phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au (Phil Kernick) (12/17/90)
More stuff for the jargon file from over in Australia...
-
FARMING v. The process of ploughing up the magnetic media of a fixed
disk drive by the mechanism of an interference fit between the
head and the platter. Associated with a CRASH. Typically used as
follows: "Oh no, the machine has just CRASHed again, I hope the
hard drive hasn't gone FARMING again." Occured with remarkable
frequency on a MicroVax.
FISH n. Another metasyntactic variable. See FOO. Derived initially
from the Monty-Python skit in the middle of "The Meaning of Life",
entitled "Find the fish".
CHERNOBYL CHICKEN n. Common oriental food known to the masses as
"Lemon chicken". Consumed in great quantities on Wednesday nights
as this was "Chinese night" (as diffent from pizza night, yiros
night etc). The name is derived from the colour of the food, that
is believed to be so bright that it will glow in the dark, much
like some of the fabled inhabitants of Chernobyl.
--
/// Phil Kernick EMail: phil@adam.adelaide.edu.au
/// Departmental Engineer Phone: +618 228 5914
\\\/// Dept. of Psychology Fax: +618 224 0464
\/// University of Adelaide Mail: GPO Box 498 Adelaide SA 5001cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy) (12/18/90)
In <1Yp1c0#8JTdOl0rXhNp21lzZf1Js8Lk=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>, and some previous messages that I didn't see, Eric S. Raymond asserts that "all the ITS partisans have now become Unix partisans, since the Unix philosophy is the same as the ITS philosophy", and discusses his new edition of our old jargon file. This topic came up again recently among a bunch of old ITS hackers, and I thought I'd send a message to sort of correct the record. In fact, most of the "ITS partisans" are really unhappy, discouraged, and severely disapproving of this effort to re-write the jargon file. Also, we are definitely not "Unix partisans". It's unfortunate that one of the side-effects of not taking steps to protect this material is that people can steal it and use it misrepresent us, but who would have guessed? Eric Raymond probably isn't doing this out of malice; I'm sure he just doesn't understand what the jargon file was really all about. The rest of us are a little baffled at Guy Steele's cooperation with him. For further insight into the whole affair, you should probably just look up "LOSER" in the original dictionary. I certainly don't want to get into a typical protracted net.discussion here about this whole sad mess; I just wanted the record to include what seems to be popular opinion of most of the old crowd who are aware of the effort.
mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (12/18/90)
In article <CSTACY.90Dec17151739@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy) writes: > In <1Yp1c0#8JTdOl0rXhNp21lzZf1Js8Lk=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>, and some previous > messages that I didn't see, Eric S. Raymond asserts that "all the ITS > partisans have now become Unix partisans, since the Unix philosophy is > the same as the ITS philosophy", and discusses his new edition > of our old jargon file. > >This topic came up again recently among a bunch of old ITS hackers, >and I thought I'd send a message to sort of correct the record. >In fact, most of the "ITS partisans" are really unhappy, discouraged, and >severely disapproving of this effort to re-write the jargon file. >Also, we are definitely not "Unix partisans". > >The rest of us are a little baffled at Guy Steele's cooperation >with him. Chris, I had an e-mail discussion with Guy about this very topic a while ago. He is not participating in the Usenet discussion for a reason; he suggested to me that I should ignore alt.folklore.computers too. What he had to say ameliorated my unhappiness somewhat. In fairness, we have to admit that we took and ran away with RF's original lexicon in much the same way as Eric has done so with ours. In a sense, we are the "establishment" and Eric is the Young Turk shaking things up... I have accepted Guy's statement that the other collaborators (Don, RF, RMS, Geoff, and I) will be consulted prior to any steps being taken to publish the finished product of Eric's efforts. I intend to take a major role in editing at that time. I intend, at that time, to insist upon folding the lexicon into a single section, restoring deleted text, and amending text that is obviously wrong (e.g. the allegations of the death of TECO). I also have a great many notations marked up in an older copy of Eric's document; there's a incorrect philologicial reference from very early days, new and commonly-used hacker jargon that Eric totally missed, etc. I don't intend to delete anything, although I question the inclusion of "BNF" and certain proprietary names such as "Church of the Sub-Genius" (which probably can't be used in a published text -- Lucas wouldn't allow us to use MTFBWY). But I do intend to correct a number of high-handed judgemental notions of what is "obsolete". I hope that my efforts will show sensitivity to all the various communities. I believe that, for scholarship reasons, it is probably a good idea to go to greater lengths to indicate usage and/or community for a particular term. Terms with are obviously closely tied to Unix, VAX, IBM, PDP-10, etc. should be labelled as such. My idea is that it should be possible to extract an "X-specific" lexicon for various values of X by use of some tool from the main file, as well as the unabridged lexicon. My proposal is that for now we let Eric go ahead and wait until he declares himself done. Then, those of us who've been giving him a hard time should be prepared to roll up their sleeves and put in some *serious* work. _____ | ____ ___|___ /__ Mark ("Gaijin") Crispin "Gaijin! Gaijin!" _|_|_ -|- || __|__ / / R90/6 pilot, DoD #0105 "Gaijin ha doko?" |_|_|_| |\-++- |===| / / Atheist & Proud "Niichan ha gaijin." --|-- /| |||| |___| /\ (206) 842-2385/543-5762 "Chigau. Omae ha gaijin." /|\ | |/\| _______ / \ FAX: (206) 543-3909 "Iie, boku ha nihonjin." / | \ | |__| / \ / \MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU "Souka. Yappari gaijin!" Hee, dakedo UNIX nanka wo tsukatte, umaku ikanaku temo shiranai yo.
zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Patrick Tufts) (12/18/90)
In article <13187@milton.u.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
I have accepted Guy's statement that the other collaborators (Don, RF,
RMS, Geoff, and I) will be consulted prior to any steps being taken to
Aha. The Jargon Cabal!
I intend, at that time, to insist upon folding the lexicon into a
single section, restoring deleted text, and amending text that is
obviously wrong (e.g. the allegations of the death of TECO). I also
Where *is* TECO alive?
--Pateric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) (12/19/90)
In <phil.661407028@adam.adelaide.edu.au> Phil Kernick wrote:
> More stuff for the jargon file from over in Australia...
Please, *don't post this stuff*!
Email it to me.
If the entire universe starts cross-posting jargon file entries to
multiple group, a lot of people will get righteously annoyed.
I don't need the hassle. You don't need the hassle. The net doesn't
need the extra volume.
EMAIL YOUR ENTRIES TO jargon@snark.thyrsus.com!!!
--
Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) (12/19/90)
In <CSTACY.90Dec17151739@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> Christopher C. Stacy wrote: > Eric S. Raymond asserts that "all the ITS > partisans have now become Unix partisans, since the Unix philosophy is > the same as the ITS philosophy", and discusses his new edition > of our old jargon file. I never claimed that the UNIX philosophy is "the same" as ITS's. > In fact, most of the "ITS partisans" are really unhappy, discouraged, and > severely disapproving of this effort to re-write the jargon file. I've received critical email from two ex-ITS people. I've also received entries, help, and encouragement from at least six others. Not to mention five of the six First Edition authors. The sixth, mrc, is unhappy about some editing decisions I've made but hasn't questioned that the job needs doing. On the evidence available to me, you speak for a minority which includes none of the principal authors of the file. > Also, we are definitely not "Unix partisans". I have been corrected on this in email. I naively thought that because MIT had gone with UNIX and most of the ex-ITSers I know are hacking UNIX these days the ex-ITS crowd could be fairly said to `prefer' UNIX. As it turns out, a lot of ex-ITSers would rather worship the ghosts of departed operating systems and bitch about UNIX rather than implement something they like. I think this is very sad. > It's unfortunate that one of the side-effects of not taking steps to protect > this material is that people can steal it and use it misrepresent us, but > who would have guessed? I am doing my very damnedest not to misrepresent anybody; the First Edition authors (with whom I regularly discuss my editorial choices) can testify to this. Any ITSer who thinks he's being `misrepresented' by anything in the file is welcome to submit *specific changes* to correct the errors. Bellyaching at me about `philosophy' doesn't help any party unless you're willing to get specific about what you don't like. I am not an autocratic editor, as any number of people who've sent me changes can testify. I'll either merge in the change or explain why I didn't. If after that you still disagree, I'm willing to debate matters in the open. As for `stealing', this is unfair and insulting. You don't own JARGON.TXT and I don't claim to. If anyone has proprietary rights on any of this material it's Guy Steele via the 1983 paper addition, and he emailed the ms of that book to *me* to use as I saw fit. > Eric Raymond probably isn't doing this out of > malice; I'm sure he just doesn't understand what the jargon file was really > all about. I'm sure I don't understand *your* theory of what it was all about. Your implied claim to authority on the subject is shaky at best. > The rest of us are a little baffled at Guy Steele's cooperation > with him. Why don't you *ask* him, then? Here's a clue, closed-captioned for the thinking-impaired: Maybe Guy Steele and I agree that the ITS culture had something valuable to transmit to latter-day hackerdom. Maybe we agree that it's worthwhile that that tradition not be lost, that it add its own flavor to the UNIX-dominated hackerdom of today. Maybe I still believe that. Maybe I'm beginning to doubt it now... Followups to alt.folklore.computers ONLY. -- Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
ph@sparc3.ama.caltech.edu (Paul Hardy) (12/20/90)
Where *is* TECO alive?
--Pat
Where *isn't* TECO alive?! The CS department at Brandeis has Vaxen running
VMS; just type edit/teco on any of them.
--Paulrich@boreas.whoi.edu (12/21/90)
In article <PH.90Dec19193830@sparc3.ama.caltech.edu> ph@sparc3.ama.caltech.edu (Paul Hardy) writes: > > Where *is* TECO alive? > > --Pat > > >Where *isn't* TECO alive?! The CS department at Brandeis has Vaxen running >VMS; just type edit/teco on any of them. > > --Paul And of *course*, thousands of people do this every day... TECO: I always thought the idea of computers was to make life easier, not harder. -- Rich Pawlowicz ----------------- INTERNET: rich@boreas.whoi.edu Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute "Home of one or two herbivorous copepods" --------------------------------------------------------------
tlglenn@cs.arizona.edu (Ted L. Glenn) (03/30/91)
I have one question. What is JARGON?
--
-Ted L. Glenn "Don't worry, be happy!" <--Ack! Pffffhhht!
tlglenn@cs.arizona.edu
G19382105@ccit.arizona.edu G19382105@ARIZRVAX.BITNETwill@rins.ryukoku.ac.jp (will) (04/01/91)
All the prescious "BAND WIDTH" taken up by all those concerned people on the subject, Just for the arguments for or against it. Will flame flame flame flame, baa hum-bug, get my fire extinguisher.