The New Hacker's Dictionary

481

*[5697]gas:

*[5698]gaseous:

*[5699]Gates's Law:

*[5700]gawble:

*[5701]GC:

*[5702]GCOS:

*[5703]GECOS:

*[5704]gedanken:

*[5705]geef:

*[5706]geek code:

*[5707]geek out:

*[5708]gen:

*[5709]gender mender:

*[5710]General Public Virus:

*[5711]generate:

*[5712]Genius From Mars Technique:

*[5713]gensym:

*[5714]Get a life!:

482

*[5715]Get a real computer!:

*[5716]GFR:

*[5717]gib:

*[5718]GIFs at 11:

*[5719]gig:

*[5720]giga-:

*[5721]GIGO:

*[5722]gilley:

*[5723]gillion:

*[5724]ginger:

*[5725]GIPS:

*[5726]glark:

*[5727]glass:

*[5728]glass tty:

*[5729]glassfet:

*[5730]glitch:

*[5731]glob:

*[5732]glork:

483

*[5733]glue:

*[5734]gnarly:

*[5735]GNU:

*[5736]gnubie:

*[5737]GNUMACS:

*[5738]go flatline:

*[5739]go root:

*[5740]go-faster stripes:

*[5741]GoAT:

*[5742]gobble:

*[5743]Godwin's Law:

*[5744]Godzillagram:

*[5745]golden:

*[5746]golf-ball printer:

*[5747]gonk:

*[5748]gonkulator:

*[5749]gonzo:

*[5750]Good Thing:

484

*[5751]gopher:

*[5752]gopher hole:

*[5753]gorets:

*[5754]gorilla arm:

*[5755]gorp:

*[5756]GOSMACS:

*[5757]Gosperism:

*[5758]gotcha:

*[5759]GPL:

*[5760]GPV:

*[5761]grault:

*[5762]gray goo:

*[5763]Great Renaming:

*[5764]Great Runes:

*[5765]Great Worm:

*[5766]great-wall:

*[5767]Green Book:

*[5768]green bytes:

485

*[5769]green card:

*[5770]green lightning:

*[5771]green machine:

*[5772]Green's Theorem:

*[5773]greenbar:

*[5774]grep:

*[5775]gribble:

*[5776]grilf:

*[5777]grind:

*[5778]grind crank:

*[5779]gripenet:

*[5780]gritch:

*[5781]grok:

*[5782]gronk:

*[5783]gronk out:

*[5784]gronked:

*[5785]grovel:

*[5786]grue:

486

*[5787]grunge:

*[5788]gubbish:

*[5789]Guido:

*[5790]guiltware:

*[5791]gumby:

*[5792]gun:

*[5793]gunch:

*[5794]gunpowder chicken:

*[5795]gurfle:

*[5796]guru:

*[5797]guru meditation:

*[5798]gweep:

---

Node:G, Next:[5799]g-file, Previous:[5800]fuzzball, Up:[5801]= G =

G pref.,suff.

[SI] See [5802]quantifiers.

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Node:g-file, Next:[5803]gabriel, Previous:[5804]G, Up:[5805]= G =

488

Node:gang bang, Next:[5814]garbage collect, Previous:[5815]gag, Up:[5816]= G =

gang bang n.

The use of large numbers of loosely coupled programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a product in a short time. Though there have been memorable gang bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in Steven Levy's "Hackers"), most are perpetrated by large companies trying to meet deadlines; the inevitable result is enormous buggy masses of code entirely lacking in [5817]orthogonality. When market-driven managers make a list of all the features the competition has and assign one programmer to implement each, the probability of maintaining a coherent (or even functional) design goes infinitesimal. See also [5818]firefighting, [5819]Mongolian Hordes technique, [5820]Conway's Law.

---

Node:garbage collect, Next:[5821]garply, Previous:[5822]gang bang, Up:[5823]= G =

garbage collect vi.

(also `garbage collection', n.) See [5824]GC.

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Node:garply, Next:[5825]gas, Previous:[5826]garbage collect, Up:[5827]= G =

garply /gar'plee/ n.

[Stanford] Another metasyntactic variable (see [5828]foo); once popular among SAIL hackers.

489

---

Node:gas, Next:[5829]gaseous, Previous:[5830]garply, Up:[5831]= G =

gas

[as in `gas chamber'] 1. interj. A term of disgust and hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some loser just reloaded the system for no reason!

Gas!" 2. interj. A suggestion that someone or something ought to be flushed out of mercy. "The system's getting [5832]wedged every few minutes. Gas!" 3. vt. To [5833]flush (sense 1). "You should gas that old crufty software." 4. [IBM] n. Dead space in nonsequentially organized files that was occupied by data that has since been deleted; the compression operation that removes it is called `degassing' (by analogy, perhaps, with the use of the same term in vacuum technology). 5. [IBM] n. Empty space on a disk that has been clandestinely allocated against future need.

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Node:gaseous, Next:[5834]Gates's Law, Previous:[5835]gas, Up:[5836]= G

=

gaseous adj.

Deserving of being [5837]gassed. Disseminated by Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had supported Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber under Proposition 7 if convicted of first-degree murder (he was eventually convicted of manslaughter).

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Node:Gates's Law, Next:[5838]gawble, Previous:[5839]gaseous,

Up:[5840]= G =

490

Gates's Law

"The speed of software halves every 18 months." This oft-cited law is an ironic comment on the tendency of software bloat to outpace the every-18-month doubling in hardware caopacity per dollar predicted by [5841]Moore's Law. The reference is to Bill Gates; Microsoft is widely considered among the worst if not the worst of the perpetrators of bloat.

---

Node:gawble, Next:[5842]GC, Previous:[5843]Gates's Law, Up:[5844]= G

=

gawble /gaw'bl/ n.

See [5845]chawmp.

---

Node:GC, Next:[5846]GCOS, Previous:[5847]gawble, Up:[5848]= G =

GC /G-C/

[from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect'] 1. vt. To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today." When said of files, this is equivalent to [5849]GFR. 2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use. 3. n. An instantiation of the garbage collector process.

`Garbage collection' is computer-science techspeak for a particular class of strategies for dynamically but transparently reallocating computer memory (i.e., without requiring explicit allocation and deallocation by higher-level software). One such strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in memory and determining what is no longer accessible; useless data items are then discarded so that the memory they occupy can be recycled and used for another purpose. Implementations of the LISP language usually use garbage collection.