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

their arms in front of

their faces making small motions. After more than a very few

selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized -- the

operator looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels

like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale

to human-factors designers; "Remember the gorilla arm!" is shorthand

for "How is this going to fly in real use?".

Node:gorp, Next:[6115]GOSMACS, Previous:[6116]gorilla arm, Up:[6117]=

G =

gorp /gorp/ n.

[CMU: perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good Old Raisins and

Peanuts] Another [6118]metasyntactic variable, like [6119]foo and

[6120]bar.

Node:GOSMACS, Next:[6121]Gosperism, Previous:[6122]gorp, Up:[6123]= G

=

GOSMACS /goz'maks/ n.

[contraction of `Gosling EMACS'] The first [6124]EMACS-in-C

implementation, predating but now largely eclipsed by [6125]GNUMACS.

Originally freeware; a commercial version was modestly popular as

`UniPress EMACS' during the 1980s. The author, James Gosling, went on

to invent [6126]NeWS and the programming language Java; the latter

earned him [6127]demigod status.

Node:Gosperism, Next:[6128]gotcha, Previous:[6129]GOSMACS, Up:[6130]=

G =

Gosperism /gos'p*r-izm/ n.

A hack, invention, or saying due to [6131]elder days arch-hacker R.

William (Bill) Gosper. This notion merits its own term because there

are so many of them. Many of the entries in [6132]HAKMEM are

Gosperisms; see also [6133]life.

Node:gotcha, Next:[6134]GPL, Previous:[6135]Gosperism, Up:[6136]= G =

gotcha n.

A [6137]misfeature of a system, especially a programming language or

environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because it both

enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected and/or

unreasonable in its outcome. For example, a classic gotcha in [6138]C

is the fact that if (a=b) {code;} is syntactically valid and sometimes

even correct. It puts the value of b into a and then executes code if

a is non-zero. What the programmer probably meant was if (a==b)

{code;}, which executes code if a and b are equal.

Node:GPL, Next:[6139]GPV, Previous:[6140]gotcha, Up:[6141]= G =

GPL /G-P-L/ n.

Abbreviation for `General Public License' in widespread use; see

[6142]copyleft, [6143]General Public Virus. Often mis-expanded as `GNU

Public License'.

Node:GPV, Next:[6144]grault, Previous:[6145]GPL, Up:[6146]= G =

GPV /G-P-V/ n.

Abbrev. for [6147]General Public Virus in widespread use.

Node:grault, Next:[6148]gray goo, Previous:[6149]GPV, Up:[6150]= G =

grault /grawlt/ n.

Yet another [6151]metasyntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher

and propagated by the [6152]GOSMACS documentation. See [6153]corge.

Node:gray goo, Next:[6154]Great Renaming, Previous:[6155]grault,

Up:[6156]= G =

gray goo n.

A hypothetical substance composed of [6157]sagans of sub-micron-sized

self-replicating robots programmed to make copies of themselves out of

whatever is available. The image that goes with the term is one of the

entire biosphere of Earth being eventually converted to robot goo.

This is the simplest of the [6158]nanotechnology disaster scenarios,

easily refuted by arguments from energy requirements and elemental

abundances. Compare [6159]blue goo.

Node:Great Renaming, Next:[6160]Great Runes, Previous:[6161]gray goo,

Up:[6162]= G =

Great Renaming n.

The [6163]flag day in 1987 on which all of the non-local groups on the

[6164]Usenet had their names changed from the net.- format to the

current multiple-hierarchies scheme. Used esp. in discussing the

history of newsgroup names. "The oldest sources group is

comp.sources.misc; before the Great Renaming, it was net.sources."

There is a [6165]Great Renaming FAQ on the Web.

Node:Great Runes, Next:[6166]Great Worm, Previous:[6167]Great

Renaming, Up:[6168]= G =

Great Runes n.

Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic operating

systems still emit these. See also [6169]runes, [6170]smash case,

[6171]fold case.

There is a widespread legend (repeated by earlier versions of this

entry, though tagged as folklore) that the uppercase-only support of

various old character codes and I/O equipment was chosen by a

religious person in a position of power at the Teletype Company

because supporting both upper and lower cases was too expensive and

supporting lower case only would have made it impossible to spell

`God' correctly. Not true; the upper-case interpretation of

teleprinter codes was well established by 1870, long before Teletype

was even founded.

Node:Great Worm, Next:[6172]great-wall, Previous:[6173]Great Runes,

Up:[6174]= G =

Great Worm n.

The 1988 Internet [6175]worm perpetrated by [6176]RTM. This is a play

on Tolkien (compare [6177]elvish, [6178]elder days). In the fantasy

history of his Middle Earth books, there were dragons powerful enough

to lay waste to entire regions; two of these (Scatha and Glaurung)

were known as "the Great Worms". This usage expresses the connotation

that the RTM crack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hacker

history; certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the

Internet than anything before or since.

Node:great-wall, Next:[6179]Green Book, Previous:[6180]Great Worm,

Up:[6181]= G =

great-wall vi.,n.

[from SF fandom] A mass expedition to an oriental restaurant, esp. one

where food is served family-style and shared. There is a common

heuristic about the amount of food to order, expressed as "Get N - 1

entrees"; the value of N, which is the number of people in the group,

can be inferred from context (see [6182]N). See [6183]oriental food,

[6184]ravs, [6185]stir-fried random.

Node:Green Book, Next:[6186]green bytes, Previous:[6187]great-wall,

Up:[6188]= G =

Green Book n.

One of the three standard [6189]PostScript references: "PostScript

Language Program Design", bylined `Adobe Systems' (Addison-Wesley,

1988; QA76.73.P67P66 ISBN 0-201-14396-8); see also [6190]Red Book,

[6191]Blue Book, and the [6192]White Book (sense 2). 2. Informal name

for one of the three standard references on SmallTalk: "Smalltalk-80:

Bits of History, Words of Advice", by Glenn Krasner (Addison-Wesley,

1983; QA76.8.S635S58; ISBN 0-201-11669-3) (this, too, is associated

with blue and red books). 3. The "X/Open Compatibility Guide", which

defines an international standard [6193]Unix environment that is a

proper superset of POSIX/SVID; also includes descriptions of a

standard utility toolkit, systems administrations features, and the

like. This grimoire is taken with particular seriousness in Europe.

See [6194]Purple Book. 4. The IEEE 1003.1 POSIX Operating Systems

Interface standard has been dubbed "The Ugly Green Book". 5. Any of

the 1992 standards issued by the CCITT's tenth plenary assembly. These

include, among other things, the X.400 email standard and the Group 1

through 4 fax standards. See also [6195]book titles.

Node:green bytes, Next:[6196]green card, Previous:[6197]Green Book,

Up:[6198]= G =

green bytes n.

(also `green words') 1. Meta-information embedded in a file, such as

the length of the file or its name; as opposed to keeping such

information in a separate description file or record. The term comes

from an IBM user's group meeting (ca. 1962) at which these two

approaches were being debated and the diagram of the file on the

blackboard had the `green bytes' drawn in green. 2. By extension, the

non-data bits in any self-describing format. "A GIF file contains,

among other things, green bytes describing the packing method for the

image." Compare [6199]out-of-band, [6200]zigamorph, [6201]fence (sense

1).

Node:green card, Next:[6202]green lightning, Previous:[6203]green

bytes, Up:[6204]= G =

green card n.

[after the "IBM System/360 Reference Data" card] A summary of an

assembly language, even if the color is not green and not a card. Less

frequently used now because of the decrease in the use of assembly

language. "I'll go get my green card so I can check the addressing

mode for that instruction."

The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was

introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to

a scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room at Yorktown in

A [6205]luser overheard one of the programmers ask another "Do

you have a green card?" The other grunted and passed the first a thick

yellow booklet. At this point the luser turned a delicate shade of

olive and rapidly left the room, never to return.

In fall 2000 it was reported from Electronic Data Systems that the

green card for 370 machines has been a blue-green booklet since 1989.

Node:green lightning, Next:[6206]green machine, Previous:[6207]green

card, Up:[6208]= G =

green lightning n.

[IBM] 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9

terminals while a new symbol set is being downloaded. This hardware

bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some genius within IBM suggested

it would let the user know that `something is happening'. That, it

certainly does. Later microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics

displays were actually programmed to produce green lightning! 2.

[proposed] Any bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit

rationalization or marketing. "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the

88000 architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green

lightning". See also [6209]feature (sense 6).

Node:green machine, Next:[6210]Green's Theorem, Previous:[6211]green

lightning, Up:[6212]= G =

green machine n.

A computer or peripheral device that has been designed and built to

military specifications for field equipment (that is, to withstand

mechanical shock, extremes of temperature and humidity, and so forth).

Comes from the olive-drab `uniform' paint used for military equipment.

Node:Green's Theorem, Next:[6213]greenbar, Previous:[6214]green

machine, Up:[6215]= G =

Green's Theorem prov.

[TMRC] For any story, in any group of people there will be at least

one person who has not heard the story. A refinement of the theorem

states that there will be exactly one person (if there were more than

one, it wouldn't be as bad to re-tell the story). [The name of this

theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus. --ESR]

Node:greenbar, Next:[6216]grep, Previous:[6217]Green's Theorem,

Up:[6218]= G =

greenbar n.

A style of fanfolded continuous-feed paper with alternating green and

white bars on it, especially used in old-style line printers. This

slang almost certainly dates way back to mainframe days.

Node:grep, Next:[6219]gribble, Previous:[6220]greenbar, Up:[6221]= G =

grep /grep/ vi.

[from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p, where re stands for a regular

expression, to Globally search for the Regular Expression and Print

the lines containing matches to it, via [6222]Unix grep(1)] To rapidly

scan a file or set of files looking for a particular string or pattern

(when browsing through a large set of files, one may speak of

`grepping around'). By extension, to look for something by pattern.

"Grep the bulletin board for the system backup schedule, would you?"

See also [6223]vgrep.

[It has also been alleged that the source is from the title of a paper

"A General Regular Expression Parser" -ESR]

Node:gribble, Next:[6224]grilf, Previous:[6225]grep, Up:[6226]= G =

gribble n.

Random binary data rendered as unreadable text. Noise characters in a

data stream are displayed as gribble. Modems with mismatched bitrates

usually generate gribble (more specifically, [6227]baud barf). Dumping

a binary file to the screen is an excellent source of gribble, and (if

the bell/speaker is active) headaches.

Node:grilf, Next:[6228]grind, Previous:[6229]gribble, Up:[6230]= G =

grilf // n.

Girlfriend. Like [6231]newsfroup and [6232]filk, a typo reincarnated

as a new word. Seems to have originated sometime in 1992 on

[6233]Usenet. [A friend tells me there was a Lloyd Biggle SF novel

"Watchers Of The Dark", in which alien species after species goes

insane and begins to chant "Grilf! Grilf!". A human detective

eventually determines that the word means "Liar!" I hope this has

nothing to do with the popularity of the Usenet term. --ESR]

Node:grind, Next:[6234]grind crank, Previous:[6235]grilf, Up:[6236]= G

=

grind vt.

[MIT and Berkeley; now rare] To prettify hardcopy of code,

especially LISP code, by reindenting lines, printing keywords and

comments in distinct fonts (if available), etc. This usage was

associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare; prettyprint was

and is the generic term for such operations. 2. [Unix] To generate the

formatted version of a document from the [6237]nroff, [6238]troff,

[6239]TeX, or Scribe source. 3. [common] To run seemingly

interminably, esp. (but not necessarily) if performing some tedious

and inherently useless task. Similar to [6240]crunch or [6241]grovel.

Grinding has a connotation of using a lot of CPU time, but it is

possible to grind a disk, network, etc. See also [6242]hog. 4. To make

the whole system slow. "Troff really grinds a PDP-11." 5. `grind

grind' excl. Roughly, "Isn't the machine slow today!"

Node:grind crank, Next:[6243]gripenet, Previous:[6244]grind,

Up:[6245]= G =

grind crank n. //

A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the side of a monitor,

which when operated makes a zizzing noise and causes the computer to

run faster. Usually one