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

sent to them to the list of

recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying

degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be

`moderated'. 2. The people who receive your email when you send it to

such an address.

Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction,

along with [8435]Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with

the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for

private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized

for or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Though some of these

maintain almost purely technical content (such as the Internet

Engineering Task Force mailing list), others (like the `sf-lovers'

list maintained for many years by Saul Jaffe) are recreational, and

many are purely social. Perhaps the most infamous of the social lists

was the eccentric bandykin distribution; its latter-day progeny,

lectroids and tanstaafl, still include a number of the oddest and most

interesting people in hackerdom.

Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a

significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at

which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail

software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups,

the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever

needing to meet face-to-face. Much of the material in this lexicon was

criticized and polished on just such a mailing list (called

`jargon-friends'), which included all the co-authors of Steele-1983.

Node:main loop, Next:[8436]mainframe, Previous:[8437]mailing list,

Up:[8438]= M =

main loop n.

The top-level control flow construct in an input- or event-driven

program, the one which receives and acts or dispatches on the

program's input. See also [8439]driver.

Node:mainframe, Next:[8440]management, Previous:[8441]main loop,

Up:[8442]= M =

mainframe n.

Term originally referring to the cabinet containing the central

processor unit or `main frame' of a room-filling [8443]Stone Age batch

machine. After the emergence of smaller `minicomputer' designs in the

early 1970s, the traditional [8444]big iron machines were described as

`mainframe computers' and eventually just as mainframes. The term

carries the connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than

interactive use, though possibly with an interactive timesharing

operating system retrofitted onto it; it is especially used of

machines built by IBM, Unisys, and the other great [8445]dinosaurs

surviving from computing's [8446]Stone Age.

It has been common wisdom among hackers since the late 1980s that the

mainframe architectural tradition is essentially dead (outside of the

tiny market for [8447]number-crunching supercomputers (see

[8448]cray)), having been swamped by the recent huge advances in IC

technology and low-cost personal computing. The wave of failures,

takeovers, and mergers among traditional mainframe makers in the early

1990s bore this out. The biggest mainframer of all, IBM, was compelled

to re-invent itself as a huge systems-consulting house. (See

[8449]dinosaurs mating and [8450]killer micro).

Node:management, Next:[8451]mandelbug, Previous:[8452]mainframe,

Up:[8453]= M =

management n.

Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by their distance

from actual productive work and their chronic failure to manage (see

also [8454]suit). Spoken derisively, as in "Management decided that

...". 2. Mythically, a vast bureaucracy responsible for all the

world's minor irritations. Hackers' satirical public notices are often

signed `The Mgt'; this derives from the "Illuminatus" novels (see the

[8455]Bibliography in Appendix C).

Node:mandelbug, Next:[8456]manged, Previous:[8457]management,

Up:[8458]= M =

mandelbug /man'del-buhg/ n.

[from the Mandelbrot set] A bug whose underlying causes are so complex

and obscure as to make its behavior appear chaotic or even

non-deterministic. This term implies that the speaker thinks it is a

[8459]Bohr bug, rather than a [8460]heisenbug. See also

[8461]schroedinbug.

Node:manged, Next:[8462]mangle, Previous:[8463]mandelbug, Up:[8464]= M

=

manged /mahnjd/ n.

[probably from the French manger' or Italianmangiare', to eat;

perhaps influenced by English mange',mangy'] adj. Refers to

anything that is mangled or damaged, usually beyond repair. "The disk

was manged after the electrical storm." Compare [8465]mung.

Node:mangle, Next:[8466]mangled name, Previous:[8467]manged,

Up:[8468]= M =

mangle vt.

Used similarly to [8469]mung or [8470]scribble, but more violent in

its connotations; something that is mangled has been irreversibly and

totally trashed. 2. To produce the [8471]mangled name corresponding to

a C++ declaration.

Node:mangled name, Next:[8472]mangler, Previous:[8473]mangle,

Up:[8474]= M =

mangled name n.

A name, appearing in a C++ object file, that is a coded representation

of the object declaration as it appears in the source. Mangled names

are used because C++ allows multiple objects to have the same name, as

long as they are distinguishable in some other way, such as by having

different parameter types. Thus, the internal name must have that

additional information embedded in it, using the limited character set

allowed by most linkers. For instance, one popular compiler encodes

the standard library function declaration "memchr(const

void*,int,unsigned int)" as "@memchr$qpxviui".

Node:mangler, Next:[8475]manularity, Previous:[8476]mangled name,

Up:[8477]= M =

mangler n.

[DEC] A manager. Compare [8478]management. Note that [8479]system

mangler is somewhat different in connotation.

Node:manularity, Next:[8480]marbles, Previous:[8481]mangler,

Up:[8482]= M =

manularity /man`yoo-la'ri-tee/ n.

[prob. fr. techspeak manual' +granularity'] A notional measure of

the manual labor required for some task, particularly one of the sort

that automation is supposed to eliminate. "Composing English on paper

has much higher manularity than using a text editor, especially in the

revising stage." Hackers tend to consider manularity a symptom of

primitive methods; in fact, a true hacker confronted with an apparent

requirement to do a computing task [8483]by hand will inevitably seize

the opportunity to build another tool (see [8484]toolsmith).

Node:marbles, Next:[8485]marginal, Previous:[8486]manularity,

Up:[8487]= M =

marbles pl.n.

[from mainstream "lost all his/her marbles"] The minimum needed to

build your way further up some hierarchy of tools or abstractions.

After a bad system crash, you need to determine if the machine has

enough marbles to come up on its own, or enough marbles to allow a

rebuild from backups, or if you need to rebuild from scratch. "This

compiler doesn't even have enough marbles to compile [8488]hello

world."

Node:marginal, Next:[8489]Marginal Hacks, Previous:[8490]marbles,

Up:[8491]= M =

marginal adj.

[common] 1. [techspeak] An extremely small change. "A marginal

increase in [8492]core can decrease [8493]GC time drastically." In

everyday terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your

desk if you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort

through it. 2. Of little merit. "This proposed new feature seems

rather marginal to me." 3. Of extremely small probability of

[8494]winning. "The power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder

it fried."

Node:Marginal Hacks, Next:[8495]marginally, Previous:[8496]marginal,

Up:[8497]= M =

Marginal Hacks n.

Margaret Jacks Hall, a building into which the Stanford AI Lab was

moved near the beginning of the 1980s (from the [8498]D. C. Power

Lab).

Node:marginally, Next:[8499]marketroid, Previous:[8500]Marginal Hacks,

Up:[8501]= M =

marginally adv.

Slightly. "The ravs here are only marginally better than at Small

Eating Place." See [8502]epsilon.

Node:marketroid, Next:[8503]Mars, Previous:[8504]marginally,

Up:[8505]= M =

marketroid /mar'k*-troyd/ n.

alt. marketing slime',marketeer', marketing droid',marketdroid'.

A member of a company's marketing department, esp. one who promises

users that the next version of a product will have features that are

not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to

implement, and/or are in violation of the laws of physics; and/or one

who describes existing features (and misfeatures) in ebullient,

buzzword-laden adspeak. Derogatory. Compare [8506]droid.

Node:Mars, Next:[8507]martian, Previous:[8508]marketroid, Up:[8509]= M

=

Mars n.

A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream Gone Wrong.

Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10 compatible computers

built by Systems Concepts (now, The SC Group): the multi-processor

SC-30M, the small uniprocessor SC-25M, and the never-built

superprocessor SC-40M. These machines were marvels of engineering

design; although not much slower than the unique [8510]Foonly F-1,

they were physically smaller and consumed less power than the much

slower [8511]DEC KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines. They were

also completely compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10

binaries (including the operating system) with no modifications at

about 2-3 times faster than a KL10.

When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, Systems Concepts

should have made a bundle selling their machine into shops with a lot

of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their spring 1984

announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the PDP-10 world.

TOPS-10 was running on the Mars by the summer of 1984, and TOPS-20 by

early fall. Unfortunately, the hackers running Systems Concepts were

much better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling

them; the company allowed itself to be sidetracked by a bout of

perfectionism into continually improving the design, and lost

credibility as delivery dates continued to slip. They also overpriced

the product ridiculously; they believed they were competing with the

KL10 and VAX 8600 and failed to reckon with the likes of Sun

Microsystems and other hungry startups building workstations with

power comparable to the KL10 at a fraction of the price. By the time

SC shipped the first SC-30M to Stanford in late 1985, most customers

had already made the traumatic decision to abandon the PDP-10, usually

for VMS or Unix boxes. Most of the Mars computers built ended up being

purchased by CompuServe.

This tale and the related saga of [8512]Foonly hold a lesson for

hackers: if you want to play in the [8513]Real World, you need to

learn Real World moves.

Node:martian, Next:[8514]massage, Previous:[8515]Mars, Up:[8516]= M =

martian n.

A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a source address of the test

loopback interface [127.0.0.1]. This means that it will come back

labeled with a source address that is clearly not of this earth. "The

domain server is getting lots of packets from Mars. Does that gateway

have a martian filter?" Compare [8517]Christmas tree packet,

[8518]Godzillagram.

Node:massage, Next:[8519]math-out, Previous:[8520]martian, Up:[8521]=

M =

massage vt.

[common] Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of a

data set into a different form, esp. transformations that do not lose

information. Connotes less pain than [8522]munch or [8523]crunch. "He

wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF format." Compare

[8524]slurp.

Node:math-out, Next:[8525]Matrix, Previous:[8526]massage, Up:[8527]= M

=

math-out n.

[poss. from `white-out' (the blizzard variety)] A paper or

presentation so encrusted with mathematical or other formal notation

as to be incomprehensible. This may be a device for concealing the

fact that it is actually [8528]content-free. See also [8529]numbers,

[8530]social science number.

Node:Matrix, Next:[8531]maximum Maytag mode, Previous:[8532]math-out,

Up:[8533]= M =

Matrix n.

[FidoNet] 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call [8534]FidoNet.

Fanciful term for a [8535]cyberspace expected to emerge from

current networking experiments (see [8536]the network). The name of

the rather good 1999 [8537]cypherpunk movie "The Matrix" played on

this sense, which however had been established for years before. 3.

The totality of present-day computer networks (popularized in this

sense by John Quarterman; rare outside academic literature).

Node:maximum Maytag mode, Next:[8538]meatspace, Previous:[8539]Matrix,

Up:[8540]= M =

maximum Maytag mode n.

What a [8541]washing machine or, by extension, any disk drive is in

when it's being used so heavily that it's shaking like an old Maytag

with an unbalanced load. If prolonged for any length of time, can lead

to disks becoming [8542]walking drives. In 1999 it's been some years

since hard disks were large enough to do this, but the same phenomenon

has recently been reported with 24X CD-ROM drives.

Node:meatspace, Next:[8543]meatware, Previous:[8544]maximum Maytag

mode, Up:[8545]= M =

meatspace /meet'spays/ n.

The physical world, where the meat lives - as opposed to

[8546]cyberspace. Hackers are actually more willing to use this term

than `cyberspace', because it's not speculative - we already have a

running meatspace implementation (the universe). Compare [8547]RL.

Node:meatware, Next:[8548]meeces, Previous:[8549]meatspace, Up:[8550]=

M =

meatware n.

Synonym for [8551]wetware. Less common.

Node:meeces, Next:[8552]meg, Previous:[8553]meatware, Up:[8554]= M =

meeces /mees'*z/ n.

[TMRC] Occasional furry visitors who are not [8555]urchins. [That is,

mice. This may no longer be in live use; it clearly derives from the

refrain of the early-1960s cartoon character Mr. Jinx: "I hate meeces

to pieces!" --