The New Hacker's Dictionary

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"Resume." From the ASCII DC1 or [2984]XON character (the pronunciation /X-on/ is therefore also used), used to undo a previous [2985]control-S.

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Node:control-S, Next:[2986]Conway's Law, Previous:[2987]control-Q,

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control-S vi.

"Stop talking for a second." From the ASCII DC3 or XOFF character (the pronunciation /X-of/ is therefore also used). Control-S differs from [2989]control-O in that the person is asked to stop talking (perhaps because you are on the phone) but will be allowed to continue when you're ready to listen to him -- as opposed to control-O, which has more of the meaning of "Shut up." Considered silly.

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Node:Conway's Law, Next:[2990]cookbook, Previous:[2991]control-S,

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Conway's Law prov.

The rule that the organization of the software and the organization of the software team will be congruent; commonly stated as "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler". The original statement was more general, "Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." This first appeared in the April 1968 issue of [2993]Datamation. Compare [2994]SNAFU principle.

The law was named after Melvin Conway, an early proto-hacker who wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called SAVE. (The name `SAVE' didn't stand for anything; it was just that you lost fewer card decks and

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listings because they all had SAVE written on them.)

There is also Tom Cheatham's amendment of Conway's Law: "If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager."

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Node:cookbook, Next:[2995]cooked mode, Previous:[2996]Conway's Law, Up:[2997]= C =

cookbook n.

[from amateur electronics and radio] A book of small code segments that the reader can use to do various [2998]magic things in programs. One current example is the "[2999]PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook" by Adobe Systems, Inc (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-10179-3), also known as the [3000]Blue Book which has recipes for things like wrapping text around arbitrary curves and making 3D fonts. Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into [3001]voodoo programming, but are useful for hackers trying to [3002]monkey up small programs in unknown languages. This function is analogous to the role of phrasebooks in human languages.

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cooked mode n.

[Unix, by opposition from [3006]raw mode] The normal character-input mode, with interrupts enabled and with erase, kill and other special-character interpretations performed directly by the tty driver. Oppose [3007]raw mode, [3008]rare mode. This term is techspeak under Unix but jargon elsewhere; other operating systems often have similar

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mode distinctions, and the raw/rare/cooked way of describing them has spread widely along with the C language and other Unix exports. Most generally, `cooked mode' may refer to any mode of a system that does extensive preprocessing before presenting data to a program.

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Node:cookie, Next:[3009]cookie bear, Previous:[3010]cooked mode, Up:[3011]= C =

cookie n.

A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between cooperating programs. "I give him a packet, he gives me back a cookie." The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's useful for is to relate a later transaction to this one (so you get the same clothes back). Compare [3012]magic cookie; see also [3013]fortune cookie. Now mainstream in the specific sense of web-browser cookies.

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Node:cookie bear, Next:[3014]cookie file, Previous:[3015]cookie, Up:[3016]= C =

cookie bear n. obs.

Original term, pre-Sesame-Street, for what is now universally called a [3017]cookie monster. A correspondent observes "In those days, hackers were actually getting their yucks from...sit down now...Andy Williams. Yes, that Andy Williams. Seems he had a rather hip (by the standards of the day) TV variety show. One of the best parts of the show was the recurring `cookie bear' sketch. In these sketches, a guy in a bear suit tried all sorts of tricks to get a cookie out of Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking (and I don't mean figuratively), `No cookies! Not now, not ever...NEVER!!!' And the bear would fall down. Great stuff."

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Node:cookie file, Next:[3018]cookie jar, Previous:[3019]cookie bear, Up:[3020]= C =

cookie file n.

A collection of [3021]fortune cookies in a format that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program. There are several different cookie files in public distribution, and site admins often assemble their own from various sources including this lexicon.

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Node:cookie jar, Next:[3022]cookie monster, Previous:[3023]cookie file, Up:[3024]= C =

cookie jar n.

An area of memory set aside for storing [3025]cookies. Most commonly heard in the Atari ST community; many useful ST programs record their presence by storing a distinctive [3026]magic number in the jar. Programs can inquire after the presence or otherwise of other programs by searching the contents of the jar.

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Node:cookie monster, Next:[3027]copious free time,

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cookie monster n.

[from the children's TV program "Sesame Street"] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on [3030]TOPS-10, [3031]ITS, [3032]Multics, and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a time-sharing machine) or the [3033]console (on a batch [3034]mainframe), repeatedly

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demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see [3035]FOAF) has described these programs as urban legends (implying they probably never existed) but they existed, all right, in several different versions. See also [3036]wabbit. Interestingly, the term `cookie monster' appears to be a [3037]retcon; the original term was [3038]cookie bear.

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Node:copious free time, Next:[3039]copper, Previous:[3040]cookie monster, Up:[3041]= C =

copious free time n.

[Apple; orig. fr. the intro to Tom Lehrer's song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"] 1. [used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that the opportunity will not arise. "I'll implement the automatic layout stuff in my copious free time." 2. [Archly] Time reserved for bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of [3042]chrome, or the stroking of [3043]suits. "I'll get back to him on that feature in my copious free time."

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Node:copper, Next:[3044]copy protection, Previous:[3045]copious free time, Up:[3046]= C =

copper n.

Conventional electron-carrying network cable with a core conductor of copper -- or aluminum! Opposed to [3047]light pipe or, say, a short-range microwave link.

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Node:copy protection, Next:[3048]copybroke, Previous:[3049]copper, Up:[3050]= C =

copy protection n.

A class of methods for preventing incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using it. Considered silly.

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Node:copybroke, Next:[3051]copycenter, Previous:[3052]copy protection, Up:[3053]= C =

copybroke /kop'ee-brohk/ adj.

1. [play on `copyright'] Used to describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been `broken'; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled. Syn. [3054]copywronged. 2. Copy-protected software which is unusable because of some bit-rot or bug that has confused the anti-piracy check. See also [3055]copy protection.

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Node:copycenter, Next:[3056]copyleft, Previous:[3057]copybroke,

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copycenter n.

[play on `copyright' and `copyleft'] 1. The copyright notice carried by the various flavors of freeware BSD. According to Kirk McKusick at BSDCon 1999: "The way it was characterized politically, you had copyright, which is what the big companies use to lock everything up; you had copyleft, which is free software's way of making sure they can't lock it up; and then Berkeley had what we called "copycenter", which is "take it down to the

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Node:core, Next:[3074]core cancer, Previous:[3075]copywronged, Up:[3076]= C =

core n.

Main storage or RAM. Dates from the days of ferrite-core memory; now archaic as techspeak most places outside IBM, but also still used in the Unix community and by old-time hackers or those who would sound like them. Some derived idioms are quite current; `in core', for example, means `in memory' (as opposed to `on disk'), and both [3077]core dump and the `core image' or `core file' produced by one are terms in favor. Some varieties of Commonwealth hackish prefer [3078]store.

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Node:core cancer, Next:[3079]core dump, Previous:[3080]core, Up:[3081]= C =

core cancer n.

[rare] A process that exhibits a slow but inexorable resource [3082]leak -- like a cancer, it kills by crowding out productive `tissue'.

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Node:core dump, Next:[3083]core leak, Previous:[3084]core cancer, Up:[3085]= C =

core dump n.

[common [3086]Iron Age jargon, preserved by Unix] 1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of [3087]core, produced when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error. 2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering extreme shock. "He dumped core. All over the

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floor. What a mess." "He heard about X and dumped core." 3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you". 4. A recapitulation of knowledge (compare [3088]bits, sense 1). Hence, spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. [3089]brain dump), esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam question. "Short, concise answers are better than core dumps" (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia). See [3090]core.

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Node:core leak, Next:[3091]Core Wars, Previous:[3092]core dump, Up:[3093]= C =

core leak n.

Syn. [3094]memory leak.

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Core Wars n.

A game between `assembler' programs in a machine or machine simulator, where the objective is to kill your opponent's program by overwriting it. Popularized in the 1980s by A. K. Dewdney's column in "Scientific American" magazine, but described in "Software Practice And Experience" a decade earlier. The game was actually devised and played by Victor Vyssotsky, Robert Morris Sr., and Doug McIlroy in the early 1960s (Dennis Ritchie is sometimes incorrectly cited as a co-author, but was not involved). Their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on a IBM 7090 at Bell Labs. See [3098]core. For information on the modern game, do a web search for the `rec.games.corewar FAQ' or surf to the [3099]King Of The Hill site.