and VMS does now) the sponge/filter distinction loses its usefulness, because directing filter output would just write a new version. See also {slurp}.

:spooge: /spooj/ 1. n. Inexplicable or arcane code, or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program. 2. vi. To generate spooge (sense 1).

:spool: [from early IBM Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On-Line', but this acronym is widely thought to have been contrived for effect] vt. To send files to some device or program (aspooler') that queues them up and does something useful with them later. The spooler usually understood is the `print spooler' controlling output of jobs to a printer, but the term has been used in connection with other peripherals (especially plotters and graphics devices) and occasionally even for input devices. See also {demon}.

:spool file: n. Any file to which data is {spool}ed to await the next stage of processing. Especially used in circumstances where spooling the data copes with a mismatch between speeds in two devices or pieces of software. For example, when you send mail under UNIX, it's typically copied to a spool file to await a transport {demon}'s attentions. This is borderline techspeak.

:square tape: n. Mainframe magnetic tape cartridges for use with IBM 3480

or compatible tape drives. The term comes from the square (actually rectangular) shape of the cartridges; contrast {round tape}.

:stack: n. A person's stack is the set of things he or she has to do in the future. One speaks of the next project to be attacked as having risen to the top of the stack. "I'm afraid I've got real work to do, so this'll have to be pushed way down on my stack."

"I haven't done it yet because every time I pop my stack something new gets pushed." If you are interrupted several times in the middle of a conversation, "My stack overflowed" means "I forget what we were talking about." The implication is that more items were pushed onto the stack than could be remembered, so the least recent items were lost. The usual physical example of a stack is to be found in a cafeteria: a pile of plates or trays sitting on a spring in a well, so that when you put one on the top they all sink down, and when you take one off the top the rest spring up a bit. See also {push} and {pop}.

At MIT, {pdl} used to be a more common synonym for {stack} in all these contexts, and this may still be true. Everywhere else {stack} seems to be the preferred term. {Knuth}

(`The Art of Computer Programming', second edition, vol. 1, p. 236) says:

Many people who realized the importance of stacks and queues independently have given other names to these structures: stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages, cellars, nesting stores, piles, last-in-first-out ("LIFO") lists, and even yo-yo lists!

:stack puke: n. Some processor architectures are said to `puke their guts onto the stack' to save their internal state during exception processing. The Motorola 68020, for example, regurgitates up to 92 bytes on a bus fault. On a pipelined machine, this can take a while.

:stale pointer bug: n. Synonym for {aliasing bug} used esp. among microcomputer hackers.

:state: n. 1. Condition, situation. "What's the state of your latest hack?" "It's winning away." "The system tried to read and write the disk simultaneously and got into a totally wedged state." The standard question "What's your state?" means "What are you doing?" or "What are you about to do?" Typical answers are "about to gronk out", or "hungry". Another standard question is "What's the state of the world?", meaning "What's new?" or "What's going on?". The more terse and humorous way of asking these questions would be "State-p?".

Another way of phrasing the first question under sense 1 would be "state-p latest hack?". 2. Information being maintained in non-permanent memory (electronic or human).

:steam-powered: adj. Old-fashioned or underpowered; archaic. This term does not have a strong negative loading and may even be used semi-affectionately for something that clanks and wheezes a lot but hangs in there doing the job.

:stiffy: [University of Lowell, Massachusetts.] n. 3.5-inch {microfloppies}, so called because their jackets are more firm than those of the 5.25-inch and the 8-inch floppy. Elsewhere this might be called a `firmy'.

:stir-fried random: alt. `stir-fried mumble' n. Term used for the best dish of many of those hackers who can cook. Consists of random fresh veggies and meat wokked with random spices. Tasty and economical. See {random}, {great-wall}, {ravs}, {{laser chicken}}, {{oriental food}}; see also {mumble}.

:stomp on: vt. To inadvertently overwrite something important, usually automatically. "All the work I did this weekend got stomped on last night by the nightly server script." Compare {scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {scrog}, {roach}.

:Stone Age: n., adj. 1. In computer folklore, an ill-defined period from ENIAC (ca. 1943) to the mid-1950s; the great age of electromechanical {dinosaur}s. Sometimes used for the entire period up to 1960--61 (see {Iron Age}); however, it is funnier and more descriptive to characterize the latter period in terms of a `Bronze Age' era of transistor-logic, pre-ferrite-{core}

machines with drum or CRT mass storage (as opposed to just mercury delay lines and/or relays). See also {Iron Age}. 2. More generally, a pejorative for any crufty, ancient piece of hardware or software technology. Note that this is used even by people who were there for the {Stone Age} (sense 1).

:stone knives and bearskins: [ITS, prob. from the Star Trek Classic episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"] n. A term traditionally used by {ITS} fans to describe (and deprecate) computing environments they regard as less advanced, with the (often correct) implication that said environments were grotesquely primitive in light of what is known about good ways to design things. As in "Don't get too used to the facilities here. Once you leave MIT it's stone knives and bearskins as far as the eye can see". Compare {steam-powered}.

:stoppage: /sto'p*j/ n. Extreme {lossage} that renders something (usually something vital) completely unusable. "The recent system stoppage was caused by a {fried} transformer."

:store: [prob. from techspeak main store'] n. Preferred Commonwealth synonym for {core}. Thus,bringing a program into store' means not that one is returning shrink-wrapped software but that a program is being {swap}ped in.

:stroke: n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

:strudel: n. Common (spoken) name for the at-sign (`@', ASCII 1000000) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

:stubroutine: /stuhb'roo-teen/ [contraction of `stub subroutine'] n. Tiny, often vacuous placeholder for a subroutine that is to be written or fleshed out later.

:studlycaps: /stuhd'lee-kaps/ n. A hackish form of silliness similar to {BiCapitalization} for trademarks, but applied randomly and to arbitrary text rather than to trademarks. ThE

oRigiN and SigNificaNce of thIs pRacTicE iS oBscuRe.

:stunning: adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid. Usually used in sarcasm.

"You want to code what in ADA? That's ... a stunning idea!"

:stupid-sort: n. Syn. {bogo-sort}.

:Stupids: n. Term used by {samurai} for the {suit}s who employ them; succinctly expresses an attitude at least as common, though usually better disguised, among other subcultures of hackers. There may be intended reference here to an SF story originally published in 1952 but much anthologized since, Mark Clifton's Star, Bright'. In it, a super-genius child classifies humans into a very fewBrights' like herself, a huge majority of Stupids', and a minority ofTweens', the merely ordinary geniuses.

:subshell: /suhb'shel/ [UNIX, MS-DOS] n. An OS command interpreter (see {shell}) spawned from within a program, such that exit from the command interpreter returns one to the parent program in a state that allows it to continue execution. Compare {shell out}; oppose {chain}.

:sucking mud: [Applied Data Research] adj. (also `pumping mud') Crashed or wedged. Usually said of a machine that provides some service to a network, such as a file server. This Dallas regionalism derives from the East Texas oilfield lament, "Shut 'er down, Ma, she's a-suckin' mud". Often used as a query. "We are going to reconfigure the network, are you ready to suck mud?"

:sufficiently small: adj. Syn. {suitably small}.

:suit: n. 1. Ugly and uncomfortable business clothing' often worn by non-hackers. Invariably worn with atie', a strangulation device that partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain. It is thought that this explains much about the behavior of suit-wearers. Compare {droid}. 2. A person who habitually wears suits, as distinct from a techie or hacker. See