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= C =
Christmas treen.
A kind of RS-232 line tester or breakout box featuring rows of blinking red and green LEDs suggestive of Christmas lights.
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Christmas tree packet
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chrome
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Christmas tree
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Christmas tree packetn.
A packet with every single option set for whatever protocol is in use. Seekamikaze packet,Chernobyl packet. (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful image of each little option bit being represented by a different-colored light bulb, all turned on.) CompareGodzillagram.
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chrome
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chug
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Christmas tree packet
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chromen.
[from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly areprettychrome!" Distinguished frombells and whistlesby the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt.
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chug
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Church of the SubGenius
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chrome
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chugvi.
To run slowly; togrindorgrovel. "The disk is chugging like crazy."
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Church of the SubGenius
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Cinderella Book
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chug
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= C =
Church of the SubGeniusn.
A mutant offshoot ofDiscordianismlaunched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the Stark Fist of Removal. Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the acquisition of the mystical substance or quality ofslack. There is a home page at http://www.subgenius.com/.
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Cinderella Book
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CI$
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Church of the SubGenius
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Cinderella Book[CMU] n.
"Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation", by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman, (Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device and holding a rope coming out of it. On the back cover, the device is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled on the rope. See alsobook titles.
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CI$
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Classic C
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Cinderella Book
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= C =
CI$// n.
Hackerism for `CIS', CompuServe Information Service. The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line charges. Often used insig blocks just before a CompuServe address. Syn.Compu$erve.
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Classic C
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clean
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CI$
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Classic C/klas'ik C/ n.
[a play on `Coke Classic'] The C programming language as defined in the first edition ofK&R, with some small additions. It is also known as `K&R C'. The name came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee. Also `C Classic'.
An analogous construction is sometimes applied elsewhere: thus, `X Classic', where X = Star Trek (referring to the original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines as opposed to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially used of product series in which the newer versions are considered serious losers relative to the older ones.
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clean
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CLM
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Classic C
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clean1. adj.
Used of hardware or software designs, implies `elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the outside. The antonym is `grungy' orcrufty. 2. v. To remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter: "I'm cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now have 100 Meg free on that partition."
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CLM
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clobber
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clean
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CLM/C-L-M/
[Sun: `Career Limiting Move'] 1. n. An action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job: "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for `best CLM'." 2. adj. Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a customer and obviously missed earlier because of poor testing: "That's a CLM bug!"
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clobber
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clock
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CLM
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clobbervt.
To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack." Comparemung,scribble,trash, andsmash the stack.
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clock
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clocks
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clobber
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clock
1. n 1. [techspeak] The master oscillator that steps a CPU or other digital circuit through its paces. This has nothing to do with the time of day, although the software counter that keeps track of the latter may be derived from the former. 2. vt. To run a CPU or other digital circuit at a particular rate. "If you clock it at 100MHz, it gets warm.". Seeoverclock. 3. vt. To force a digital circuit from one state to the next by applying a single clock pulse. "The data must be stable 10ns before you clock the latch."
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clocks
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clone
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clock
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clocksn.
Processor logic cycles, so called because each generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing. The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are usually discussed in clocks rather than absolute fractions of a second; one good reason for this is that clock speeds for various models of the machine may increase as technology improves, and it is usually the relative times one is interested in when discussing the instruction set. Comparecycle,jiffy.
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clone
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clone-and-hack coding
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clocks
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clonen.
1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower price. 2. A shoddy, spurious copy: "Their product is a clone of our product." 3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: "Your product is a clone of my product." This use implies legal action is pending. 4. `PC clone:' a PC-BUS/ISA or EISA-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes spelled `klone' or `PClone'). These invariably have much more bang for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble. 5. In the construction `Unix clone': An OS designed to deliver a Unix-lookalike environment without Unix license fees, or with additional `mission-critical' features such as support for real-time programming. 6. v. To make an exact copy of something. "Let me clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I can make a photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before youmungit".
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clone-and-hack coding
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clover key
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clone
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clone-and-hack codingn.
[DEC] Syn.case and paste.
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clover key
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clue-by-four
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clone-and-hack coding
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clover keyn.
[Mac users] Seefeature key.
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clue-by-four
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clustergeeking
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clover key
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clue-by-four
[Usenet: portmanteau, clue + two-by-four] The notional stick with which one whacks an aggressively clueless person. This term derives from a western American folk saying about training a mule "First, you got to hit him with a two-by-four. That's to get his attention." The clue-by-four is a close relative of theLART. Syn. `clue stick'. This metaphor is commonly elaborated; your editor once heard a hacker say "I strike you with the great sword Clue-Bringer!"
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clustergeeking
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co-lo
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clue-by-four
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clustergeeking/kluh'st*r-gee`king/ n.
[CMU] Spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend breathing.
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co-lo
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coaster
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clustergeeking
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co-lo/koh'loh`/ n.
[very common; first heard c.1995] Short for `co-location', used of a machine you own that is physically sited on the premises of an ISP in order to take advantage of the ISP's direct access to lots of network bandwidthm. Often in the phrases `co-lo box' or `co-lo machines'. Co-lo boxes are typically web and FTP servers remote-administered by their owners, who may seldom or never visit the actual site.
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coaster
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COBOL
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co-lo
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coastern.
1. Unuseable CD produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. "I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD." 2. Useless CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Prodigy, ad nauseam.
In the U.K., `beermat' is often used in these senses.
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COBOL
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COBOL fingers
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coaster
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COBOL/koh'bol/ n.
[COmmon Business-Oriented Language] (Synonymous withevil.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language used bycard wallopers to do boring mindless things ondinosaurmainframes. Hackers believe that all COBOL programmers aresuits orcode grinders, and no self-respecting hacker will ever admit to having learned the language. Its very name is seldom uttered without ritual expressions of disgust or horror. One popular one is Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous observation that "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." (from "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective") See alsofear and loathing,software rot.
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COBOL fingers
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cobweb site
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COBOL
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COBOL fingers/koh'bol fing'grz/ n.
Reported from Sweden, a (hypothetical) disease one might get from coding in COBOL. The language requires code verbose beyond all reason (seecandygrammar); thus it is alleged that programming too much in COBOL causes one's fingers to wear down to stubs by the endless typing. "I refuse to type in all that source code again; it would give me COBOL fingers!"
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cobweb site
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code
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COBOL fingers
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cobweb siten.
A World Wide Web Site that hasn't been updated so long it has figuratively grown cobwebs.
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code
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code grinder
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cobweb site
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coden.
The stuff that software writers write, either in source form or after translation by a compiler or assembler. Often used in opposition to "data", which is the stuff that code operates on. This is a mass noun, as in "How much code does it take to do abubble sort?", or "The code is loaded at the high end of RAM." Anyone referring to software as "the software codes" is probably anewbieor asuit.
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code grinder
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code monkey
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code
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code grindern.
1. Asuit-wearing minion of the sort hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors. In its native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch optional) and a tie. In times of dire stress, the sleeves (if long) may be rolled up and the tie loosened about half an inch. It seldom helps. Thecode grinder's milieu is about as far from hackerdom as one can get and still touch a computer; the term connotes pity. SeeReal World,suit. 2. Used of or to a hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creative ability; connotes a design style characterized by primitive technique, rule-boundedness,brute force, and utter lack of imagination. Comparecard walloper; contrasthacker,Real Programmer.
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code monkey
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Code of the Geeks
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code grinder
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code monkeyn
1. A person only capable of grinding out code, but unable to perform the higher-primate tasks of software architecture, analysis, and design. Mildly insulting. Often applied to the most junior people on a programming team. 2. Anyone who writes code for a living; a programmer. 3. A self-deprecating way of denying responsibility for amanagementdecision, or of complaining about having to live with such decisions. As in "Don't ask me why we need to write a compiler in+COBOL, I'm just a code monkey."
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Code of the Geeks
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code police
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code monkey
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Code of the Geeksn.
seegeek code.
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code police
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codes
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Code of the Geeks
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code policen.
[by analogy with George Orwell's `thought police'] A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst into one's office and arrest one for violating programming style rules. May be used either seriously, to underline a claim that a particular style violation is dangerous, or ironically, to suggest that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by anal-retentiveweenies. "Dike out that goto or the code police will get you!" The ironic usage is perhaps more common.
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codes
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codewalker
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code police
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