The New Hacker's Dictionary

413

*[4878]fudge factor:

*[4879]fuel up:

*[4880]Full Monty:

*[4881]fum:

*[4882]functino:

*[4883]funky:

*[4884]funny money:

*[4885]furrfu:

*[4886]fuzzball:

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Node:face time, Next:[4887]factor, Previous:[4888]eyeball search, Up:[4889]= F =

face time n.

[common] Time spent interacting with somebody face-to-face (as opposed to via electronic links). "Oh, yeah, I spent some face time with him at the last Usenix."

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Node:factor, Next:[4890]fairings, Previous:[4891]face time, Up:[4892]= F

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factor n.

415

passed control to a subroutine or some other distant portion of code. 3. In C, `fall-through' occurs when the flow of execution in a switch statement reaches a case label other than by jumping there from the switch header, passing a point where one would normally expect to find a break. A trivial example: switch (color) { case GREEN: do---green(); break; case PINK: do---pink(); /* FALL THROUGH */ case RED: do---red(); break; default: do---blue(); break; }

The variant spelling /* FALL THRU */ is also common.

The effect of the above code is to do---green() when color is GREEN, do---red() when color is RED, do---blue() on any other color other than PINK, and (and this is the important part) do---pink() and then do---red() when color is PINK. Fall-through is [4906]considered harmful by some, though there are contexts (such as the coding of state machines) in which it is natural; it is generally considered good practice to include a comment highlighting the fall-through where one would normally expect a break. See also [4907]Duff's device.

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Node:fan, Next:[4908]fandango on core, Previous:[4909]fall through, Up:[4910]= F =

fan n.

Without qualification, indicates a fan of science fiction, especially one who goes to [4911]cons and tends to hang out with other fans. Many hackers are fans, so this term has been imported from fannish slang; however, unlike much fannish slang it is recognized by most non-fannish hackers. Among SF fans the plural is correctly `fen', but this usage is not automatic to hackers. "Laura reads the stuff occasionally but isn't really a fan."

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416

Node:fandango on core, Next:[4912]FAQ, Previous:[4913]fan, Up:[4914]= F =

fandango on core n.

[Unix/C hackers, from the Iberian dance] In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a [4915]core dump, or corrupts the malloc(3) [4916]arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have `done a fandango on core'. On low-end personal machines without an MMU (or Windows boxes, which have an MMU but use it incompetently), this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the cha-cha or the watusi, may be substituted. See [4917]aliasing bug, [4918]precedence lossage, [4919]smash the stack, [4920]memory leak, [4921]memory smash, [4922]overrun screw, [4923]core.

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Node:FAQ, Next:[4924]FAQ list, Previous:[4925]fandango on core, Up:[4926]= F =

FAQ /F-A-Q/ or /fak/ n.

[Usenet] 1. A Frequently Asked Question. 2. A compendium of accumulated lore, posted periodically to high-volume newsgroups in an attempt to forestall such questions. Some people prefer the term `FAQ list' or `FAQL' /fa'kl/, reserving `FAQ' for sense 1.

This lexicon itself serves as a good example of a collection of one kind of lore, although it is far too big for a regular FAQ posting. Examples: "What is the proper type of NULL?" and "What's that funny name for the # character?" are both Frequently Asked Questions. Several FAQs refer readers to this file.

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419

fat electrons n.

Old-time hacker David Cargill's theory on the causation of computer glitches. Your typical electric utility draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of coil taps located near the top of the dynamo. When the normal tap brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean them up, and use special auxiliary taps on the bottom of the coil. Now, this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary or `thin' electrons, but the fat'n'sloppy electrons that are heavier and so settle to the bottom of the generator. These flow down ordinary wires just fine, but when they have to turn a sharp corner (as in an integrated-circuit via), they're apt to get stuck. This is what causes computer glitches. [Fascinating. Obviously, fat electrons must gain mass by [4955]bogon absorption --ESR] Compare [4956]bogon, [4957]magic smoke.

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Node:fat-finger, Next:[4958]faulty, Previous:[4959]fat electrons, Up:[4960]= F =

fat-finger vt.

1. To introduce a typo while editing in such a way that the resulting manglification of a configuration file does something useless, damaging, or wildly unexpected. "NSI fat-fingered their DNS zone file and took half the net down again." 2. More generally, any typo that produces dramatically bad results.

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Node:faulty, Next:[4961]fd leak, Previous:[4962]fat-finger, Up:[4963]= F

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faulty adj.

420

Non-functional; buggy. Same denotation as [4964]bletcherous, [4965]losing, q.v., but the connotation is much milder.

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Node:fd leak, Next:[4966]fear and loathing, Previous:[4967]faulty, Up:[4968]= F =

fd leak /F-D leek/ n.

A kind of programming bug analogous to a [4969]core leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors (`fd's) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. See [4970]leak.

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Node:fear and loathing, Next:[4971]feature, Previous:[4972]fd leak, Up:[4973]= F =

fear and loathing n.

[from Hunter S. Thompson] A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally [4974]brain-damaged but ubiquitous -- Intel 8086s, or [4975]COBOL, or [4976]EBCDIC, or any [4977]IBM machine bigger than a workstation. "Ack! They want PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and loathing time!"

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Node:feature, Next:[4978]feature creature, Previous:[4979]fear and loathing, Up:[4980]= F =

feature n.