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tourist information
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touristic
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tourist
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tourist informationn.
Information in an on-line display that is not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewer's gestalt of what's going on with the software or hardware behind it. Whether a given piece of info falls in this category depends partly on what the user is looking for at any given time. The `bytes free' information at the bottom of an MS-DOSdirdisplay is tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information in a Unixps(1)display.
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touristic
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toy
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tourist information
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touristicadj.
Having the quality of atourist. Often used as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum'. Often spelled `turistic' or `turistik', so that phrase might be more properly rendered `lusing turistic scum'.
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toy
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toy language
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touristic
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toyn.
A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking style adequately. 2. `just a toy': A machine that yields insufficientcomputrons for the speaker's preferred uses. This is not condemnatory, as isbitty box; toys can at least be fun. It is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy', and certainly all RISC boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See alsoGet a real computer!.
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toy language
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toy problem
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toy
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toy languagen.
A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose programming.Bad Things can result when a toy language is promoted as a general purpose solution for programming (seebondage-and-discipline language); the classic example isPascal. Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense. See alsoMFTL.
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toy problem
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toy program
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toy language
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toy problemn.
[AI] A deliberately oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See alsogedanken,toy program.
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toy program
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trampoline
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toy problem
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toy programn.
1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a trivial program (comparenoddy). 2. One for which the effort of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle. See alsonoddy.
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trampoline
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trap
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toy program
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trampolinen.
An incrediblyhairytechnique, found in someHLLand program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection between code sections. Under BSD and possibly in other Unixes, trampoline code is used to transfer control from the kernel back to user mode when a signal (which has had a handler installed) is sent to a process. hese pieces oflive dataare called `trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true trampoline. See alsosnap.
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trap
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trap door
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trap
1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program. 2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the monitor." Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."
This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt' or `exception' is more common amongHLLprogrammers) and appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to computer architects and systems hackers (seesystem, sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).
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trap door
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trash
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trap doorn.
(alt. `trapdoor') 1. Syn.back door-- aBad Thing. 2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of. Such functions areGood Things with important applications in cryptography, specifically in the construction of public-key cryptosystems.
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trash
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trawl
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trashvt.
To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms includingmung,mangle, andscribble.
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trawl
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tree-killer
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trash
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trawlv.
To sift through large volumes of data (e.g., Usenet postings, FTP archives, or the Jargon File) looking for something of interest.
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tree-killer
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treeware
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trawl
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tree-killern.
[Sun] 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper. This epithet should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper' includes the production ofspiffybutcontent-freedocuments. Thus, mostsuits are tree-killers. The negative loading of this term may reflect the epithet `tree-killer' applied by Treebeard the Ent to the Orcs in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (see alsoelvish,elder days).
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treeware
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trit
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tree-killer
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treeware/tree'weir/ n.
Printouts, books, and other information media made from pulped dead trees. Comparetree-killer, seedocumentation.
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trit
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trivial
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treeware
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trit/trit/ n.
[by analogy with `bit'] One base-3 digit; the amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three equally likely outcomes (see alsobit). Trits arise, for example, in the context of aflagthat should actually be able to assumethreevalues -- such as yes, no, or unknown. Trits are sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits'. A trit may be semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half', although it is linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is, log2(3) bits).
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trivial
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trivialadj.
1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not worth the speaker's time. 3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known that anyone not utterlycretinouswould have thought of them already. 4. Any problem one has already solved (some claim that hackish `trivial' usually evaluates to `I've seen it before'). Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those of non-hackers. Seenontrivial,uninteresting.
The physicist Richard Feynman, who had the hacker nature to an amazing degree (see his essay "Los Alamos From Below" in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"), defined `trivial theorem' as "one that has already been proved".
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troff
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troff/T'rof/ or /trof/ n.
[Unix] The gray eminence of Unix text processing; a formatting and phototypesetting program, written originally in PDP-11 assembler and then in barely-structured early C by the late Joseph Ossanna, modeled after the earlier ROFF which was in turn modeled after theMulticsandCTSSprogram RUNOFF by Jerome Saltzer (thatname came from the expression "to run off a copy"). A companion program,nroff, formats output for terminals and line printers.
In 1979, Brian Kernighan modified troff so that it could drive phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT. His paper describing that work ("A Typesetter-independent troff," AT&T CSTR #97) explains troff's durability. After discussing the program's "obvious deficiencies -- a rebarbative input syntax, mysterious and undocumented properties in some areas, and a voracious appetite for computer resources" and noting the ugliness and extreme hairiness of the code and internals, Kernighan concludes:
None of these remarks should be taken as denigrating Ossanna's accomplishment with TROFF. It has proven a remarkably robust tool, taking unbelievable abuse from a variety of preprocessors and being forced into uses that were never conceived of in the original design, all with considerable grace under fire.
The success ofTeXand desktop publishing systems have reducedtroff's relative importance, but this tribute perfectly captures the strengths that securedtroffa place in hacker folklore; indeed, it could be taken more generally as an indication of those qualities of good programs that, in the long run, hackers most admire.
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troglodyte
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troglodyten.
[Commodore] 1. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle. The term `gnoll' (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination `ITS troglodyte' was flung around some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with pride.
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troglodyte mode
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troglodyte moden.
[Rice University] Programming with the lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black on white) because you've been up for so many days straight that your eyes hurt (seeraster burn). Loud music blaring from a stereo stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. Seelarval stage,hack mode.
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Trojan horse
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troll
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Trojan horsen.
[coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards] A malicious, security-breaking program that is disguised as something benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a program to find and destroy viruses! Seeback door,virus,worm,phage,mockingbird.
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troll
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Troll-O-Meter
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trollv.,n.
1. [From the Usenet groupalt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting onUsenetdesigned to attract predictable responses orflames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling fornewbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See alsoYHBT. 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." 3. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.
Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category thanflame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See alsoTroll-O-Meter.
The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.
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Troll-O-Meter
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tron
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Troll-O-Metern.
Common Usenet jargon for a notional instrument used to measure the quality of a Usenettroll. "Come on, everyone! If the above doesn't set off the Troll-O-Meter, we're going to have to get him to run around with a big blinking sign saying `I am a troll, I'm only in it for the controversy and flames' and shooting random gobs of Jell-O(tm) at us before the point is proven." Mentions of the Troll-O-Meter are often accompanied by an ASCII picture of an arrow pointing at a numeric scale. Comparebogometer.
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tron
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tronv.
[NRL, CMU; prob. fr. the movie "Tron"] To become inaccessible except via email ortalk(1), especially when one is normally available via telephone or in person. Frequently used in the past tense, as in: "Ran seems to have tronned on us this week" or "Gee, Ran, glad you were able to un-tron yourself". One may also speak of `tron mode'; comparespod.
Note that many dialects of BASIC have a TRON/TROFF command pair that enables/disables line number tracing; this has no obvious relationship to the slang usage.
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true-hacker
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tty
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true-hackern.
[analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week -- manifestly the act of a true-hacker." Comparedemigod, opposemunchkin.
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tty
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tube
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tty/T-T-Y/, /tit'ee/ n.
The latter pronunciation was primarily ITS, but some Unix people say it this way as well; this pronunciation isnotconsidered to have sexual undertones. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety, characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited character set, and poor print quality. Usage: antiquated (like the TTYs themselves). See alsobit-paired keyboard. 2. [especially Unix] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a given job. 3. [Unix] Any serial port, whether or not the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because under Unix such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome.
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tube
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tube time
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tty
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tube
1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckler movie. 2. [IBM] To send a copy of something to someone else's terminal. "Tube me that note?"