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

summary of what happens

whenever valid data is passed through an organization (or person) that

deliberately or accidentally disregards or ignores its significance.

Consider, for example, what an advertising campaign can do with a

product's actual specifications. Compare [7583]GIGO; see also

[7584]SNAFU principle. 2. James Parry kibo@world.std.com, a

Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny,

machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de

guerre is mentioned. He has a website at [7585]http://www.kibo.com/.

Node:kiboze, Next:[7586]kibozo, Previous:[7587]KIBO, Up:[7588]= K =

kiboze v.

[Usenet] To [7589]grep the Usenet news for a string, especially with

the intention of posting a follow-up. This activity was popularised by

Kibo (see [7590]KIBO, sense 2).

Node:kibozo, Next:[7591]kick, Previous:[7592]kiboze, Up:[7593]= K =

kibozo /ki:-boh'zoh/ n.

[Usenet] One who [7594]kibozes but is not Kibo (see [7595]KIBO, sense

2).

Node:kick, Next:[7596]kill file, Previous:[7597]kibozo, Up:[7598]= K =

kick v.

[IRC] To cause somebody to be removed from a [7599]IRC channel, an

option only available to channel ops. This is an extreme measure,

often used to combat extreme [7600]flamage or [7601]flooding, but

sometimes used at the [7602]CHOP's whim. Compare [7603]gun. 2. To

reboot a machine or kill a running process. "The server's down, let me

go kick it."

Node:kill file, Next:[7604]killer app, Previous:[7605]kick, Up:[7606]=

K =

kill file n.

[Usenet; very common] (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used by some

[7607]Usenet reading programs (originally Larry Wall's rn(1)) to

discard summarily (without presenting for reading) articles matching

some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted) patterns of subject,

author, or other header lines. Thus to add a person (or subject) to

one's kill file is to arrange for that person to be ignored by one's

newsreader in future. By extension, it may be used for a decision to

ignore the person or subject in other media. See also [7608]plonk.

Node:killer app, Next:[7609]killer micro, Previous:[7610]kill file,

Up:[7611]= K =

killer app

The application that actually makes a sustaining market for a

promising but under-utilized technology. First used in the mid-1980s

to describe Lotus 1-2-3 once it became evident that demand for that

product had been the major driver of the early business market for IBM

PCs. The term was then restrospectively applied to VisiCalc, which had

played a similar role in the success of the Apple II. After 1994 it

became commonplace to describe the World Wide Web as the Internet's

killer app. One of the standard questions asked about each new

personal-computer technology as it emerges has become "what's the

killer app?"

Node:killer micro, Next:[7612]killer poke, Previous:[7613]killer app,

Up:[7614]= K =

killer micro n.

[popularized by Eugene Brooks] A microprocessor-based machine that

infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance turf. Often

heard in "No one will survive the attack of the killer micros!", the

battle cry of the downsizers. Used esp. of RISC architectures.

The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is

doubtless reinforced by the title of the movie "Attack Of The Killer

Tomatoes" (one of the [7615]canonical examples of

so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers). This has even more [7616]flavor

now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just

individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively

parallel computers).

[1996 update: Eugene Brooks was right. Since this term first entered

the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively vanished,

the [7617]mainframe sector is in deep and apparently terminal decline

(with IBM but a shadow of its former self), and even the supercomputer

business has contracted into a smaller niche. It's networked killer

micros as far as the eye can see. --ESR]

Node:killer poke, Next:[7618]kilo-, Previous:[7619]killer micro,

Up:[7620]= K =

killer poke n.

A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine via insertion of

invalid values (see [7621]poke) into a memory-mapped control register;

used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks on [7622]bitty boxes

without hardware memory management (such as the IBM PC and Commodore

PET) that can overload and trash analog electronics in the monitor.

See also [7623]HCF.

Node:kilo-, Next:[7624]KIPS, Previous:[7625]killer poke, Up:[7626]= K

=

kilo- pref.

[SI] See [7627]quantifiers.

Node:KIPS, Next:[7628]KISS Principle, Previous:[7629]kilo-, Up:[7630]=

K =

KIPS /kips/ n.

[abbreviation, by analogy with [7631]MIPS using [7632]K] Thousands

(not 1024s) of Instructions Per Second. Usage: rare.

Node:KISS Principle, Next:[7633]kit, Previous:[7634]KIPS, Up:[7635]= K

=

KISS Principle /kis' prin'si-pl/ n.

"Keep It Simple, Stupid". A maxim often invoked when discussing design

to fend off [7636]creeping featurism and control development

complexity. Possibly related to the [7637]marketroid maxim on sales

presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple".

Node:kit, Next:[7638]klone, Previous:[7639]KISS Principle, Up:[7640]=

K =

kit n.

[Usenet; poss. fr. [7641]DEC slang for a full software distribution,

as opposed to a patch or upgrade] A source software distribution that

has been packaged in such a way that it can (theoretically) be

unpacked and installed according to a series of steps using only

standard Unix tools, and entirely documented by some reasonable chain

of references from the top-level [7642]README file. The more general

term [7643]distribution may imply that special tools or more stringent

conditions on the host environment are required.

Node:klone, Next:[7644]kludge, Previous:[7645]kit, Up:[7646]= K =

klone /klohn/ n.

See [7647]clone, sense 4.

Node:kludge, Next:[7648]kluge, Previous:[7649]klone, Up:[7650]= K =

kludge 1. /klooj/ n.

Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of [7651]kluge (US).

These two words have been confused in American usage since the early

1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since the end of World

War II. 2. [TMRC] A [7652]crock that works. (A long-ago "Datamation"

article by Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted

collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.") 3.

v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around it

for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."

This word appears to have derived from Scots kludge' orkludgie' for

a common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became

confused with U.S. [7653]kluge during or after World War II; some

Britons from that era use both words in definably different ways, but

[7654]kluge is now uncommon in Great Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth

hackish differs in meaning from `kluge' in that it lacks the positive

senses; a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be

associated too closely with. Also, `kludge' is more widely known in

British mainstream slang than `kluge' is in the U.S.

Node:kluge, Next:[7655]kluge around, Previous:[7656]kludge, Up:[7657]=

K =

kluge /klooj/

[from the German klug', clever; poss. related to Polishklucz' (a

key, a hint, a main point)] 1. n. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson)

device, whether in hardware or software. 2. n. A clever programming

trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if

not clear, manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often involves

[7658]ad-hockery and verges on being a [7659]crock. 3. n. Something

that works for the wrong reason. 4. vt. To insert a kluge into a

program. "I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug, but

there's probably a better way." 5. [WPI] n. A feature that is

implemented in a [7660]rude manner.

Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling

kludge'. Reports from [7661]old farts are consistent thatkluge' was

the original spelling, reported around computers as far back as the

mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of hardware kluges. In

1947, the "New York Folklore Quarterly" reported a classic shaggy-dog

story `Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces,

in which a `kluge' was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial

function. Other sources report that `kluge' was common Navy slang in

the WWII era for any piece of electronics that worked well on shore

but consistently failed at sea.

However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade

older. Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of a

device called a "Kluge paper feeder", an adjunct to mechanical

printing presses. Legend has it that the Kluge feeder was designed

before small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it relied

on a fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and linkages to

both power and synchronize all its operations from one motive

driveshaft. It was accordingly temperamental, subject to frequent

breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair -- but oh, so clever!

People who tell this story also aver that `Kluge' was the name of a

design engineer.

There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business that

manufactures printing equipment - interestingly, their name is

pronounced /kloo'gee/! Henry Brandtjen, president of the firm, told me

(ESR, 1994) that his company was co-founded by his father and an

engineer named Kluge /kloo'gee/, who built and co-designed the

original Kluge automatic feeder in 1919. Mr. Brandtjen claims,

however, that this was a simple device (with only four cams); he says

he has no idea how the myth of its complexity took hold.

[7662]TMRC and the MIT hacker culture of the early '60s seems to have

developed in a milieu that remembered and still used some WWII

military slang (see also [7663]foobar). It seems likely that `kluge'

came to MIT via alumni of the many military electronics projects that

had been located in Cambridge (many in MIT's venerable Building 20, in

which [7664]TMRC is also located) during the war.

The variant `kludge' was apparently popularized by the

[7665]Datamation article mentioned above; it was titled "How to Design

a Kludge" (February 1962, pp. 30, 31). This spelling was probably

imported from Great Britain, where [7666]kludge has an independent

history (though this fact was largely unknown to hackers on either

side of the Atlantic before a mid-1993 debate in the Usenet group

alt.folklore.computers over the First and Second Edition versions of

this entry; everybody used to think [7667]kludge was just a mutation

of [7668]kluge). It now appears that the British, having forgotten the

etymology of their own kludge' whenkluge' crossed the Atlantic,

repaid the U.S. by lobbing the `kludge' orthography in the other

direction and confusing their American cousins' spelling!

The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers

pronounce the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its

meaning and pronunciation, as `kludge'. (Phonetically, consider huge,

refuge, centrifuge, and deluge as opposed to sludge, judge, budge, and

fudge. Whatever its failings in other areas, English spelling is

perfectly consistent about this distinction.) British hackers mostly

learned /kluhj/ orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are

at least consistent. European hackers have mostly learned the word

from written American sources and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use

the wider American meaning!

Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's

meaning.

Node:kluge around, Next:[7669]kluge up, Previous:[7670]kluge,

Up:[7671]= K =

kluge around vt.

To avoid a bug or difficult condition by inserting a [7672]kluge.

Compare [7673]workaround.

Node:kluge up, Next:[7674]Knights of the Lambda Calculus,

Previous:[7675]kluge around, Up:[7676]= K =

kluge up vt.

To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this is milder than

[7677]cruft together and has some of the connotations of [7678]hack up

(note, however, that the construction `kluge on' corresponding to

[7679]hack on is never used). "I've kluged up this routine to dump the

buffer contents to a safe place."

Node:Knights of the Lambda Calculus, Next:[7680]knobs,

Previous:[7681]kluge up, Up:[7682]= K =

Knights of the Lambda Calculus n.

A semi-mythical organization of wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The

name refers to a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church,

with which LISP is intimately connected. There is no enrollment list

and the criteria for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer

has been known to give out buttons and, in general, the members know

who they are....

Node:knobs, Next:[7683]Knuth, Previous:[7684]Knights of the Lambda

Calculus, Up:[7685]= K =

knobs pl.n.

Configurable options, even in software and even those you can't adjust

in real time. Anything you can [7686]twiddle is a knob. "Has this PNG

viewer got an alpha knob?" Software may be described as having "knobs

and switches" or occasionally "knobs and lights".

Node:Knuth, Next:[7687]koan, Previous:[7688]knobs, Up:[7689]= K =