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

check, Next:[11165]reality-distortion field,

Previous:[11166]Real World, Up:[11167]= R =

reality check n.

The simplest kind of test of software or hardware; doing the

equivalent of asking it what 2 + 2 is and seeing if you get 4. The

software equivalent of a [11168]smoke test. 2. The act of letting a

[11169]real user try out prototype software. Compare [11170]sanity

check.

Node:reality-distortion field, Next:[11171]reaper,

Previous:[11172]reality check, Up:[11173]= R =

reality-distortion field n.

An expression used to describe the persuasive ability of managers like

Steve Jobs (the term originated at Apple in the 1980s to describe his

peculiar charisma). Those close to these managers become passionately

committed to possibly insane projects, without regard to the

practicality of their implementation or competitive forces in the

marketpace.

Node:reaper, Next:[11174]recompile the world,

Previous:[11175]reality-distortion field, Up:[11176]= R =

reaper n.

A [11177]prowler that [11178]GFRs files. A file removed in this way is

said to have been `reaped'.

Node:recompile the world, Next:[11179]rectangle slinger,

Previous:[11180]reaper, Up:[11181]= R =

recompile the world

The surprisingly large amount of work that needs to be done as the

result of any small but globally visible program change. "The world"

may mean the entirety of some huge program, or may in theory refer to

every program of a certain class in the entire known universe. For

instance, "Add one #define to stdio.h, and you have to recompile the

world." This means that any minor change to the standard-I/O header

file theoretically mandates recompiling every C program in existence,

even if only to verify that the change didn't screw something else up.

In practice, you may not actually have to recompile the world, but the

implication is that some human cleverness is required to figure out

what parts can be safely left out.

Node:rectangle slinger, Next:[11182]recursion,

Previous:[11183]recompile the world, Up:[11184]= R =

rectangle slinger n.

See [11185]polygon pusher.

Node:recursion, Next:[11186]recursive acronym,

Previous:[11187]rectangle slinger, Up:[11188]= R =

recursion n.

See [11189]recursion. See also [11190]tail recursion.

Node:recursive acronym, Next:[11191]Red Book,

Previous:[11192]recursion, Up:[11193]= R =

recursive acronym n.

A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose

acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other

acronyms/abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors

called EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE

Initially"). More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR

(Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and [11194]GNU (q.v., sense 1)

stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" -- and a company with the name Cygnus,

which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support" (though Cygnus people say

this is a [11195]backronym). See also [11196]mung, [11197]EMACS.

Node:Red Book, Next:[11198]red wire, Previous:[11199]recursive

acronym, Up:[11200]= R =

Red Book n.

Informal name for one of the four standard references on

[11201]PostScript ("PostScript Language Reference Manual", Adobe

Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN 0-201-10174-2, or

the 1990 second edition ISBN 0-201-18127-4); the others are known as

the [11202]Green Book, the [11203]Blue Book, and the [11204]White Book

(sense 2). 2. Informal name for one of the 3 standard references on

Smalltalk ("Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment" by

Adele Goldberg (Addison-Wesley, 1984; QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN

0-201-11372-4); this too is associated with blue and green books). 3.

Any of the 1984 standards issued by the CCITT eighth plenary assembly.

These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group

1 through 4 fax standards. 4. The new version of the [11205]Green Book

(sense 4) -- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a ISO 9945-1 -- is (because of the

color and the fact that it is printed on A4 paper) known in the USA as

"the Ugly Red Book That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in Europe as "the

Ugly Red Book That's A Sensible Size". 5. The NSA "Trusted Network

Interpretation" companion to the [11206]Orange Book. 6. Nemeth,

Snyder, Seebass, Hein; "Unix System Administration Handbook, Second

Edition" (Prentice Hall PTR, New Jersey; 1995; QA76.76.063N45; ISBN

0-13-151051-7). See also [11207]book titles.

Node:red wire, Next:[11208]regexp, Previous:[11209]Red Book,

Up:[11210]= R =

red wire n.

[IBM] Patch wires installed by programmers who have no business

mucking with the hardware. It is said that the only thing more

dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a [11211]softy with

a soldering iron.... Compare [11212]blue wire, [11213]yellow wire,

[11214]purple wire.

Node:regexp, Next:[11215]register dancing, Previous:[11216]red wire,

Up:[11217]= R =

regexp /reg'eksp/ n.

[Unix] (alt. regex' orreg-ex') 1. Common written and spoken

abbreviation for `regular expression', one of the wildcard patterns

used, e.g., by Unix utilities such as grep(1), sed(1), and awk(1).

These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those

described under [11218]glob. For purposes of this lexicon, it is

sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character sets

using ^; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic character' with

[^A-Za-z]. 2. Name of a well-known PD regexp-handling package in

portable C, written by revered Usenetter Henry Spencer

[11219]henry@zoo.toronto.edu.

Node:register dancing, Next:[11220]rehi, Previous:[11221]regexp,

Up:[11222]= R =

register dancing n.

Many older processor architectures suffer from a serious shortage of

general-purpose registers. This is especially a problem for

compiler-writers, because their generated code needs places to store

temporaries for things like intermediate values in expression

evaluation. Some designs with this problem, like the Intel 80x86, do

have a handful of special-purpose registers that can be pressed into

service, providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side

effects on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose

register is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate

minuet is required in which the previous value of the register is

saved and then restored just before the official function (and value)

of the special-purpose register is again needed.

Node:rehi, Next:[11223]reincarnation cycle of,

Previous:[11224]register dancing, Up:[11225]= R =

rehi

[IRC, MUD] "Hello again." Very commonly used to greet people upon

returning to an IRC channel after [11226]channel hopping.

Node:reincarnation cycle of, Next:[11227]reinvent the wheel,

Previous:[11228]rehi, Up:[11229]= R =

reincarnation, cycle of n.

See [11230]cycle of reincarnation.

Node:reinvent the wheel, Next:[11231]relay rape,

Previous:[11232]reincarnation cycle of, Up:[11233]= R =

reinvent the wheel v.

To design or implement a tool equivalent to an existing one or part of

one, with the implication that doing so is silly or a waste of time.

This is often a valid criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don't

use wooden rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many

times before you get them right. On the third hand, people reinventing

the wheel do tend to come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid

with an offset axle.

Node:relay rape, Next:[11234]religion of CHI, Previous:[11235]reinvent

the wheel, Up:[11236]= R =

relay rape n.

The hijacking of a third party's unsecured mail server to deliver

[11237]spam.

Node:religion of CHI, Next:[11238]religious issues,

Previous:[11239]relay rape, Up:[11240]= R =

religion of CHI /ki:/ n.

[Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish parody religion

(see also [11241]Church of the SubGenius, [11242]Discordianism). In

the mid-70s, the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at

CWRU were taught in Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards

and run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system

named CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever

the worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would

recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS,

ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five functions in the

appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the special

pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more common /ahbz/

and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's arrival was

[11243]considered harmful.

Node:religious issues, Next:[11244]replicator,

Previous:[11245]religion of CHI, Up:[11246]= R =

religious issues n.

Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off

[11247]holy wars, such as "What is the best operating system (or

editor, language, architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)?",

"What about that Heinlein guy, eh?", "What should we add to the new

Jargon File?" See [11248]holy wars; see also [11249]theology,

[11250]bigot.

This term is a prime example of [11251]ha ha only serious. People

actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense attachments

to their tools, even when the tools are intangible. The most

constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the crossfire is

mumble [11252]Get a life! and leave -- unless, of course, one's own

unassailably rational and obviously correct choices are being slammed.

Node:replicator, Next:[11253]reply, Previous:[11254]religious issues,

Up:[11255]= R =

replicator n.

Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself; this could be a

living organism, an idea (see [11256]meme), a program (see

[11257]quine, [11258]worm, [11259]wabbit, [11260]fork bomb, and

[11261]virus), a pattern in a cellular automaton (see [11262]life,

sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or [11263]nanobot. It is even

claimed by some that [11264]Unix and [11265]C are the symbiotic halves

of an extremely successful replicator; see [11266]Unix conspiracy.

Node:reply, Next:[11267]restriction, Previous:[11268]replicator,

Up:[11269]= R =

reply n.

See [11270]followup.

Node:restriction, Next:[11271]retcon, Previous:[11272]reply,

Up:[11273]= R =

restriction n.

A [11274]bug or design error that limits a program's capabilities, and

which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can quite work up enough

nerve to describe it as a [11275]feature. Often used (esp. by

[11276]marketroid types) to make it sound as though some crippling

bogosity had been intended by the designers all along, or was forced

upon them by arcane technical constraints of a nature no mere user

could possibly comprehend (these claims are almost invariably false).

Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a

quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a

power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1. If you impose a limit of 107 items

in a list, everyone will know it is a random number -- on the other

hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason (involving 0- or

1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less [11277]flamage for

it. Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are always especially

suspect.

Node:retcon, Next:[11278]RETI, Previous:[11279]restriction,

Up:[11280]= R =

retcon /ret'kon/

[short for `retroactive continuity', from the Usenet newsgroup

rec.arts.comics] 1. n. The common situation in pulp fiction (esp.

comics or soap operas) where a new story `reveals' things about events

in previous stories, usually leaving the `facts' the same (thus

preserving continuity) while completely changing their interpretation.

For example, revealing that a whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was

a retcon. 2. vt. To write such a story about a character or fictitious

object. "Byrne has retconned Superman's cape so that it is no longer

unbreakable." "Marvelman's old adventures were retconned into

synthetic dreams." "Swamp Thing was retconned from a transformed

person into a sentient vegetable." "Darth Vader was retconned into

Luke Skywalker's father in "The Empire Strikes Back".

[This term is included because it is a good example of hackish

linguistic innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.

The word `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and lose

its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for the

record, it started here. --ESR]

[1993 update: some comics fans on the net now claim that retcon was

independently in use in comics fandom before rec.arts.comics. In

lexicography, nothing is ever simple. --ESR]

Node:RETI, Next:[11281]retrocomputing, Previous:[11282]retcon,

Up:[11283]= R =

RETI v.

Syn. [11284]RTI

Node:retrocomputing, Next:[11285]return from the dead,

Previous:[11286]RETI, Up:[11287]= R =

retrocomputing /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ n.

Refers to emulations of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or

software, or implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if

such implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies,

written mostly for [11288]hack value, of more `serious' designs.

Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the

pnch(6) or bcd(6) program on V7 and other early Unix versions, which

would accept up to 80 characters of text argument and display the

corresponding pattern in [11289]punched card code. Other well-known

retrocomputing hacks have included the programming language

[11290]INTERCAL, a [11291]JCL-emulating shell for Unix, the

card-punch-emulating editor named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11

hardware emulators and RT-11 OS emulators written just to keep an old,

sourceless [11292]Zork binary running.

A tasty selection of retrocomputing programs are made available at the

Retrocomputing Museum, [11293]http://www.ccil.org/retro.

Node:return from