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face time
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factor
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eyeball search
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= F =
face timen.
[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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factor
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fairings
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face time
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factorn.
Seecoefficient of X.
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fairings
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fall over
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factor
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fairingsn. /fer'ingz/
[FreeBSD; orig. a typo for `fairness'] A term thrown out in discussion whenever a completely and transparently nonsensical argument in one's favor(?) seems called for, e,g. at the end of a really long thread for which the outcome is no longer even cared about since everyone is now so sick of it; or in rebuttal to another nonsensical argument ("Change the loader to look for /kernel.pl? What about fairings?")
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fall over
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fall through
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fairings
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fall overvi.
[IBM] Yet another synonym forcrashorlose. `Fall over hard' equates tocrash and burn.
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fall through
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fan
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fall over
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= F =
fall throughv.
(n. `fallthrough', var. `fall-through') 1. To exit a loop by exhaustion, i.e., by having fulfilled its exit condition rather than via a break or exception condition that exits from the middle of it. This usage appears to bereallyold, dating from the 1940s and 1950s. 2. To fail a test that would have 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 acaselabel other than by jumping there from the switch header, passing a point where one would normally expect to find abreak. 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 todo_green()when color isGREEN,do_red()when color isRED,do_blue()on any other color other thanPINK, and (and this is the important part)do_pink()and thendo_red()when color isPINK. Fall-through isconsidered harmfulby 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 alsoDuff's device.
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fan
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fandango on core
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fall through
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fann.
Without qualification, indicates a fan of science fiction, especially one who goes tocons 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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fandango on core
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FAQ
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fan
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fandango on coren.
[Unix/C hackers, from the Iberian dance] In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing acore dump, or corrupts themalloc(3)arenain 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. Seealiasing bug,precedence lossage,smash the stack,memory leak,memory smash,overrun screw,core.
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FAQ
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FAQ list
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fandango on core
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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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FAQ list
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FAQL
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FAQ
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FAQ list/F-A-Q list/ or /fak list/ n.
[common; Usenet] SynFAQ, sense 2.
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FAQL
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faradize
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FAQ list
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FAQL/fa'kl/ n.
Syn.FAQ list.
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faradize
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farkled
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FAQL
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faradize/far'*-di:z/ v.
[US Geological Survey] To start any hyper-addictive process or trend, or to continue adding current to such a trend. Telling one user about a new octo-tetris game you compiled would be a faradizing act -- in two weeks you might find your entire department playing the faradic game.
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farkled
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farming
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faradize
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farkled/far'kld/ adj.
[DeVry Institute of Technology, Atlanta] Syn.hosed. Poss. owes something to Yiddish `farblondjet' and/or the `Farkle Family' skits on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In", a popular comedy show of the late 1960s.
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farming
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fascist
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farkled
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farmingn.
[Adelaide University, Australia] What the heads of a disk drive are said to do when they plow little furrows in the magnetic media. Associated with acrash. Typically used as follows: "Oh no, the machine has just crashed; I hope the hard drive hasn't gonefarmingagain." No longer common; modern drives automatically park their heads in a safe zone on power-down, so it takes a real mechanical problem to induce this.
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fascist
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fat electrons
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farming
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fascistadj.
1. [common] Said of a computer system with excessive or annoying security barriers, usage limits, or access policies. The implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from getting interesting work done. The variant `fascistic' seems to have been preferred at MIT, poss. by analogy with `touristic' (seetouristor under the influence of German/Yiddish `faschistisch'). 2. In the design of languages and other software tools, `the fascist alternative' is the most restrictive and structured way of capturing a particular function; the implication is that this may be desirable in order to simplify the implementation or provide tighter error checking. Comparebondage-and-discipline language, although that term is global rather than local.
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fat electrons
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fat-finger
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fascist
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fat electronsn.
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 thebottomof 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 bybogonabsorption --ESR] Comparebogon,magic smoke.
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fat-finger
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faulty
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fat electrons
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fat-fingervt.
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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faulty
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fd leak
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fat-finger
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faultyadj.
Non-functional; buggy. Same denotation asbletcherous,losing, q.v., but the connotation is much milder.
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fd leak
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fear and loathing
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faulty
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fd leak/F-D leek/ n.
A kind of programming bug analogous to acore leak, in which a program fails to close file descriptors (`fd's) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out of them. Seeleak.
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fear and loathing
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feature
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fd leak
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fear and loathingn.
[from Hunter S. Thompson] A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totallybrain-damagedbut ubiquitous -- Intel 8086s, orCOBOL, orEBCDIC, or anyIBMmachine 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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feature
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feature creature
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fear and loathing
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featuren.
1. [common] A good property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it was intended or not is immaterial. 2. [common] An intended property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it is good or not is immaterial (but if bad, it is also amisfeature). 3. A surprising property or behavior; in particular, one that is purposely inconsistent because it works better that way -- such an inconsistency is therefore afeatureand not abug. This kind of feature is sometimes called amiswart; see that entry for a classic example. 4. A property or behavior that is gratuitous or unnecessary, though perhaps also impressive or cute. For example, one feature of Common LISP'sformatfunction is the ability to print numbers in two different Roman-numeral formats (seebells whistles and gongs). 5. A property or behavior that was put in to help someone else but that happens to be in your way. 6. [common] A bug that has been documented. To call something a feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider the particular case, and that the program responded in a way that was unexpected but not strictly incorrect. A standard joke is that a bug can be turned into afeaturesimply by documenting it (then theoretically no one can complain about it because it's in the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good. "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" is a common catchphrase. See alsofeetch feetch,creeping featurism,wart,green lightning.
The relationship among bugs, features, misfeatures, warts, and miswarts might be clarified by the following hypothetical exchange between two hackers on an airliner:
A: "This seat doesn't recline."
B: "That's not a bug, that's a feature. There is an emergency exit door built around the window behind you, and the route has to be kept clear."
A: "Oh. Then it's a misfeature; they should have increased the spacing between rows here."
B: "Yes. But if they'd increased spacing in only one section it would have been a wart -- they would've had to make nonstandard-length ceiling panels to fit over the displaced seats."
A: "A miswart, actually. If they increased spacing throughout they'd lose several rows and a chunk out of the profit margin. So unequal spacing would actually be the Right Thing."
B: "Indeed."
`Undocumented feature' is a common, allegedly humorous euphemism for abug. There's a related joke that is sometimes referred to as the "one-question geek test". You say to someone "I saw a Volkswagen Beetle today with a vanity license plate that read FEATURE". If he/she laughs, he/she is a geek (seecomputer geek, sense 2).
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feature creature
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feature creep
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feature
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feature creaturen.
[poss. fr. slang `creature feature' for a horror movie] 1. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, ortaste. 2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks. See alsofeeping creaturism,creeping featurism.
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feature creep
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feature key
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feature creature
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feature creepn.
[common] The result ofcreeping featurism, as in "Emacs has a bad case of feature creep".
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feature key
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feature shock
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feature creep
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feature keyn.
[common] The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as `flower', `pretzel', `clover', `propeller', `beanie' (an apparent reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie),splat, `open-apple' or (officially, in Mac documentation) the `command key'. In French, the term `papillon' (butterfly) has been reported. The proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle peril of iconic interfaces.
Many people have been mystified by the cloverleaf-like symbol that appears on the feature key. Its oldest name is `cross of St. Hannes', but it occurs in pre-Christian Viking art as a decorative motif. Throughout Scandinavia today the road agencies use it to mark sites of historical interest. Apple picked up the symbol from an early Mac developer who happened to be Swedish. Apple documentation gives the translation "interesting feature"!
There is some dispute as to the proper (Swedish) name of this symbol. It technically stands for the word `sevärdhet' (thing worth seeing); many of these are old churches. Some Swedes report as an idiom for the sign the word `kyrka', cognate to English `church' and pronounced (roughly) /chur'ka/ in modern Swedish. Others say this is nonsense. Other idioms reported for the sign are `runa' (rune) or `runsten' /roon'stn/ (runestone), derived from the fact that many of the interesting features are Viking rune-stones. The term `fornminne' /foorn'min'*/ (relic of antiquity, ancient monument) is also reported, especially among those who think that the Mac itself is a relic of antiquity.
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feature shock
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featurectomy
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feature key
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feature shockn.
[from Alvin Toffler's book title "Future Shock"] A user's (or programmer's!) confusion when confronted with a package that has too many features and poor introductory material.
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featurectomy
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feep
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feature shock
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featurectomy/fee`ch*r-ek't*-mee/ n.
The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavors, the `righteous' and the `reluctant'. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and better way to achieve the same end. (Doing so is not quite the same thing as removing amisfeature.) Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed.
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feep
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feeper