The New Hacker's Dictionary
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Here's a [9740]Perl program that prints primes: perl -wle '(1 x $---) !~ /^(11+)\1+$/ && print while ++ $---'
In the Perl world this game is sometimes called Perl Golf because the player with the fewest (key)strokes wins.
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ooblick /oo'blik/ n.
[from the Dr. Seuss title "Bartholomew and the Oobleck"; the spelling `oobleck' is still current in the mainstream] A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; it pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will even crack when hit by a hammer. Often found near lasers.
Here is a field-tested ooblick recipe contributed by GLS:
1 cup cornstarch 1 cup baking soda 3/4 cup water N drops of food coloring
This recipe isn't quite as non-Newtonian as a pure cornstarch ooblick, but has an appropriately slimy feel.
Some, however, insist that the notion of an ooblick recipe is far too mechanical, and that it is best to add the water in small increments so that the various mixed states the cornstarch goes through as it becomes ooblick can be grokked in fullness by many hands. For optional ingredients of this experience, see the "[9744]Ceremonial Chemicals" section of Appendix B.
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op /op/ n.
1. In England and Ireland, common verbal abbreviation for `operator', as in system operator. Less common in the U.S., where [9748]sysop seems to be preferred. 2. [IRC] Someone who is endowed with privileges on [9749]IRC, not limited to a particular channel. These are generally people who are in charge of the IRC server at their particular site. Sometimes used interchangeably with [9750]CHOP. Compare [9751]sysop.
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Node:open, Next:[9752]open source, Previous:[9753]op, Up:[9754]= O =
open n.
Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' -- used when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. To read aloud the LISP form (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open defun foo, open eks close, open, plus eks one, close close."
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open source n.
[common; also adj. `open-source'] Term coined in March 1998 following the Mozilla release to describe software distributed in source under licenses guaranteeing anybody rights to freely use, modify, and redistribute, the code. The intent was to be able to sell the hackers' ways of doing software to industry and the mainstream by avoid the negative connotations (to [9758]suits) of the term "[9759]free software". For discussion of the followon tactics and their consequences, see the [9760]Open Source
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Initiative site.
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Node:open switch, Next:[9761]operating system, Previous:[9762]open source, Up:[9763]= O =
open switch n.
[IBM: prob. from railroading] An unresolved question, issue, or problem.
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Node:operating system, Next:[9764]optical diff, Previous:[9765]open switch, Up:[9766]= O =
operating system n.
[techspeak] (Often abbreviated `OS') The foundation software of a machine; that which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around its host machines. Hacker folklore has been shaped primarily by the [9767]Unix, [9768]ITS, [9769]TOPS-10, [9770]TOPS-20/[9771]TWENEX, [9772]WAITS, [9773]CP/M, [9774]MS-DOS, and [9775]Multics operating systems (most importantly by ITS and Unix).
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optical diff n.
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See [9779]vdiff.
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optical grep n.
See [9783]vgrep.
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optimism n.
What a programmer is full of after fixing the last bug and before discovering the next last bug. Fred Brooks's book "The Mythical Man-Month" (See "Brooks's Law") contains the following paragraph that describes this extremely well:
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug.".
See also [9787]Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology.
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Oracle, the
The all-knowing, all-wise Internet Oracle rec.humor.oracle), or one of the foreign language derivatives of same. Newbies frequently confuse the Oracle with Oracle, a database vendor. As a result, the unmoderated rec.humor.oracle.d is frequently crossposted to by the clueless, looking for advice on SQL. As more than one person has said in similar situations, "Don't people bother to look at the newsgroup description line anymore?" (To which the standard response is, "Did people ever read it in the first place?")
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Node:Orange Book, Next:[9791]oriental food, Previous:[9792]Oracle the, Up:[9793]= O =
Orange Book n.
The U.S. Government's standards document "Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard 5200.28-STD, December, 1985" which characterize secure computing architectures and defines levels A1 (most secure) through D (least). Modern Unixes are roughly C2. See also [9794]crayola books, [9795]book titles.
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oriental food n.
Hackers display an intense tropism towards oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier varieties such as Szechuan and
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Hunan. This phenomenon (which has also been observed in subcultures that overlap heavily with hackerdom, most notably science-fiction fandom) has never been satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best local Chinese place and be right at least three times out of four. See also [9799]ravs, [9800]great-wall, [9801]stir-fried random, [9802]laser chicken, [9803]Yu-Shiang Whole Fish. Thai, Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.
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Node:orphan, Next:[9804]orphaned i-node, Previous:[9805]oriental food, Up:[9806]= O =
orphan n.
[Unix] A process whose parent has died; one inherited by init(1). Compare [9807]zombie.
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Node:orphaned i-node, Next:[9808]orthogonal, Previous:[9809]orphan,
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orphaned i-node /or'f*nd i:'nohd/ n.
[Unix] 1. [techspeak] A file that retains storage but no longer appears in the directories of a filesystem. 2. By extension, a pejorative for any person no longer serving a useful function within some organization, esp. [9811]lion food without subordinates.
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Node:orthogonal, Next:[9812]OS, Previous:[9813]orphaned i-node,
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orthogonal adj.
[from mathematics] Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the entire `capability space' of the system and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent. For example, in architectures such as the PDP-11 or VAX where all or nearly all registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respect to any instruction, the register set is said to be orthogonal. Or, in logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal, but the set `nand', `or', and `not' is not (because any one of these can be expressed in terms of the others). Also used in comments on human discourse: "This may be orthogonal to the discussion, but...."
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Node:OS, Next:[9815]OS/2, Previous:[9816]orthogonal, Up:[9817]= O =
OS /O-S/
1. [Operating System] n. An abbreviation heavily used in email, occasionally in speech. 2. n. obs. On ITS, an output spy. See "[9818]OS and JEDGAR" in Appendix A.
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Node:OS/2, Next:[9819]OSS, Previous:[9820]OS, Up:[9821]= O =
OS/2 /O S too/ n.
The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel 286and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it right the second time, either. Often called `Half-an-OS'. Mentioning it is usually good for a cheap laugh among hackers -- the design was so [9822]baroque, and the implementation of 1.x so bad, that 3 years after introduction you could still count the major
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[9823]apps shipping for it on the fingers of two hands -- in unary. The 2.x versions are said to have improved somewhat, and informed hackers now rate them superior to Microsoft Windows (an endorsement which, however, could easily be construed as damning with faint praise). See [9824]monstrosity, [9825]cretinous, [9826]second-system effect.
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OSS
Written-only acronym for "Open Source Software" (see [9830]open source. This is a rather ugly [9831]TLA, and the principals in the open-source movement don't use it, but it has (perhaps inevitably) spread through the trade press like kudzu.
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Node:OSU, Next:[9832]OTOH, Previous:[9833]OSS, Up:[9834]= O =
OSU /O-S-U/ n. obs.
[TMRC] Acronym for Officially Sanctioned User; a user who is recognized as such by the computer authorities and allowed to use the computer above the objections of the security monitor.
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OTOH //
[Usenet; very common] On The Other Hand.
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out-of-band adj.
[from telecommunications and network theory] 1. In software, describes values of a function which are not in its `natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that some kind of exception has occurred. Many C functions, for example, return a nonnegative integral value, but indicate failure with an out-of-band return value of -1. Compare [9841]hidden flag, [9842]green bytes, [9843]fence. 2. Also sometimes used to describe what communications people call `shift characters', such as the ESC that leads control sequences for many terminals, or the level shift indicators in the old 5-bit Baudot codes. 3. In personal communication, using methods other than email, such as telephones or [9844]snail-mail.
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overclock /oh'vr-klok'/ vt.
To operate a CPU or other digital logic device at a rate higher than it was designed for, under the assumption that the manufacturer put some [9848]slop into the specification to account for manufacturing tolerances. Overclocking something can result in intermittent [9849]crashes, and can even burn things out, since power dissipation is directly proportional to [9850]clock frequency. People who make a hobby of this are sometimes called "overclockers"; they are thrilled that they can run their 450MHz CPU at 500MHz, even though they can only tell the difference by running a [9851]benchmark program.
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overflow bit n.
1. [techspeak] A [9855]flag on some processors indicating an attempt to calculate a result too large for a register to hold. 2. More generally, an indication of any kind of capacity overload condition. "Well, the [9856]Ada description was [9857]baroque all right, but I could hack it OK until they got to the exception handling ... that set my overflow bit." 3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to make a trip to the Room of Porcelain Fixtures: "I'd better process an internal interrupt before the overflow bit gets set."
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overflow pdl n.
[MIT] The place where you put things when your [9861]PDL is full. If you don't have one and too many things get pushed, you forget something. The overflow pdl for a person's memory might be a memo pad. This usage inspired the following doggerel:
Hey, diddle, diddle The overflow pdl To get a little more stack; If that's not enough Then you lose it all, And have to pop all the way back. -The Great Quux
The term `pdl' (see [9862]PDL) seems to be primarily an MITism; outside MIT this term is replaced by `overflow [9863]stack' (but that wouldn't rhyme with `diddle').
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