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

the most

common, with about equal mind shares. K&R/1TBS used to be nearly

universal, but is now much less common in C (the opening brace tends

to get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an if or

while, which is a [7168]Bad Thing). Defenders of 1TBS argue that any

putative gain in readability is less important than their style's

relative economy with vertical space, which enables one to see more

code on one's screen at once.

The Java Language Specification legislates not only the capitalization

of identifiers, but where nouns, adjectives, and verbs should be in

method, class, interface, and variable names (section 6.8). While the

specification stops short of also standardizing on a bracing style,

all source code originating from Sun Laboratories uses the K&R style.

This has set a precedent for Java programmers, which most follow.

Doubtless these issues will continue to be the subject of [7169]holy

wars.

Node:index of X, Next:[7170]infant mortality, Previous:[7171]indent

style, Up:[7172]= I =

index of X n.

See [7173]coefficient of X.

Node:infant mortality, Next:[7174]infinite, Previous:[7175]index of X,

Up:[7176]= I =

infant mortality n.

It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at

large; this term is possibly techspeak by now) that the chances of

sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time

since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which

enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in

components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). Up

to half of all chip and wire failures happen within a new system's

first few weeks; such failures are often referred to as `infant

mortality' problems (or, occasionally, as `sudden infant death

syndrome'). See [7177]bathtub curve, [7178]burn-in period.

Node:infinite, Next:[7179]infinite loop, Previous:[7180]infant

mortality, Up:[7181]= I =

infinite adj.

[common] Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme. Used very

loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage." "He is an

infinite loser." The word most likely to follow `infinite', though, is

[7182]hair. (It has been pointed out that fractals are an excellent

example of infinite hair.) These uses are abuses of the word's

mathematical meaning. The term `semi-infinite', denoting an

immoderately large amount of some resource, is also heard. "This

compiler is taking a semi-infinite amount of time to optimize my

program." See also [7183]semi.

Node:infinite loop, Next:[7184]Infinite-Monkey Theorem,

Previous:[7185]infinite, Up:[7186]= I =

infinite loop n.

One that never terminates (that is, the machine [7187]spins or

[7188]buzzes forever and goes [7189]catatonic). There is a standard

joke that has been made about each generation's exemplar of the

ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so fast it can execute an infinite

loop in under 2 seconds!"

Node:Infinite-Monkey Theorem, Next:[7190]infinity,

Previous:[7191]infinite loop, Up:[7192]= I =

Infinite-Monkey Theorem n.

"If you put an [7193]infinite number of monkeys at typewriters,

eventually one will bash out the script for Hamlet." (One may also

hypothesize a small number of monkeys and a very long period of time.)

This theorem asserts nothing about the intelligence of the one

[7194]random monkey that eventually comes up with the script (and note

that the mob will also type out all the possible incorrect versions of

Hamlet). It may be referred to semi-seriously when justifying a

[7195]brute force method; the implication is that, with enough

resources thrown at it, any technical challenge becomes a

[7196]one-banana problem. This argument gets more respect since

[7197]Linux justified the [7198]bazaar mode of development.

This theorem was first popularized by the astronomer Sir Arthur

Eddington. It became part of the idiom of techies via the classic SF

short story "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, and many younger

hackers know it through a reference in Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's

Guide to the Galaxy". On 1 April 2000 the usage acquired its own

Internet standard, [7199]http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2795.txt

(Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite).

Node:infinity, Next:[7200]inflate, Previous:[7201]Infinite-Monkey

Theorem, Up:[7202]= I =

infinity n.

The largest value that can be represented in a particular type of

variable (register, memory location, data type, whatever). 2. `minus

infinity': The smallest such value, not necessarily or even usually

the simple negation of plus infinity. In N-bit twos-complement

arithmetic, infinity is 2^(N-1) - 1 but minus infinity is - (2^(N-1)),

not -(2^(N-1) - 1). Note also that this is different from time T

equals minus infinity, which is closer to a mathematician's usage of

infinity.

Node:inflate, Next:[7203]Infocom, Previous:[7204]infinity, Up:[7205]=

I =

inflate vt.

To decompress or [7206]puff a file. Rare among Internet hackers, used

primarily by MS-DOS/Windows types.

Node:Infocom, Next:[7207]initgame, Previous:[7208]inflate, Up:[7209]=

I =

Infocom n.

A now-legendary games company, active from 1979 to 1989, that

commercialized the MDL parser technology used for [7210]Zork to

produce a line of text adventure games that remain favorites among

hackers. Infocom's games were intelligent, funny, witty, erudite,

irreverent, challenging, satirical, and most thoroughly hackish in

spirit. The physical game packages from Infocom are now prized

collector's items. After being acquired by Activision in 1989 they did

a few more "modern" (e.g. graphics-intensive) games which were less

successful than reissues of their classics.

The software, thankfully, is still extant; Infocom games were written

in a kind of P-code and distributed with a P-code interpreter core,

and not only freeware emulators for that interpreter but an actual

compiler as well have been written to permit the P-code to be run on

platforms the games never originally graced. In fact, new games

written in this P-code are still bering written. (Emulators that can

run Infocom game ZIPs, and new games, are available at

[7211]ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu:/doc/misc/if-archive/infocom.)

Node:initgame, Next:[7212]insanely great, Previous:[7213]Infocom,

Up:[7214]= I =

initgame /in-it'gaym/ n.

[IRC] An [7215]IRC version of the trivia game "Botticelli", in which

one user changes his [7216]nick to the initials of a famous person or

other named entity, and the others on the channel ask yes or no

questions, with the one to guess the person getting to be "it" next.

As a courtesy, the one picking the initials starts by providing a

4-letter hint of the form sex, nationality, life-status,

reality-status. For example, MAAR means "Male, American, Alive, Real"

(as opposed to "fictional"). Initgame can be surprisingly addictive.

See also [7217]hing.

[1996 update: a recognizable version of the initgame has become a

staple of some radio talk shows in the U.S. We had it first! - ESR]

Node:insanely great, Next:[7218]installfest, Previous:[7219]initgame,

Up:[7220]= I =

insanely great adj.

[Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD Unix people via Bill Joy]

Something so incredibly [7221]elegant that it is imaginable only to

someone possessing the most puissant of [7222]hacker-natures.

Node:installfest, Next:[7223]INTERCAL, Previous:[7224]insanely great,

Up:[7225]= I =

installfest

[Linux community since c.1998] Common portmanteau word for

"installation festival"; Linux user groups frequently run these.

Computer users are invited to bring their machines to have Linux

installed on their machines. The idea is to get them painlessly over

the biggest hump in migrating to Linux, which is initially installing

and configuring it for the user's machine.

Node:INTERCAL, Next:[7226]interesting, Previous:[7227]installfest,

Up:[7228]= I =

INTERCAL /in't*r-kal/ n.

[said by the authors to stand for `Compiler Language With No

Pronounceable Acronym'] A computer language designed by Don Woods and

James Lyons in 1972. INTERCAL is purposely different from all other

computer languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written

language, being totally unspeakable. An excerpt from the INTERCAL

Reference Manual will make the style of the language clear:

It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose

work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem. For example, if

one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536

in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is:

DO :1 <- #0$#256

any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd. Since this

is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look

foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to

turn up, as bosses are wont to do. The effect would be no less

devastating for the programmer having been correct.

INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even

more unspeakable. The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used by

many (well, at least several) people at Princeton. The language has

been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently enjoying

an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an

alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ... appreciation

of the language on Usenet.

Inevitably, INTERCAL has a home page on the Web:

[7229]http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/intercal/. An extended version,

implemented in (what else?) [7230]Perl and adding object-oriented

features, is available at [7231]http://dd-sh.assurdo.com/INTERCAL. See

also [7232]Befunge.

Node:interesting, Next:[7233]Internet, Previous:[7234]INTERCAL,

Up:[7235]= I =

interesting adj.

In hacker parlance, this word has strong connotations of `annoying',

or `difficult', or both. Hackers relish a challenge, and enjoy

wringing all the irony possible out of the ancient Chinese curse "May

you live in interesting times". Oppose [7236]trivial,

[7237]uninteresting.

Node:Internet, Next:[7238]Internet address,

Previous:[7239]interesting, Up:[7240]= I =

Internet n.

The mother of all networks. First incarnated beginning in 1969 as the

ARPANET, a U.S. Department of Defense research testbed. Though it has

been widely believed that the goal was to develop a network

architecture for military command-and-control that could survive

disruptions up to and including nuclear war, this is a myth; in fact,

ARPANET was conceived from the start as a way to get most economical

use out of then-scarce large-computer resources.

As originally imagined, ARPANET's major use would have been to support

what is now called remote login and more sophisticated forms of

distributed computing, but the infant technology of electronic mail

quickly grew to dominate actual usage. Universities, research labs and

defense contractors early discovered the Internet's potential as a

medium of communication between humans and linked up in steadily

increasing numbers, connecting together a quirky mix of academics,

techies, hippies, SF fans, hackers, and anarchists. The roots of this

lexicon lie in those early years.

Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many ways. The

typical machine/OS combination moved from [7241]DEC [7242]PDP-10s and

[7243]PDP-20s, running [7244]TOPS-10 and [7245]TOPS-20, to PDP-11s and

VAXes and Suns running [7246]Unix, and in the 1990s to Unix on Intel

microcomputers. The Internet's protocols grew more capable, most

notably in the move from NCP/IP to [7247]TCP/IP in 1982 and the

implementation of Domain Name Service in 1983. It was around this time

that people began referring to the collection of interconnected

networks with ARPANET at its core as "the Internet".

The ARPANET had a fairly strict set of participation guidelines -

connected institutions had to be involved with a DOD-related research

project. By the mid-80s, many of the organizations clamoring to join

didn't fit this profile. In 1986, the National Science Foundation

built NSFnet to open up access to its five regional supercomputing

centers; NSFnet became the backbone of the Internet, replacing the

original ARPANET pipes (which were formally shut down in 1990).

Between 1990 and late 1994 the pieces of NSFnet were sold to major

telecommunications companies until the Internet backbone had gone

completely commercial.

That year, 1994, was also the year the mainstream culture discovered

the Internet. Once again, the [7248]killer app was not the anticipated

one - rather, what caught the public imagination was the hypertext and

multimedia features of the World Wide Web. Subsequently the Internet

has seen off its only serious challenger (the OSI protocol stack

favored by European telecom monopolies) and is in the process of

absorbing into itself many of the proprietary networks built during

the second wave of wide-area networking after 1980. It is now (1996) a

commonplace even in mainstream media to predict that a

globally-extended Internet will become the key unifying communications

technology of the next century. See also [7249]the network and

[7250]Internet address.

Node:Internet address, Next:[7251]Internet Death Penalty,

Previous:[7252]Internet, Up:[7253]= I =

Internet address n.

[techspeak] An absolute network address of the form foo@bar.baz,

where foo is a user name, bar is a [7254]sitename, and baz is a

`domain' name, possibly including periods itself. Contrast with

[7255]bang path; see also [7256]the network and [7257]network address.

All Internet machines and