Jargon File

Jargon File

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waldo /wol'doh/ n. [From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"] 1.
A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb....
walk n.,vt. Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or linked-list data structure in core.
See also codewalker, silly walk, clobbe...
walk off the end of vt. To run past the end of an array, list, or medium after stepping through it -- a good way to land in trouble.
Often the result of an off-by-one error. Compare clob...
walking drives n. An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky washing machines.
Those old dinosaur parts carried terrific angular mome...
wall interj. [WPI] 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone
Wall??" 2. A request for further explication....
wall follower n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past.
wall time n. (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world' time (what the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea of time.
2. The real running time of a program, as opp...
wall wart n. A small power-supply brick with integral male plug, designed to plug directly into a wall outle
called a `wart' because when installed on a power strip it tends to block up ...
wallpaper n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g.
assembly listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session....
wango /wang'goh/ n. Random bit-level grovelling going on in a system during some unspecified operation.
Often used in combination with mumble. For example: "You start with the `.o' file...

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