[Unix] 1. imp. Abbreviation for `Read The
Fucking Source'. Variant form of RTFM, used when the problem
at hand is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the
manuals -- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will
be. For even trickier situations, see RTFB. Unlike RTFM, the
anger inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking
the question, but rather at the people who failed to provide
adequate documentation. 2. imp. `Read The Fucking Standard'; this
oath can only be used when the problem area (e.g., a language or
operating system interface) has actually been codified in a
ratified standards document. The existence of these standards
documents (and the technically inappropriate but politically
mandated compromises that they inevitably contain, and the
impenetrable legalese in which they are invariably written,
and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are
produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain
amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems they use.
(Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long as the
Right Thing to do is obvious to any thinking observer; sadly,
this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable when
a system becomes popular in the Real World.) Since a hacker
is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and
technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be
directed as much against the standard as against the person who
ought to read it.
