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= L =
link farmn.
[Unix] A directory tree that contains many links to files in a master directory tree of files. Link farms save space when one is maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same source tree -- for example, when the only difference is architecture-dependent object files. "Let's freeze the source and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms." Link farms may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of-I(include-file directory) arguments on older C preprocessors. However, they can also get completely out of hand, becoming the filesystem equivalent ofspaghetti code.
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link rot
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link-dead
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link farm
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link rotn.
The natural decay of web links as the sites they're connected to change or die. Comparebit rot.
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link-dead
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lint
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link rot
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link-deadadj.
[MUD] The state a player is in when they kill their connection to aMUDwithout leaving it properly. The player is then commonly left as a statue in the game, and is only removed after a certain period of time (an hour on most MUDs). Used onIRCas well, although it is inappropriate in that context. Comparenetdead.
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lint
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Lintel
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link-dead
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lint
[from Unix'slint(1), named for the bits of fluff it supposedly picks from programs] 1. vt. To examine a program closely for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if the Unix utilitylint(1)is used. This term used to be restricted to use oflint(1)itself, but (judging by references on Usenet) it has become a shorthand fordesk checkat some non-Unix shops, even in languages other than C. Also as v.delint. 2. n. Excess verbiage in a document, as in "This draft has too much lint".
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Lintel
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Linus
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lint
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Linteln.
The emergingLinux/Intel alliance. This term began to be used in early 1999 after it became clear that theWintelalliance was under increasing strain and Intel started taking stakes in Linux companies.
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Linus
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Linux
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Lintel
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Linus/leen'us'/ or /lin'us'/, not /li:'nus/
Linus Torvalds, the author ofLinux. Nobody in the hacker culture has been as readily recognized by first name alone since Ken (Thompson).
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Linux
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lion food
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Linus
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Linux/lee'nuhks/ or /li'nuks/,not/li:'nuhks/ n.
The free Unix workalike created by Linus Torvalds and friends starting about 1991. The pronunciation /lee'nuhks/ is preferred because the name `Linus' has an /ee/ sound in Swedish (Linus's family is part of Finland's 6% ethnic-Swedish minority). This may be the most remarkable hacker project in history -- an entire clone of Unix for 386, 486 and Pentium micros, distributed for free with sources over the net (ports to Alpha and Sparc and many other machines are also in use).
Linux is whatGNUaimed to be, and it relies on the GNU toolset. But the Free Software Foundation didn't produce the kernel to go with that toolset until 1999, which was too late. Other, similar efforts like FreeBSD and NetBSD have been technically successful but never caught fire the way Linux has; as this is written in 2000, Linux is seriously challenging Microsoft's OS dominance. It has already captured 31% of the Internet-server market and 25% of general business servers.
An earlier version of this entry opined "The secret of Linux's success seems to be that Linus worked much harder early on to keep the development process open and recruit other hackers, creating a snowball effect." Truer than we knew. Seebazaar.
(Some people object that the name `Linux' should be used to refer only to the kernel, not the entire operating system. This claim is a proxy for an underlying territorial dispute; people who insist on the term `GNU/Linux' want the theFSFto get most of the credit for Linux because RMS and friends wrote many of its user-level tools. Neither this theory nor the term `GNU/Linux' has gained more than minority acceptance).
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lion food
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Lions Book
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Linux
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lion foodn.
[IBM] Middle management or HQ staff (or, by extension, administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but agree to meet after 2 months. When they finally meet, one is skinny and the other overweight. The thin one says: "How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me -- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass." The fat one replies: "Well,Ihid near an IBM office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"
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Lions Book
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LISP
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lion food
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Lions Bookn.
"Source Code and Commentary on Unix level 6", by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained (1) the entire source listing of the Unix Version 6 kernel, and (2) a commentary on the source discussing the algorithms. These were circulated internally at the University of New South Wales beginning 1976-77, and were, for years after, theonlydetailed kernel documentation available to anyone outside Bell Labs. Because Western Electric wished to maintain trade secret status on the kernel, the Lions Book was only supposed to be distributed to affiliates of source licensees. In spite of this, it soon spread bysamizdatto a good many of the early Unix hackers.
[1996 update: The Lions book lives again! It was put back in print as ISBN 1-57398-013-7 from Peer-To-Peer Communications, with forewords by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. In a neat bit of reflexivity, the page before the contents quotes this entry.]
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LISP
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list-bomb
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Lions Book
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LISPn.
[from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from `Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] AI's mother tongue, a language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Invented by John McCarthy at MIT in the late 1950s, it is actually older than any otherHLLstill in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years; modern variants are quite different in detail from the original LISP 1.5. The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the throne withC. Its partisans claim it is the only language that is truly beautiful. Seelanguages of choice.
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs, gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing".
One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example that most newer languages, such asCOBOLandAda, are full of unnecessarycrocks. When theRight Thinghas already been done once, there is no justification forbogosityin newer languages.
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list-bomb
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lithium lick
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LISP
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list-bombv.
Tomailbombsomeone by forging messages causing the victim to become a subscriber to many mailing lists. This is a self-defeating tactic; it merely forces mailing list servers to require confirmation by return message for every subscription.
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lithium lick
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little-endian
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list-bomb
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lithium lickn.
[NeXT] Steve Jobs. Employees who have gotten too much attention from their esteemed founder are said to have `lithium lick' when they begin to show signs of Jobsian fervor and repeat the most recent catch phrases in normal conversation -- for example, "It just works, right out of the box!"
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little-endian
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live
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lithium lick
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little-endianadj.
Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian. Seebig-endian,middle-endian,NUXI problem. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than bytes; most often, bits within a byte.
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live
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live data
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little-endian
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live/li:v/ adj.,adv.
[common] Opposite of `test'. Refers to actual real-world data or a program working with it. For example, the response to "I think the record deleter is finished" might be "Is it live yet?" or "Have you tried it out on live data?" This usage usually carries the connotation that live data is more fragile and must not be corrupted, or bad things will happen. So a more appropriate response might be: "Well, make sure it works perfectly before we throw live data at it." The implication here is that record deletion is something pretty significant, and a haywire record-deleter running amok live would probably cause great harm.
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live data
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Live Free Or Die!
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live
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live datan.
1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For example, some smart terminals have commands that allow one to download strings to program keys; this can be used to write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a security-breakingvirusthat is triggered the next time a hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some well-known bugs invithat allow certain texts to send arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed. 2. In C code, data that includes pointers to functionhooks (executable code). 3. An object, such as atrampoline, that is constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed as code.
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Live Free Or Die!
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livelock
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live data
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Live Free Or Die!imp.
1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A slogan associated with Unix in the romantic days when Unix aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the windmills of industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from thefascistdesign philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on competing operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early Unix developers, used to give out fake license plates bearing this motto under a large Unix, all in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued collector's items. In 1994DECput an inferior imitation of these in circulation with a red corporate logo added. Compaq (half of which was once DEC) has continued the practice.
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livelock
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liveware
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Live Free Or Die!
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livelock/li:v'lok/ n.
A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue. Differs fromdeadlockin that the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.
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liveware
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lobotomy
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livelock
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liveware/li:v'weir/ n.
1. Synonym forwetware. Less common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my salad..."
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lobotomy
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locals the
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liveware
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lobotomyn.
1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of removing the processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it. Some very cheapclonesystems are sold in `lobotomized' form -- everything but the brain.
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locals the
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locked and loaded
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lobotomy
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locals, thepl.n.
The users on one's local network (as opposed, say, to people one reaches via public Internet or UUCP connects). The marked thing about this usage is how little it has to do with real-space distance. "I have to do some tweaking on this mail utility before releasing it to the locals."
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locked and loaded
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locked up
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locals the
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locked and loadedadj.,obs.
[from military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use -- that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because their heads are `loaded' whenever the power is up, this description is never used ofWinchesterdrives (which are named after a rifle).
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locked up
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logic bomb
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locked and loaded
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locked upadj.
Syn. forhung,wedged.
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logic bomb
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logical
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locked up
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logic bombn.
Code surreptitiously inserted into an application or OS that causes it to perform some destructive or security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are met. Compareback door.
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logical
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loop through
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logic bomb
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logicaladj.
[from the technical term `logical device', wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary `logical' name] Having the role of. If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the `logical' Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.) Comparevirtual.
At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate system in which `logical north' is toward San Francisco, `logical west' is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and physical west near San Jose. (The best rule of thumb here is that, by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-and-south.) In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco restaurant, get ontoEl Camino Bignumgoing logical north." Using the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in front of him. The concept is reinforced by North American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar situation exists at MIT: Route 128 (famous for the electronics industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and `counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and "south", respectively. A hacker might describe these directions as `logical north' and `logical south', to indicate that they are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual denotation for those words. (If you went logical south along the entire length of route 128, you would start out going northwest, curve around to the south, and finish headed due east, passing along one infamous stretch of pavement that is simultaneously route 128 south and Interstate 93 north, and is signed as such!)
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loop through
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loose bytes
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logical
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loop throughvt.
To process each element of a list of things. "Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail." Derives from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare `cdr down' (undercdr), which is less common among C and Unix programmers. ITS hackers used to say `IRP over' after an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler (the same IRP op can nowadays be found in Microsoft's assembler).
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loose bytes
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lord high fixer
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loop through
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loose bytesn.
Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes orshims many compilers insert between members of a record or structure to cope with alignment requirements imposed by the machine architecture.