The Jargon File by Eric S. Raymond (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

expansion of

WAITS (the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways

process), but it was frequently glossed as `West-coast Alternative to

ITS'. Though WAITS was less visible than ITS, there was frequent

exchange of people and ideas between the two communities, and

innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted enormous indirect influence.

The early screen modes of [14382]EMACS, for example, were directly

inspired by WAITS's `E' editor -- one of a family of editors that were

the first to do `real-time editing', in which the editing commands

were invisible and where one typed text at the point of

insertion/overwriting. The modern style of multi-region windowing is

said to have originated there, and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and

elsewhere played major roles in the developments that led to the XEROX

Star, the Macintosh, and the Sun workstations. Also invented there

were [14383]bucky bits -- thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS

legacy. One WAITS feature very notable in pre-Web days was a news-wire

interface that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and

UPI dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a

still-unusual level of support for what is now called `multimedia'

computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched to

programming terminals.

Node:waldo, Next:[14384]walk, Previous:[14385]WAITS, Up:[14386]= W =

waldo /wol'doh/ n.

[From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"] 1. A mechanical agent, such

as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb. When these were

developed for the nuclear industry in the mid-1940s they were named

after the invention described by Heinlein in the story, which he wrote

in 1942. Now known by the more generic term `telefactoring', this

technology is of intense interest to NASA for tasks like space station

maintenance. 2. At Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham and

students), this is used instead of [14387]foobar as a metasyntactic

variable and general nonsense word. See [14388]foo, [14389]bar,

[14390]foobar, [14391]quux.

Node:walk, Next:[14392]walk off the end of, Previous:[14393]waldo,

Up:[14394]= W =

walk n.,vt.

Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or linked-list data

structure in [14395]core. See also [14396]codewalker, [14397]silly

walk, [14398]clobber.

Node:walk off the end of, Next:[14399]walking drives,

Previous:[14400]walk, Up:[14401]= W =

walk off the end of vt.

To run past the end of an array, list, or medium after stepping

through it -- a good way to land in trouble. Often the result of an

[14402]off-by-one error. Compare [14403]clobber, [14404]roach,

[14405]smash the stack.

Node:walking drives, Next:[14406]wall, Previous:[14407]walk off the

end of, Up:[14408]= W =

walking drives n.

An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days

when they were huge, clunky [14409]washing machines. Those old

[14410]dinosaur parts carried terrific angular momentum; the

combination of a misaligned spindle or worn bearings and stick-slip

interactions with the floor could cause them to `walk' across a room,

lurching alternate corners forward a couple of millimeters at a time.

There is a legend about a drive that walked over to the only door to

the computer room and jammed it shut; the staff had to cut a hole in

the wall in order to get at it! Walking could also be induced by

certain patterns of drive access (a fast seek across the whole width

of the disk, followed by a slow seek in the other direction). Some

bands of old-time hackers figured out how to induce disk-accessing

patterns that would do this to particular drive models and held

disk-drive races.

Node:wall, Next:[14411]wall follower, Previous:[14412]walking drives,

Up:[14413]= W =

wall interj.

[WPI] 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical

tone: "Wall??" 2. A request for further explication. Compare

[14414]octal forty. 3. [Unix, from `write all'] v. To send a message

to everyone currently logged in, esp. with the wall(8) utility.

It is said that sense 1 came from the idiom `like talking to a blank

wall'. It was originally used in situations where, after you had

carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you blankly,

clearly having understood nothing that was explained. You would then

throw out a "Hello, wall?" to elicit some sort of response from the

questioner. Later, confused questioners began voicing "Wall?"

themselves.

Node:wall follower, Next:[14415]wall time, Previous:[14416]wall,

Up:[14417]= W =

wall follower n.

A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or

native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown

to have been effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not

necessarily pejorative; it recalls `Harvey Wallbanger', the winning

robot in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail).

Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and

running till it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was

mathematically guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes -- and, in

fact, Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to

`learn' each maze by building an internal representation of it. Used

of humans, the term is pejorative and implies an uncreative,

bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality. See also [14418]code grinder;

compare [14419]droid.

Node:wall time, Next:[14420]wall wart, Previous:[14421]wall follower,

Up:[14422]= W =

wall time n.

(also wall clock time') 1.Real world' time (what the clock on the

wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea of time. 2. The

real running time of a program, as opposed to the number of

[14423]ticks required to execute it (on a timesharing system these

always differ, as no one program gets all the ticks, and on

multiprocessor systems with good thread support one may get more

processor time than real time).

Node:wall wart, Next:[14424]wallpaper, Previous:[14425]wall time,

Up:[14426]= W =

wall wart n.

A small power-supply brick with integral male plug, designed to plug

directly into a wall outlet; called a `wart' because when installed on

a power strip it tends to block up at least one more socket than it

uses.. These are frequently associated with modems and other small

electronic devices which would become unacceptably bulky or hot if

they had power supplies on board (there are other reasons as well

having to do with the cost of UL certification).

Node:wallpaper, Next:[14427]wango, Previous:[14428]wall wart,

Up:[14429]= W =

wallpaper n.

A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly listing) or a

transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a

login session. (The idea was that the paper for such listings was

essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at Stanford, where

it was used to cover windows.) Now rare, esp. since other systems have

developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the

Unix world doesn't have an equivalent term, so perhaps

[14430]wallpaper will take hold there. The term probably originated on

ITS, where the commands to begin and end transcript files were :WALBEG

and :WALEND, with default file WALL PAPER (the space was a path

delimiter). 2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations

(this is techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user interface to

MS-DOS). 3. `wallpaper file' n. The file that contains the wallpaper

information before it is actually printed on paper. (Even if you don't

intend ever to produce a real paper copy of the file, it is still

called a wallpaper file.)

Node:wango, Next:[14431]wank, Previous:[14432]wallpaper, Up:[14433]= W

=

wango /wang'goh/ n.

Random bit-level [14434]grovelling going on in a system during some

unspecified operation. Often used in combination with [14435]mumble.

For example: "You start with the `.o' file, run it through this

postprocessor that does mumble-wango -- and it comes out a snazzy

object-oriented executable."

Node:wank, Next:[14436]wannabee, Previous:[14437]wango, Up:[14438]= W

=

wank /wangk/ n.,v.,adj.

[Columbia University: prob. by mutation from Commonwealth slang v.

`wank', to masturbate] Used much as [14439]hack is elsewhere, as a

noun denoting a clever technique or person or the result of such

cleverness. May describe (negatively) the act of hacking for hacking's

sake ("Quit wanking, let's go get supper!") or (more positively) a

[14440]wizard. Adj. `wanky' describes something particularly clever (a

person, program, or algorithm). Conversations can also get wanky when

there are too many wanks involved. This excess wankiness is signalled

by an overload of the `wankometer' (compare [14441]bogometer). When

the wankometer overloads, the conversation's subject must be changed,

or all non-wanks will leave. Compare `neep-neeping' (under

[14442]neep-neep). Usage: U.S. only. In Britain and the Commonwealth

this word is extremely rude and is best avoided unless one intends to

give offense. Adjectival `wanky' is less offensive and simply means

stupid' orbroken' (this is mainstream in Great Britain).

Node:wannabee, Next:[14443]war dialer, Previous:[14444]wank,

Up:[14445]= W =

wannabee /won'*-bee/ n.

(also, more plausibly, spelled `wannabe') [from a term recently used

to describe Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol;

prob. originally from biker slang] A would-be [14446]hacker. The

connotations of this term differ sharply depending on the age and

exposure of the subject. Used of a person who is in or might be

entering [14447]larval stage, it is semi-approving; such wannabees can

be annoying but most hackers remember that they, too, were once such

creatures. When used of any professional programmer, CS academic,

writer, or [14448]suit, it is derogatory, implying that said person is

trying to cuddle up to the hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally,

have a prayer of understanding what it is all about. Overuse of terms

from this lexicon is often an indication of the [14449]wannabee

nature. Compare [14450]newbie.

Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different

flavor now (1993) than it did ten or fifteen years ago. When the

people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in [14451]larval

stage, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious and

unaffected by models known in popular culture -- communities formed

spontaneously around people who, as individuals, felt irresistibly

drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees experienced was a

fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become similarly wizardly. Those

days of innocence are gone forever; society's adaptation to the advent

of the microcomputer after 1980 included the elevation of the hacker

as a new kind of folk hero, and the result is that some people

semi-consciously set out to be hackers and borrow hackish prestige by

fitting the popular image of hackers. Fortunately, to do this really

well, one has to actually become a wizard. Nevertheless, old-time

hackers tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change;

among other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of

public compendia of lore like this one.

Node:war dialer, Next:[14452]-ware, Previous:[14453]wannabee,

Up:[14454]= W =

war dialer n.

A cracking tool, a program that calls a given list or range of phone

numbers and records those which answer with handshake tones (and so

might be entry points to computer or telecommunications systems). Some

of these programs have become quite sophisticated, and can now detect

modem, fax, or PBX tones and log each one separately. The war dialer

is one of the most important tools in the [14455]phreaker's kit. These

programs evolved from early [14456]demon dialers.

Node:-ware, Next:[14457]warez, Previous:[14458]war dialer, Up:[14459]=

W =

-ware suff.

[from `software'] Commonly used to form jargon terms for classes of

software. For examples, see [14460]annoyware, [14461]careware,

[14462]crippleware, [14463]crudware, [14464]freeware,

[14465]fritterware, [14466]guiltware, [14467]liveware,

[14468]meatware, [14469]payware, [14470]psychedelicware,

[14471]shareware, [14472]shelfware, [14473]vaporware, [14474]wetware.

Node:warez, Next:[14475]warez d00dz, Previous:[14476]-ware,

Up:[14477]= W =

warez /weirz/ n.

Widely used in [14478]cracker subcultures to denote cracked version of

commercial software, that is versions from which copy-protection has

been stripped. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it

themselves. See [14479]warez d00dz, [14480]courier, [14481]leech,

[14482]elite.

Node:warez d00dz, Next:[14483]warez kiddies, Previous:[14484]warez,

Up:[14485]= W =

warez d00dz /weirz doodz/ n.

A substantial subculture of [14486]crackers refer to themselves as

`warez d00dz'; there is evidently some connection with [14487]B1FF

here. As `Ozone Pilot', one former warez d00d, wrote:

Warez d00dz get illegal copies of copyrighted software. If it has

copy protection on it, they break the protection so the software

can be copied. Then they distribute it around the world via several

gateways. Warez d00dz form badass group names like RAZOR and the

like. They put up boards