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/pref./ Written shorthand for micro-; techspeak when
applied to metric units, jargon when used otherwise. Derived from
the Greek letter "mu", the first letter of "micro" (and which
letter looks a lot like the English letter "u").
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/U-B-D/ /n./ [abbreviation for `User Brain Damage']
An abbreviation used to close out trouble reports obviously due to
utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare pilot error;
oppose PBD; see also brain-damaged.
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/n./ Used to refer to the Unix operating system (a
trademark of AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly
(TM) typography.
Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating
systems. Ironically, lawyers now say that the requirement for the
TM-postfix has no legal force, but the asterisk usage is
entrenched anyhow. It has been suggested that there may be a
psychological connection to practice in certain religions
(especially Judaism) in which the name of the deity is never
written out in full, e.g., `YHWH' or `G--d' is used. See also
glob.
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/excl./ [Unix] A message from
Unix's linker. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling
references in an argument or discussion.
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/adj./ [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the
underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or
idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious
from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the
listener to grok it. "Let's now look under the hood to see
how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much
simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we
are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in
"Under the hood, this baby has a 40MHz 68030!"
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/n./ See feature.
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/adj./ 1. Said of a problem that, although
nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient
resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution
would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and
code.
Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of
time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. *Real*
hackers (see toolsmith) generalize uninteresting problems
enough to make them interesting and solve them -- thus solving the
original problem as a special case (and, it must be admitted,
occasionally turning a molehill into a mountain, or a mountain into
a tectonic plate). See WOMBAT, SMOP; compare toy problem, oppose interesting.
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/yoo'niks/ /n./ [In the authors' words, "A weak pun
on Multics"; very early on it was `UNICS'] (also `UNIX') An
interactive time-sharing system invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson
after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could
play games on his scavenged PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of
C, is considered a co-author of the system. The turning point in
Unix's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C
during 1972--1974, making it the first source-portable OS. Unix
subsequently underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of
many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and
developer-friendly environment. By 1991, Unix had become the most
widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the
world. Many people consider this the most important victory yet of
hackerdom over industry opposition (but see Unix weenie and
Unix conspiracy for an opposing point of view). See
Version 7, BSD, USG Unix, Linux.
Some people are confused over whether this word is appropriately
`UNIX' or `Unix'; both forms are common, and used interchangeably.
Dennis Ritchie says that the `UNIX' spelling originally happened in
CACM's 1974 paper "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" because "we
had a new typesetter and troff had just been invented and we
were intoxicated by being able to produce small caps." Later, dmr
tried to get the spelling changed to `Unix' in a couple of Bell
Labs papers, on the grounds that the word is not acronymic. He
failed, and eventually (his words) "wimped out" on the issue.
So, while the trademark today is `UNIX', both capitalizations are
grounded in ancient usage; the Jargon File uses `Unix' in deference
to dmr's wishes.
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/n./ Something that has to be done to break
a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that
it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as
`Unix brain damage' if the program conforms to published
standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain
damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority)
systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than
it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out
there.
An example of Unix brain damage is a kluge in a mail server to
recognize bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form
to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return
followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened
jock weep.
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/n./ [ITS] According to a conspiracy theory
long popular among ITS and TOPS-20 fans, Unix's growth is
the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose
intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent
upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's
control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating
system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also
relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing
upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in
1984 by the paper referenced in the back door entry.
In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer
viruses (see virus) -- but a virus spread to computers
indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly
through disks and networks. Adherents of this `Unix virus' theory
like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "Unix is snake
oil" was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC
began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations.
(Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
[If there was ever such a conspiracy, it got thoroughly out of the
plotters' control after 1990. AT&T sold its UNIX operation to
Novell around the same time Linux and other free-UNIX
distributions were beginning to make noise. --ESR]
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/n./ [ITS] 1. A derogatory play on `Unix wizard',
common among hackers who use Unix by necessity but would prefer
alternatives. The implication is that although the person in
question may consider mastery of Unix arcana to be a wizardly
skill, the only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and
the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity
that is alleged to infest many Unix programs. "This shell script
tries to parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must have
been written by a real Unix weenie." 2. A derogatory term for
anyone who engages in uncritical praise of Unix. Often appearing
in the context "stupid Unix weenie". See Weenix, Unix conspiracy. See also weenie.
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/n./ A piece of code or a coding technique that
depends on the protected multi-tasking environment with relatively
low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory Unix
systems. Common unixisms include: gratuitous use of
`fork(2)'; the assumption that certain undocumented but
well-known features of Unix libraries such as `stdio(3)' are
supported elsewhere; reliance on obscure side-effects of
system calls (use of `sleep(2)' with a 0 argument to clue the
scheduler that you're willing to give up your time-slice, for
example); the assumption that freshly allocated memory is zeroed;
and the assumption that fragmentation problems won't arise from
never `free()'ing memory. Compare vaxocentrism; see also
New Jersey.
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/v./ See swizzle.
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/vi./ 1. [techspeak] During the execution of
a procedural language, one is said to `unwind the stack' from a
called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame
and any number of frames above it, popping back up to the level of
the given caller. In C this is done with
`longjmp'/`setjmp', in LISP with `throw/catch'.
See also smash the stack. 2. People can unwind the stack as
well, by quickly dealing with a bunch of problems: "Oh heck, let's
do lunch. Just a second while I unwind my stack."
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/n./ [MIT: from the name of a LISP operator] A
task you must remember to perform before you leave a place or
finish a project. "I have an unwind-protect to call my advisor."
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/adj./ 1. Working, in order. "The down escalator is
up." Oppose down. 2. `bring up': /vt./ To create a working
version and start it. "They brought up a down system."
3. `come up' /vi./ To become ready for production use.
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/uhp'lohd/ /v./ 1. [techspeak] To transfer programs
or data over a digital communications link from a smaller or
peripheral `client' system to a larger or central `host' one.
A transfer in the other direction is, of course, called a
download (but see the note about ground-to-space comm under
that entry). 2. [speculatively] To move the essential patterns and
algorithms that make up one's mind from one's brain into a
computer. Those who are convinced that such patterns and
algorithms capture the complete essence of the self view this
prospect with pleasant anticipation.
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/adv./ Earlier in the discussion (see thread),
i.e., `above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..." See
also followup.
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/n./ See munchkin.
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/U-R-L/ or /erl/ /n./ Uniform Resource Locator, an
address widget that identifies a document or resource on the
World Wide Web. This entry is here primarily to record the fact
that the term is commonly pronounced both /erl/, and /U-R-L/
(the latter predominates in more formal contexts).
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/yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ /n./ [from `Users'
Network'; the original spelling was USENET, but the mixed-case form
is now widely preferred] A distributed bboard (bulletin board)
system supported mainly by Unix machines. Originally implemented
in 1979--1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve
Daniel at Duke University, it has swiftly grown to become
international in scope and is now probably the largest
decentralized information utility in existence. As of early 1996,
it hosts over 10,000 newsgroups and an average of over 500
megabytes (the equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of new
technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and flamage
every day.
By the year the Internet hit the mainstream (1994) the original
UUCP transport for Usenet was fading out of use (see UUCPNET)
-- almost all Usenet connections were over Internet links. A lot
of newbies and journalists began to refer to "Internet
newsgroups" as though Usenet was and always had been just another
Internet service. This ignorance greatly annoys experienced
Usenetters.
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/n./ 1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer,
using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a
computer. See real user. 2. A programmer who will believe
anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS
observes: This is slightly unfair. It is true that users ask
questions (of necessity). Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep.
Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently
because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the
documentation before bothering the maintainer.] See luser.
3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully,
without getting into the internals of the program. One who reports
bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them.
The general theory behind this term is that there are two classes
of people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers)
and lusers. The users are looked down on by hackers to some
extent because they don't understand the full ramifications of the
system in all its glory. (The few users who do are known as
`real winners'.) The term is a relative one: a skilled hacker
may be a user with respect to some program he himself does not
hack. A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who
uses LISP (but with the skill of a hacker). A LISP user is one who
uses LISP, whether skillfully or not. Thus there is some overlap
between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by
context.
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/adj./ Programmer-hostile. Generally used by
hackers in a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the
user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the more
experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. See
menuitis, drool-proof paper, Macintrash,
user-obsequious.
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/adj./ Emphatic form of user-friendly.
Connotes a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly
simple-minded that it is nearly unusable. "Design a system any
fool can use and only a fool will want to use it." See WIMP environment, Macintrash.
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/U-S-G yoo'niks/ /n./ Refers to AT&T Unix
commercial versions after Version 7, especially System III and
System V releases 1, 2, and 3. So called because during most of
the lifespan of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the
`Unix Support Group'. See BSD, Unix.
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// /n./ [Unix] On-line acronym for `Use the Source, Luke' (a
pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Use the Force, Luke!" in "Star
Wars") -- analogous to RTFS (sense 1), but more polite. This
is a common way of suggesting that someone would be better off
reading the source code that supports whatever feature is causing
confusion, rather than making yet another futile pass through the
manuals, or broadcasting questions on Usenet that haven't attracted
wizards to answer them.
Once upon a time in elder days, everyone running Unix had
source. After 1978, AT&T's policy tightened up, so this
objurgation was in theory appropriately directed only at associates
of some outfit with a Unix source license. In practice, bootlegs
of Unix source code (made precisely for reference purposes) were so
ubiquitous that one could utter it at almost anyone on the network
without concern.
Nowadays, free Unix clones have become widely enough distributed
that anyone can read source legally. The most widely distributed
is certainly Linux, with variants of the NET/2 and 4.4BSD
distributions running second. Cheap commercial Unixes with source
such as BSD/OS are accelerating this trend.
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/n. obs./ The store-and-forward network consisting of all
the world's connected Unix machines (and others running some clone
of the UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) software). Any machine reachable
only via a bang path is on UUCPNET. This term has been
rendered obsolescent by the spread of cheap Internet connections in
the 1990s; the few remaining UUCP links are essentially slow
channels to the Internet rather than an autonomous network. See
network address.