Glossary

Glossary

0

A

address harvester

All hardware sucks, all software sucks.

all your base are belong to us

alpha particles

ambimouseterous

Amiga Persecution Complex

and there was much rejoicing

angry fruit salad

ANSI standard pizza

anti-idiotarianism

asbestos cork award

asbestos longjohns

ASCIIbetical order

autobogotiphobia

B

backward combatability

bag on the side

balloonian variable

bells and whistles

bells whistles and gongs

Berkeley Quality Software

BiCapitalization

bit-paired keyboard

Black Screen of Death

Blue Screen of Death

bondage-and-discipline language

bottom-up implementation

break-even point

breath-of-life packet

Breidbart Index

bring X to its knees

broadcast storm

broken-ring network

brown-paper-bag bug

brute force and ignorance

buffer overflow

bug-for-bug compatible

bug-of-the-month club

buried treasure

buzzword-compliant

C

C Programmer’s Disease

Cancelmoose[tm]

cargo cult programming

casters-up mode

casting the runes

channel hopping

Chernobyl chicken

Chernobyl packet

chiclet keyboard

Chinese Army technique

Christmas tree packet

Church of the SubGenius

Cinderella Book

clone-and-hack coding

coaster toaster

Code of the Geeks

coefficient of X

Commonwealth Hackish

computer confetti

connector conspiracy

considered harmful

copious free time

copy protection

crawling horror

creeping elegance

creeping featurism

creeping featuritis

cursor dipped in X

cycle of reincarnation

D

dangling pointer

dark-side hacker

Dave the Resurrector

dead beef attack

dead-tree version

deserves to lose

dickless workstation

dictionary flame

dinosaurs mating

Dissociated Press

Don’t do that then!

dread high-bit disease

dread questionmark disease

drool-proof paper

drop on the floor

drunk mouse syndrome

Duff’s device

dumpster diving

E

eat flaming death

eighty-column mind

El Camino Bignum

elevator controller

epsilon squared

Eric Conspiracy

examining the entrails

exercise, left as an

external memory

F

fandango on core

fear and loathing

feature creature

feeping creature

feeping creaturism

fencepost error

fiber-seeking backhoe

Finagle’s Law

finger-pointing syndrome

firehose syndrome

firewall machine

for the rest of us

Formosa’s Law

four-color glossies

G

garbage collect

General Public Virus

Genius From Mars Technique

Get a real computer!

go-faster stripes

golf-ball printer

Great Internet Explosion

green lightning

Green’s Theorem

gunpowder chicken

guru meditation

H

ha ha only serious

Hackers (the movie)

Hacking X for Y

Halloween Documents

Hanlon’s Razor

has the X nature

holy penguin pee

hysterical reasons

I

I didn’t change anything!

I see no X here.

I for one welcome our new X overlords

If you want X, you know where to find it.

Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!

infant mortality

Infinite-Monkey Theorem

Internet Death Penalty

Internet Exploder

Internet Exploiter

interrupts locked out

ISO standard cup of tea

J

J. Random Hacker

Jeopardy-style quoting

jump off into never-never land

K

kamikaze packet

kernel-of-the-week club

Knights of the Lambda Calculus

L

language lawyer

languages of choice

leapfrog attack

let the smoke out

like kicking dead whales down the beach

like nailing jelly to a tree

line eater, the

Live Free Or Die!

locked and loaded

lord high fixer

lost in the noise

lost in the underflow

lots of MIPS but no I/O

Lubarsky’s Law of Cybernetic Entomology

M

maximum Maytag mode

meltdown, network

metasyntactic variable

mickey mouse program

Microsloth Windows

middle-out implementation

missile address

Mongolian Hordes technique

monkey, scratch

mouse droppings

munching squares

N

nailed to the wall

neats vs. scruffies

net.personality

network address

network meltdown

Nightmare File System

Ninety-Ninety Rule

non-optimal solution

not entirely unlike X

not ready for prime time

number-crunching

O

Obfuscated C Contest

Objectionable-C

off the trolley

off-by-one error

on the gripping hand

one-banana problem

operating system

operator headspace

orphaned i-node

P

packet over air

pain in the net

Parkinson’s Law of Data

pencil and paper

perfect programmer syndrome

person of no account

pessimizing compiler

phase of the moon

Ping O’ Death

platinum-iridium

point-and-drool interface

Postel’s Prescription

precedence lossage

prestidigitization

pretty pictures

printing discussion

priority interrupt

Programmer’s Cheer

programming fluid

provocative maintenance

psychedelicware

pubic directory

Q

quadruple bucky

quantum bogodynamics

quick-and-dirty

Quirk objection

quote chapter and verse

R

Random Number God

real operating system

Real Programmer

reality-distortion field

recompile the world

rectangle slinger

recursive acronym

register dancing

reincarnation, cycle of

reinvent the wheel

religion of CHI

religious issues

return from the dead

room-temperature IQ

rotary debugger

rubber-hose cryptanalysis

S

same-day service

Saturday-night special

scary devil monastery

science-fiction fandom

screen scraping

search-and-destroy mode

second-system effect

secondary damage

security through obscurity

segmentation fault

September that never ended

Share and enjoy!

sharing violation

shift left (or right) logical

shotgun debugging

signal-to-noise ratio

since time T equals minus infinity

slashdot effect

slurp the robot

smash the stack

smoke and mirrors

SNAFU principle

social engineering

social science number

sodium substrate

software hoarding

sorcerer’s apprentice mode

source of all good bits

space-cadet keyboard

spaceship operator

spaghetti inheritance

Spinning Pizza of Death

stale pointer bug

stealth manager

stir-fried random

stone knives and bearskins

Sturgeon’s Law

sufficiently small

super source quench

superprogrammer

Swiss-Army chainsaw

syntactic sugar

T

tar and feather

ten-finger interface

tenured graduate student

terminal brain death

terminal illness

terminal junkie

thanks in advance

That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!

the X that can be Y is not the true X

This can’t happen

This time, for sure!

three-finger salute

throwaway account

thundering herd problem

tick-list features

times-or-divided-by

Tinkerbell program

tip of the ice-cube

tits on a keyboard

to a first approximation

to a zeroth approximation

tourist information

troglodyte mode

U

undefined external reference

undocumented feature

Unix brain damage

Unix conspiracy

unwind the stack

Usenet Death Penalty

user-obsequious

Utah teapot, the

V

virtual reality

virtual shredder

voodoo programming

Vulcan nerve pinch

vulture capitalist

W

walk off the end of

washing machine

washing software

wave a dead chicken

What’s a spline?

wheel of reincarnation

Whorfian mind-lock

WIMP environment

window shopping

winged comments

within delta of

within epsilon of

wok-on-the-wall

working as designed

wound around the axle

write-only code

write-only language

write-only memory

X

Y

You are not expected to understand this

You know you’ve been hacking too long when

Your mileage may vary

Yu-Shiang Whole Fish

Z

Zawinski’s Law

Zero-One-Infinity Rule

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