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

>ASCII from the days when it was associated more with wire-service

teletypes than computers (e.g., FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and esp.

EOT). It is worth remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical

beasts with a lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might

explode was nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone

sitting in front of a [4597]tube or flatscreen today.

Node:epoch, Next:[4598]epsilon, Previous:[4599]EOU, Up:[4600]= E =

epoch n.

[Unix: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] The time and date

corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp

values. Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1,

1970; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 of November 17, 1858 (base date of the

U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides); on a Macintosh, it's the

midnight beginning January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds

or [4601]ticks past the epoch. Weird problems may ensue when the clock

wraps around (see [4602]wrap around), which is not necessarily a rare

event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed 32-bit count

of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The 1-tick-per-second clock of

Unix is good only until January 18, 2038, assuming at least some

software continues to consider it signed and that word lengths don't

increase by then. See also [4603]wall time. Microsoft Windows, on the

other hand, has an epoch problem every 49.7 days - but this is seldom

noticed as Windows is almost incapable of staying up continuously for

that long.

Node:epsilon, Next:[4604]epsilon squared, Previous:[4605]epoch,

Up:[4606]= E =

epsilon

[see [4607]delta] 1. n. A small quantity of anything. "The cost is

epsilon." 2. adj. Very small, negligible; less than [4608]marginal.

"We can get this feature for epsilon cost." 3. `within epsilon of':

close enough to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes, even

closer than being `within delta of'. "That's not what I asked for, but

it's within epsilon of what I wanted." Alternatively, it may mean not

close enough, but very little is required to get it there: "My program

is within epsilon of working."

Node:epsilon squared, Next:[4609]era the, Previous:[4610]epsilon,

Up:[4611]= E =

epsilon squared n.

A quantity even smaller than [4612]epsilon, as small in comparison to

epsilon as epsilon is to something normal; completely negligible. If

you buy a supercomputer for a million dollars, the cost of the

thousand-dollar terminal to go with it is [4613]epsilon, and the cost

of the ten-dollar cable to connect them is epsilon squared. Compare

[4614]lost in the underflow, [4615]lost in the noise.

Node:era the, Next:[4616]Eric Conspiracy, Previous:[4617]epsilon

squared, Up:[4618]= E =

era n.

Syn. [4619]epoch. Webster's Unabridged makes these words almost

synonymous, but `era' more often connotes a span of time rather than a

point in time, whereas the reverse is true for [4620]epoch. The

[4621]epoch usage is recommended.

Node:Eric Conspiracy, Next:[4622]Eris, Previous:[4623]era the,

Up:[4624]= E =

Eric Conspiracy n.

A shadowy group of mustachioed hackers named Eric first pinpointed as

a sinister conspiracy by an infamous talk.bizarre posting ca. 1987;

this was doubtless influenced by the numerous `Eric' jokes in the

Monty Python oeuvre. There do indeed seem to be considerably more

mustachioed Erics in hackerdom than the frequency of these three

traits can account for unless they are correlated in some arcane way.

Well-known examples include Eric Allman (he of the `Allman style'

described under [4625]indent style) and Erik Fair (co-author of NNTP);

your editor has heard from more than sixty others by email, and the

organization line `Eric Conspiracy Secret Laboratories' now emanates

regularly from more than one site. See the Eric Conspiracy Web Page at

[4626]http://www.ccil.org/~esr/ecsl/ for full details.

Node:Eris, Next:[4627]erotics, Previous:[4628]Eric Conspiracy,

Up:[4629]= E =

Eris /e'ris/ n.

The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion, and Things You Know

Not Of; her name was latinized to Discordia and she was worshiped by

that name in Rome. Not a very friendly deity in the Classical

original, she was reinvented as a more benign personification of

creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the adherents of

[4630]Discordianism and has since been a semi-serious subject of

veneration in several `fringe' cultures, including hackerdom. See

[4631]Discordianism, [4632]Church of the SubGenius.

Node:erotics, Next:[4633]error 33, Previous:[4634]Eris, Up:[4635]= E =

erotics /ee-ro'tiks/ n.

[Helsinki University of Technology, Finland] n. English-language

university slang for electronics. Often used by hackers in Helsinki,

maybe because good electronics excites them and makes them warm.

Node:error 33, Next:[4636]eurodemo, Previous:[4637]erotics, Up:[4638]=

E =

error 33 [XEROX PARC] n.

Predicating one research effort upon the success of another. 2.

Allowing your own research effort to be placed on the critical path of

some other project (be it a research effort or not).

Node:eurodemo, Next:[4639]evil, Previous:[4640]error 33, Up:[4641]= E

=

eurodemo /yoor'o-dem`-o/

a [4642]demo, sense 4

Node:evil, Next:[4643]evil and rude, Previous:[4644]eurodemo,

Up:[4645]= E =

evil adj.

As used by hackers, implies that some system, program, person, or

institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth the bother

of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the

[4646]cretinous/[4647]losing/[4648]brain-damaged series, `evil' does

not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or

design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is

more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the

mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a [4649]Blue Glue interface

but decided it was too evil to deal with." "[4650]TECO is neat, but it

can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with

the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/. Compare [4651]evil and

rude.

Node:evil and rude, Next:[4652]Evil Empire, Previous:[4653]evil,

Up:[4654]= E =

evil and rude adj.

Both [4655]evil and [4656]rude, but with the additional connotation

that the rudeness was due to malice rather than incompetence. Thus,

for example: Microsoft's Windows NT is evil because it's a competent

implementation of a bad design; it's rude because it's gratuitously

incompatible with Unix in places where compatibility would have been

as easy and effective to do; but it's evil and rude because the

incompatibilities are apparently there not to fix design bugs in Unix

but rather to lock hapless customers and developers into the Microsoft

way. Hackish evil and rude is close to the mainstream sense of `evil'.

Node:Evil Empire, Next:[4657]exa-, Previous:[4658]evil and rude,

Up:[4659]= E =

Evil Empire n.

[from Ronald Reagan's famous characterization of the communist Soviet

Union] Formerly [4660]IBM, now [4661]Microsoft. Functionally, the

company most hackers love to hate at any given time. Hackers like to

see themselves as romantic rebels against the Evil Empire, and

frequently adopt this role to the point of ascribing rather more power

and malice to the Empire than it actually has. See also [4662]Borg and

search for [4663]Evil Empire pages on the Web.

Node:exa-, Next:[4664]examining the entrails, Previous:[4665]Evil

Empire, Up:[4666]= E =

exa- /ek's*/ pref.

[SI] See [4667]quantifiers.

Node:examining the entrails, Next:[4668]EXCH, Previous:[4669]exa-,

Up:[4670]= E =

examining the entrails n.

The process of [4671]grovelling through a [4672]core dump or hex image

in an attempt to discover the bug that brought a program or system

down. The reference is to divination from the entrails of a sacrified

animal. Compare [4673]runes, [4674]incantation, [4675]black art,

[4676]desk check.

Node:EXCH, Next:[4677]excl, Previous:[4678]examining the entrails,

Up:[4679]= E =

EXCH /eks'ch*/ or /eksch/ vt.

To exchange two things, each for the other; to swap places. If you

point to two people sitting down and say "Exch!", you are asking them

to trade places. EXCH, meaning EXCHange, was originally the name of a

PDP-10 instruction that exchanged the contents of a register and a

memory location. Many newer hackers are probably thinking instead of

the [4680]PostScript exchange operator (which is usually written in

lowercase).

Node:excl, Next:[4681]EXE, Previous:[4682]EXCH, Up:[4683]= E =

excl /eks'kl/ n.

Abbreviation for `exclamation point'. See [4684]bang, [4685]shriek,

[4686]ASCII.

Node:EXE, Next:[4687]exec, Previous:[4688]excl, Up:[4689]= E =

EXE /eks'ee/ or /eek'see/ or /E-X-E/ n.

An executable binary file. Some operating systems (notably MS-DOS,

VMS, and TWENEX) use the extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage

is also occasionally found among Unix programmers even though Unix

executables don't have any required suffix.

Node:exec, Next:[4690]exercise left as an, Previous:[4691]EXE,

Up:[4692]= E =

exec /eg-zek'/ or /eks'ek/ vt., n.

[Unix: from `execute'] Synonym for [4693]chain, derives from the

exec(2) call. 2. [from `executive'] obs. The command interpreter for

an [4694]OS (see [4695]shell); term esp. used around mainframes, and

prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC 8 operating

systems. 3. At IBM and VM/CMS shops, the equivalent of a shell command

file (among VM/CMS users).

The mainstream `exec' as an abbreviation for (human) executive is not

used. To a hacker, an `exec' is a always a program, never a person.

Node:exercise left as an, Next:[4696]Exon, Previous:[4697]exec,

Up:[4698]= E =

exercise, left as an adj.

[from technical books] Used to complete a proof when one doesn't mind

a [4699]handwave, or to avoid one entirely. The complete phrase is:

"The proof [or `the rest'] is left as an exercise for the reader."

This comment has occasionally been attached to unsolved research

problems by authors possessed of either an evil sense of humor or a

vast faith in the capabilities of their audiences.

Node:Exon, Next:[4700]Exploder, Previous:[4701]exercise left as an,

Up:[4702]= E =

Exon /eks'on/ excl.

A generic obscenity that quickly entered wide use on the Internet and

Usenet after [4703]Black Thursday. From the last name of Senator James

Exon (Democrat-Nebraska), primary author of the [4704]CDA.

Node:Exploder, Next:[4705]exploit, Previous:[4706]Exon, Up:[4707]= E =

Exploder n.

Used within Microsoft to refer to the Windows Explorer, the interface

component of Windows 95 and WinNT 4. Our spies report that most of the

heavy guns at MS came from a Unix background and use command line

utilities; even they are scornful of the over-gingerbreaded [4708]WIMP

environments that they have been called upon to create.

Node:exploit, Next:[4709]external memory, Previous:[4710]Exploder,

Up:[4711]= E =

exploit n.

[originally cracker slang] 1. A vulnerability in software that can be

used for breaking security or otherwise attacking an Internet host

over the network. The [4712]Ping O' Death is a famous exploit. 2. More

grammatically, a program that exploits an exploit in sense 1,

Node:external memory, Next:[4713]eye candy, Previous:[4714]exploit,

Up:[4715]= E =

external memory n.

A memo pad, palmtop computer, or written notes. "Hold on while I write

that to external memory". The analogy is with store or DRAM versus

nonvolatile disk storage on computers.

Node:eye candy, Next:[4716]eyeball search, Previous:[4717]external

memory, Up:[4718]= E =

eye candy /i:' kand`ee/ n.

[from mainstream slang "ear candy"] A display of some sort that's

presented to [4719]lusers to keep them distracted while the program

performs necessary background tasks. "Give 'em some eye candy while

the back-end [4720]slurps that [4721]BLOB into core." Reported as

mainstream usage among players of graphics-heavy computer games. We're

also told this term is mainstream slang for soft pornography, but that

sense does not appear to be live among hackers.

Node:eyeball search, Next:[4722]face time, Previous:[4723]eye candy,

Up:[4724]= E =

eyeball search n.,v.

To look for something in a mass of code or data with one's own native

optical sensors, as opposed to using some sort of pattern matching

software like [4725]grep or any other automated search tool. Also

called a [4726]vgrep; compare [4727]vdiff, [4728]desk check.

Node:= F =, Next:[4729]= G =, Previous:[4730]= E =, Up:[4731]The

Jargon Lexicon

= F =

[4732]face time:

[4733]factor:

[4734]fairings:

[4735]fall over:

[4736]fall through:

[4737]fan:

[4738]fandango on core:

[4739]FAQ:

[4740]FAQ list:

[4741]FAQL:

[4742]faradize:

[4743]farkled:

[4744]farming:

[4745]fascist:

[4746]fat electrons:

[4747]fat-finger:

[4748]faulty:

[4749]fd leak:

[4750]fear and loathing:

[4751]feature:

[4752]feature creature:

[4753]feature creep:

[4754]feature key:

[4755]feature shock:

[4756]featurectomy:

[4757]feep:

[4758]feeper:

[4759]feeping creature:

[4760]feeping creaturism:

[4761]feetch feetch:

[4762]fence:

[4763]fencepost error:

[4764]fiber-seeking backhoe:

[4765]FidoNet:

[4766]field circus:

[4767]field servoid:

[4768]Fight-o-net:

[4769]File Attach:

[4770]File Request:

[4771]file signature:

[4772]filk:

[4773]film at 11:

[4774]filter:

[4775]Finagle's Law:

[4776]fine:

[4777]finger: