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

wars.

Node:elite, Next:[4498]ELIZA effect, Previous:[4499]elevator

controller, Up:[4500]= E =

elite adj.

Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general

positive adjective. This term is not actually native hacker slang; it

is used primarily by crackers and [4501]warez d00dz, for which reason

hackers use it only with heavy irony. The term used to refer to the

folks allowed in to the "hidden" or "privileged" sections of BBSes in

the early 1980s (which, typically, contained pirated software).

Frequently, early boards would only let you post, or even see, a

certain subset of the sections (or `boards') on a BBS. Those who got

to the frequently legendary `triple super secret' boards were elite.

Misspellings of this term in warez d00dz style abound; the forms

eleet', and31337' (among others) have been sighted.

A true hacker would be more likely to use `wizardly'. Oppose

[4502]lamer.

Node:ELIZA effect, Next:[4503]elvish, Previous:[4504]elite, Up:[4505]=

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ELIZA effect /-li:'z *-fekt'/ n.

[AI community] The tendency of humans to attach associations to terms

from prior experience. For example, there is nothing magic about the

symbol + that makes it well-suited to indicate addition; it's just

that people associate it with addition. Using + or `plus' to mean

addition in a computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA

effect.

This term comes from the famous ELIZA program by Joseph Weizenbaum,

which simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist by rephrasing many of the

patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It

worked by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words

into canned phrases. It was so convincing, however, that there are

many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in

dealing with ELIZA. All this was due to people's tendency to attach to

words meanings which the computer never put there. The ELIZA effect is

a [4506]Good Thing when writing a programming language, but it can

blind you to serious shortcomings when analyzing an Artificial

Intelligence system. Compare [4507]ad-hockery; see also

[4508]AI-complete. Sources for a clone of the original Eliza are

available at

[4509]ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/pub/AI---ATTIC/Programs/Classic/Eliza/Eliz

a.c.

Node:elvish, Next:[4510]EMACS, Previous:[4511]ELIZA effect, Up:[4512]=

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elvish n.

The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the

beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book of Kells". Invented and

described by J. R. R. Tolkien in "The Lord of The Rings" as an

orthography for his fictional `elvish' languages, this system (which

is both visually and phonetically [4513]elegant) has long fascinated

hackers (who tend to be intrigued by artificial languages in general).

It is traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and

the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items.

See also [4514]elder days. 2. By extension, any odd or unreadable

typeface produced by a graphics device. 3. The typeface mundanely

called `B�cklin', an art-Noveau display font.

Node:EMACS, Next:[4515]email, Previous:[4516]elvish, Up:[4517]= E =

EMACS /ee'maks/ n.

[from Editing MACroS] The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a

programmable text editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It was

originally written by Richard Stallman in [4518]TECO under [4519]ITS

at the MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced,

self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor".

It has since been reimplemented any number of times, by various

hackers, and versions exist that run under most major operating

systems. Perhaps the most widely used version, also written by

Stallman and now called "[4520]GNU EMACS" or [4521]GNUMACS, runs

principally under Unix. (Its close relative XEmacs is the second most

popular version.) It includes facilities to run compilation

subprocesses and send and receive mail or news; many hackers spend up

to 80% of their [4522]tube time inside it. Other variants include

[4523]GOSMACS, CCA EMACS, UniPress EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove,

epsilon, and MicroEMACS. (Though we use the original all-caps spelling

here, it is nowadays very commonly `Emacs'.)

Some EMACS versions running under window managers iconify as an

overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the

editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too

[4524]heavyweight and [4525]baroque for their taste, and expand the

name as `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy reliance on

keystrokes decorated with [4526]bucky bits. Other spoof expansions

include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping' (from when that was

a lot of [4527]core), `Eventually malloc()s All Computer Storage', and

`EMACS Makes A Computer Slow' (see [4528]recursive acronym). See also

[4529]vi.

Node:email, Next:[4530]emoticon, Previous:[4531]EMACS, Up:[4532]= E =

email /ee'mayl/

(also written e-mail' andE-mail') 1. n. Electronic mail

automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems over

common-carrier lines. Contrast [4533]snail-mail, [4534]paper-net,

[4535]voice-net. See [4536]network address. 2. vt. To send electronic

mail.

Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it

means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged in a net or

open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is probably derived

from French `�maill�' (enameled) and related to Old French

`emmaille�re' (network). A French correspondent tells us that in

modern French, `email' is a hard enamel obtained by heating special

paints in a furnace; an `emailleur' (no final e) is a craftsman who

makes email (he generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and

cooks them in a furnace).

There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic

up to 1995, email' predominates,e-mail' runs a not-too-distant

second, and E-mail' andEmail' are a distant third and fourth.

Node:emoticon, Next:[4537]EMP, Previous:[4538]email, Up:[4539]= E =

emoticon /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n.

[common] An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email

or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or

some other explicit humor indication) are virtually required under

certain circumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums

such as Usenet; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause

what were intended to be humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise

non-100%-serious comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even

by [4540]newbies), resulting in arguments and [4541]flame wars.

Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in common

use. These include:

:-)

`smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm)

:-(

`frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)

;-)

`half-smiley' ([4542]ha ha only serious); also known as `semi-smiley' or `winkey face'.

:-/

`wry face'

(These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways,

to the left.)

The first two listed are by far the most frequently encountered.

Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX; see

also [4543]bixie. On [4544]Usenet, `smiley' is often used as a generic

term synonymous with [4545]emoticon, as well as specifically for the

happy-face emoticon.

It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the

CMU [4546]bboard systems sometime between early 1981 and mid-1982. He

later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least

recorded the date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting

something that would soon pollute all the world's communication

channels." [GLS confirms that he remembers this original posting].

Note for the [4547]newbie: Overuse of the smiley is a mark of

loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that

you've gone over the line.

Node:EMP, Next:[4548]empire, Previous:[4549]emoticon, Up:[4550]= E =

EMP /E-M-P/

See [4551]spam.

Node:empire, Next:[4552]engine, Previous:[4553]EMP, Up:[4554]= E =

empire n.

Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game written by

Peter Langston many years ago. A number of multi-player variants of

varying degrees of sophistication exist, and one single-player version

implemented for both Unix and VMS; the latter is even available as

MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive. Of various commercial

derivatives the best known is probably "Empire Deluxe" on PCs and

Amigas.

Modern empire is a real-time wargame played over the internet by up to

120 players. Typical games last from 24 hours (blitz) to a couple of

months (long term). The amount of sleep you can get while playing is a

function of the rate at which updates occur and the number of

co-rulers of your country. Empire server software is available for

unix-like machines, and clients for Unix and other platforms. A

comprehensive history of the game is available at

[4555]http://www.empire.cx/infopages/History.html. The Empire resource

site is at [4556]http://www.empire.cx/.

Node:engine, Next:[4557]English, Previous:[4558]empire, Up:[4559]= E =

engine n.

A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be

used without some kind of [4560]front end. Today we have, especially,

`print engine': the guts of a laser printer. 2. An analogous piece of

software; notionally, one that does a lot of noisy crunching, such as

a `database engine'.

The hacker senses of `engine' are actually close to its original,

pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or

instrument (the word is cognate to `ingenuity'). This sense had not

been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of

power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which explains

why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the

`Analytical Engine'.

Node:English, Next:[4561]enhancement, Previous:[4562]engine,

Up:[4563]= E =

English

n. obs. The source code for a program, which may be in any

language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced

from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that to a real

hacker, a program written in his favorite programming language is at

least as readable as English. Usage: mostly by old-time hackers,

though recognizable in context. Today the prefereed shorthand is

sinply [4564]source. 2. The official name of the database language

used by the old Pick Operating System, actually a sort of crufty,

brain-damaged SQL with delusions of grandeur. The name permitted

[4565]marketroids to say "Yes, and you can program our computers in

English!" to ignorant [4566]suits without quite running afoul of the

truth-in-advertising laws.

Node:enhancement, Next:[4567]ENQ, Previous:[4568]English, Up:[4569]= E

=

enhancement n.

Common [4570]marketroid-speak for a bug [4571]fix. This abuse of

language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence into

increased revenue. A hacker being ironic would instead call the fix a

[4572]feature -- or perhaps save some effort by declaring the bug

itself to be a feature.

Node:ENQ, Next:[4573]EOF, Previous:[4574]enhancement, Up:[4575]= E =

ENQ /enkw/ or /enk/

[from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for 0000101] An on-line convention

for querying someone's availability. After opening a [4576]talk mode

connection to someone apparently in heavy hack mode, one might type

SYN SYN ENQ? (the SYNs representing notional synchronization bytes),

and expect a return of [4577]ACK or [4578]NAK depending on whether or

not the person felt interruptible. Compare [4579]ping, [4580]finger,

and the usage of FOO? listed under [4581]talk mode.

Node:EOF, Next:[4582]EOL, Previous:[4583]ENQ, Up:[4584]= E =

EOF /E-O-F/ n.

[abbreviation, `End Of File'] 1. [techspeak] The [4585]out-of-band

value returned by C's sequential character-input functions (and their

equivalents in other environments) when end of file has been reached.

This value is usually -1 under C libraries postdating V6 Unix, but was

originally 0. DOS hackers think EOF is ^Z, and a few Amiga hackers

think it's ^. 2. [Unix] The keyboard character (usually control-D,

the ASCII EOT (End Of Transmission) character) that is mapped by the

terminal driver into an end-of-file condition. 3. Used by extension in

non-computer contexts when a human is doing something that can be

modeled as a sequential read and can't go further. "Yeah, I looked for

a list of 360 mnemonics to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast;

all the library had was a [4586]JCL manual." See also [4587]EOL.

Node:EOL, Next:[4588]EOU, Previous:[4589]EOF, Up:[4590]= E =

EOL /E-O-L/ n.

[End Of Line] Syn. for [4591]newline, derived perhaps from the

original CDC6600 Pascal. Now rare, but widely recognized and

occasionally used for brevity. Used in the example entry under

[4592]BNF. See also [4593]EOF.

Node:EOU, Next:[4594]epoch, Previous:[4595]EOL, Up:[4596]= E =

EOU /E-O-U/ n.

The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control character (End Of User) that

would make an ASR-33 Teletype explode on receipt. This construction

parodies the numerous obscure delimiter and control characters left in