Jargon File

Jargon File

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engine n. 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be used without some kind of front end.
Today we have, especially, `print engine': the guts of a laser printer....
English 1. n. obs. The source code for a program, which may be in any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced from it by a compiler.
The idea behind the term is th...
enhancement n. Common marketroid-speak for a bug fix.
This abuse of language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence into increased revenue....
ENQ /enkw/ or /enk/ [from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for 0000101] An on-line convention for querying someone's availability.
After opening a talk mode connection to someone apparently i...
EOF /E-O-F/ n. [abbreviation, `End Of File'] 1.
EOL /E-O-L/ n. [End Of Line] Syn. for newline, derived perhaps from the original CDC6600 Pascal.
Now rare, but widely recognized and occasionally used for brevity. Used in the example e...
EOU /E-O-U/ n. The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control character (End Of User) that would make an ASR-33 Teletype explode on receipt.
This construction parodies the numerous obscure deli...
epoch n. [Unix: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] The time and date corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp values.
Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 ...
epsilon [see delta] 1. n. A small quantity of anything.
The cost is epsilon." 2. adj. Very small, negligible...
epsilon squared n. A quantity even smaller than epsilon, as small in comparison to epsilon as epsilon is to something normal
completely negligible. If you buy a supercomputer for a milli...

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