= I =
I see no X here.
Hackers (and the interactive computer games they write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or "X is missing." or "Where's the X?". This goes back to the original PDP-10ADVENT, which would respond in this wise if you asked it to do something involving an object not present at your location in the game.
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IANAL
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IBM
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I see no X here.
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= I =
IANAL//
[Usenet] Abbreviation, "I Am Not A Lawyer". Usually precedes legal advice.
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IBM
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IBM discount
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IANAL
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IBM/I-B-M/
Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-infinitenumber of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Machines'. SeeTLA. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers long felt toward the `industry leader' (seefear and loathing).
What galled hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level wasn't so much that they were underpowered and overpriced (though that does count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic,crufty, andelephantine...and you can'tfixthem -- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found them. For many years, before Microsoft, IBM was the company hackers loved to hate.
But everything changes. In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with Microsoft. In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services company, began to release open-source software through its AlphaWorks group, and began shippingLinuxsystems and building ties to the Linux community. To the astonishment of all parties, IBM emerged as a friend of the hacker community
This lexicon includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground.
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IBM discount
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ICBM address
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IBM
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IBM discountn.
A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced (seeclone); inside, it is said to spring from a belief that large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause prices to rise.
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ICBM address
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ice
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IBM discount
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= I =
ICBM addressn.
(Also `missile address') The form used to register a site with the Usenet mapping project, back before the day of pervasive Internet, included a blank for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy. This was actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of Usenet links on a plotter; however, it became traditional to refer to this as one's `ICBM address' or `missile address', and some people include it in theirsig blockwith that name. (A real missile address would include target elevation.)
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ice
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ID10T error
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ICBM address
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icen.
[coined by Usenetter Tom Maddox, popularized by William Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived acronym for `Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to immobilize or even literally kill the intruder). Hence, `icebreaker': a program designed for cracking security on a system.
Neither term is in serious use yet as of early 1999, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a denotation in the future. In the meantime, the speculative usage could be confused with `ICE', an acronym for "in-circuit emulator".
In ironic reference to the speculative usage, however, some hackers and computer scientists formed ICE (International Cryptographic Experiment) in 1994. ICE is a consortium to promote uniform international access to strong cryptography.
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ID10T error
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idempotent
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ice
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ID10T error/I-D-ten-T er'*r/
Synonym forPEBKAC, e.g. "The user is being an idiot". Tech-support people passing a problem report to someone higher up the food chain (and presumably better equipped to deal with idiots) may ask the user to convey that there seems to be an I-D-ten-T error. Users never twig.
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idempotent
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IDP
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ID10T error
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idempotentadj.
[from mathematical techspeak] Acting as if used only once, even if used multiple times. This term is often used with respect toCheader files, which contain common definitions and declarations to be included by several source files. If a header file is ever included twice during the same compilation (perhaps due to nested #include files), compilation errors can result unless the header file has protected itself against multiple inclusion; a header file so protected is said to be idempotent. The term can also be used to describe an initialization subroutine that is arranged to perform some critical action exactly once, even if the routine is called several times.
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IDP
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If you want X you know where to find it.
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idempotent
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IDP/I-D-P/ v.,n.
[Usenet] Abbreviation forInternet Death Penalty. Common (probably now more so than the full form), and frequently verbed. CompareUDP.
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If you want X you know where to find it.
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ifdef out
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IDP
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If you want X, you know where to find it.
There is a legend that Dennis Ritchie, inventor ofC, once responded to demands for features resembling those of what at the time was a much more popular language by observing "If you want PL/I, you know where to find it." Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for fending off requests to alter a new design to mimic some older (and, by implication, inferior andbaroque) one. The case X =Pascalmanifests semi-regularly on Usenet'scomp.lang.cnewsgroup. Indeed, the case X = X has been reported in discussions of graphics software (seeX).
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ifdef out
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IIRC
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If you want X you know where to find it.
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ifdef out/if'def owt/ v.
Syn. forcondition out, specific toC.
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IIRC
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ill-behaved
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ifdef out
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IIRC//
Common abbreviation for "If I Recall Correctly".
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ill-behaved
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IMHO
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IIRC
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ill-behavedadj.
1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated roundoff error or poor convergence properties. 2. Software that bypasses the definedOSinterfaces to do things (like screen, keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or incompatible with other pieces of software. In the IBM PC/MS-DOS world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that (owing to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved. See alsobare metal. Opposewell-behaved, comparePC-ism. Seemess-dos.
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IMHO
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Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!
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IMHO// abbrev.
[from SF fandom via Usenet; abbreviation for `In My Humble Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." Also seen in variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion).
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Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!
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in the extreme
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IMHO
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Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!prov.
[Usenet] SinceUsenetfirst got off the ground in 1980-81, it has grown exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year. On the other hand, most people feel thesignal-to-noise ratioof Usenet has dropped steadily. These trends led, as far back as mid-1983, to predictions of the imminent collapse (or death) of the net. Ten years and numerous doublings later, enough of these gloomy prognostications have been confounded that the phrase "Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!" has become a running joke, hauled out any time someone grumbles about theS/N ratioor the huge and steadily increasing volume, or the possible loss of a key node or link, or the potential for lawsuits when ignoramuses post copyrighted material, etc., etc., etc.
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in the extreme
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inc
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Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!
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in the extremeadj.
A preferred superlative suffix for many hackish terms. See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' underobscure, and comparehighly.
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inc
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incantation
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in the extreme
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inc/ink/ v.
Verbal (and only rarely written) shorthand forincrement, i.e. `increase by one'. Especially used by assembly programmers, as many assembly languages have anincmnemonic. Antonym: dec (seeDEC).
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incantation
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include
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inc
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incantationn.
Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result. Not used of passwords or other explicit security features. Especially used of tricks that are so poorly documented that they must be learned from awizard. "This compiler normally locates initialized data in the data segment, but if youmutterthe right incantation they will be forced into text space."
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include
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include war
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incantation
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includevt.
[Usenet] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of another's
message (typically with attribution to the source) in a reply or
followup, for clarifying the context of one's response. See the
discussion of inclusion styles under "Hacker Writing Style". 2.
[fromC]#include
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include war
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indent style
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include
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include warn.
Excessive multi-leveled inclusion within a discussionthread, a practice that tends to annoy readers. In a forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as Usenet, this can lead toflames and the urge to start akill file.
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indent style
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index of X
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include war
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indent stylen.
[C, C++, and Java programmers] The rules one uses to indent code in a readable fashion. There are four major C indent styles, described below; all have the aim of making it easier for the reader to visually track the scope of control constructs. They have been inherited by C++ and Java, which have C-like syntaxes. The significant variable is the placement of{and}with respect to the statement(s) they enclose and to the guard or controlling statement (if,else,for,while, ordo) on the block, if any.
`K&R style' -- Named after Kernighan & Ritchie, because the examples inK&Rare formatted this way. Also called `kernel style' because the Unix kernel is written in it, and the `One True Brace Style' (abbrev. 1TBS) by its partisans. In C code, the body is typically indented by eight spaces (or one tab) per level, as shown here. Four spaces are occasionally seen in C, but in C++ and Java four tends to be the rule rather than the exception.
if (
`Allman style' -- Named for Eric Allman, a Berkeley hacker who wrote a lot of the BSD utilities in it (it is sometimes called `BSD style'). Resembles normal indent style in Pascal and Algol. It is the only style other than K&R in widespread use among Java programmers. Basic indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four (or sometimes three) spaces are generally preferred by C++ and Java programmers.
if (
`Whitesmiths style' -- popularized by the examples that came with Whitesmiths C, an early commercial C compiler. Basic indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four spaces are occasionally seen.
if (
`GNU style' -- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software Foundation code, and just about nowhere else. Indents are always four spaces per level, with{and}halfway between the outer and inner indent levels.
if (
Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most common, with about equal mind shares. K&R/1TBS used to be nearly universal, but is now much less common in C (the opening brace tends to get lost against the right paren of the guard part in aniforwhile, which is aBad Thing). Defenders of 1TBS argue that any putative gain in readability is less important than their style's relative economy with vertical space, which enables one to see more code on one's screen at once.
The Java Language Specification legislates not only the capitalization of identifiers, but where nouns, adjectives, and verbs should be in method, class, interface, and variable names (section 6.8). While the specification stops short of also standardizing on a bracing style, all source code originating from Sun Laboratories uses the K&R style. This has set a precedent for Java programmers, which most follow.
Doubtless these issues will continue to be the subject ofholy wars.
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index of X
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infant mortality
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indent style
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= I =
index of Xn.
Seecoefficient of X.
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infant mortality
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infinite
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index of X
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infant mortalityn.
It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak by now) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip and wire failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such failures are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems (or, occasionally, as `sudden infant death syndrome'). Seebathtub curve,burn-in period.
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infinite
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infinite loop
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infant mortality
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infiniteadj.
[common] Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme. Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage." "He is an infinite loser." The word most likely to follow `infinite', though, ishair. (It has been pointed out that fractals are an excellent example of infinite hair.) These uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning. The term `semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount of some resource, is also heard. "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite amount of time to optimize my program." See alsosemi.
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infinite loop
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Infinite-Monkey Theorem
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infinite
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infinite loopn.
One that never terminates (that is, the machinespins orbuzzes forever and goescatatonic). There is a standard joke that has been made about each generation's exemplar of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so fast it can execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"
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Infinite-Monkey Theorem
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infinity
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infinite loop