Jargon File

Jargon File

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card walloper n. An EDP programmer who grinds out batch programs that do stupid things like print people's paychecks.
Compare code grinder. See also punched card, eighty-column mind....
careware /keir'weir/ n.
cargo cult programming n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose.
A cargo cult programmer will usually...
cascade n. 1. A huge volume of spurious error-message output produced by a compiler with poor error recovery.
Too frequently, one trivial syntax error (such as a missing `)' or `}') throw...
case and paste n. [from `cut and paste'] 1. The addition of a new feature to an existing system by selecting the code from an existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes.
Commo...
casters-up mode n. [IBM, prob. fr. slang belly up] Yet another synonym for `broken' or `down'.
Usually connotes a major failure....
casting the runes n. What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never works for anyone else
esp. used when nobody can ever see what the...
cat [from `catenate' via Unix cat(1)] vt. 1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other output sink without pause.
2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an u...
catatonic adj. Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is so wedged or hung that it makes no response.
If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer do...
cathedral n.,adj. [see bazaar for derivation] The `classical' mode of software engineering long thought to be necessarily implied by Brooks's Law.
Features small teams, tight project co...

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