Dictionaries & Language/Dictionaries and Language (Chestnut CD-ROM) (1993).iso/gloss/jargn298/jargon-v.txt

Text File | 1991-09-07 | 19.0 KB | 363 lines

= V =
=====

vadding: /vad'ing/ [from VAD, a permutation of ADV (i.e.,
   {ADVENT}), used to avoid a particular {admin}'s continual
   search-and-destroy sweeps for the game] n. A leisure-time activity
   of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the `secret'
   parts of large buildings --- basements, roofs, freight elevators,
   maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like.  A few go so
   far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesize vadding keys.
   The verb is `to vad' (compare {phreaking}).

   The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is `elevator
   rodeo', a.k.a. `elevator surfing', a sport played by wrasslin'
   down a thousand-pound elevator car with a 3-foot piece of
   string, and then exploiting this mastery in various stimulating
   ways (such as elevator hopping, shaft exploration, rat-racing, and
   the ever-popular drop experiments).  Kids, don't try this at home!
   See also {hobbit} (sense 2).

vanilla: [from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] adj.
   Ordinary {flavor}, standard.  When used of food, very often does
   not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract!  For
   example, `vanilla wonton soup' means ordinary wonton soup, as
   opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup.  Applied to hardware and
   software, as in "Vanilla Version 7 UNIX can't run on a
   vanilla 11/34."  Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for
   instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from
   a 74LS00, etc.  This word differs from {canonical} in that the
   latter means `default', whereas vanilla simply means `ordinary'.
   For example, when hackers go on a {great-wall}, hot-and-sour
   wonton soup is the {canonical} wonton soup to get (because that
   is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the
   vanilla wonton soup.

vannevar: /van'*-var/ n. A bogus technological prediction or
   a foredoomed engineering concept, esp. one that fails by
   implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly,
   incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the
   learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are
   common, and competition is the rule.  The prototype was Vannevar
   Bush's prediction of `electronic brains' the size of the Empire
   State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for
   their tubes and relays, made at a time when the semiconductor effect had
   already been demonstrated.  Other famous vannevars have included
   magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines, {videotex}, and a paper from
   the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal
   density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities
   of 5 years later.

vaporware: /vay'pr-weir/ n. Products announced far in advance of
   any release (which may or may not actually take place).

var: /veir/ or /var/ n. Short for `variable'.  Compare {arg},
   {param}.

VAX: /vaks/ n. 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most
   successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly
   excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11.  Between its release
   in 1978 and its eclipse by {killer micro}s after about 1986, the VAX
   was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all, esp.
   after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD UNIX (see {BSD}).  Esp.
   noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set
   --- an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution.
   2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain.  Cited here because
   its alleged sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a
   sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans.  Ironically, the slogan was
   *not* actually used by the Vax vacuum-cleaner people, but was
   actually that of a rival brand called Electrolux (as in "Nothing
   sucks like an...").  It is claimed, however, that DEC actually
   entered a cross-licensing deal with the vacuum-Vax people that
   allowed them to market VAX computers in the U.K. in return for not
   challenging the vacuum cleaner trademark in the U.S.

VAXectomy: /vak-sek't*-mee/ [by analogy with `vasectomy'] n. A
   VAX removal.  DEC's Microvaxen, especially, are much slower than
   newer RISC-based workstations such as the SPARC.  Thus, if one knows
   one has a replacement coming, VAX removal can be cause for
   celebration.

VAXen: /vak'sn/ [from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] n.
   (alt. `vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for the
   DEC VAX computers.  "Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty
   vaxen."  See {boxen}.

vaxherd: n. /vaks'herd/ [from `oxherd'] A VAX operator.

vaxism: /vak'sizm/ n. A piece of code that exhibits
   {vaxocentrism} in critical areas.  Compare {PC-ism},
   {unixism}.

vaxocentrism: /vak`soh-sen'trizm/ [analogy with
   `ethnocentrism'] n. A notional disease said to afflict
   C programmers who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are
   valid (esp. under UNIX) on {VAXen} but false elsewhere. Among
   these are:

  1.    The assumption that dereferencing a null pointer is safe because it
        is all bits 0, and location 0 is readable and 0.  Problem: this may
        instead cause an illegal-address trap on non-VAXen, and even on
        VAXen under OSes other than BSD UNIX.  Usually this is an implicit
        assumption of sloppy code (forgetting to check the pointer before
        using it), rather than deliberate exploitation of a
        misfeature.)

  2.    The assumption that characters are signed.

  3.    The assumption that a pointer to any one type can freely be cast
        into a pointer to any other type.  A stronger form of this is the
        assumption that all pointers are the same size and format, which
        means you don't have to worry about getting the types correct in
        calls.  Problem: this fails on word-oriented machines or others with
        multiple pointer formats.

  4.    The assumption that the parameters of a routine are stored in
        memory, contiguously, and in strictly ascending or descending order.
        Problem: this fails on many RISC architectures.

  5.    The assumption that pointer and integer types are the same size,
        and that pointers can be stuffed into integer variables (and
        vice-versa) and drawn back out without being truncated or mangled.
        Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or word-oriented
        machines with funny pointer formats.

  6.    The assumption that a data type of any size may begin at any byte
        address in memory (for example, that you can freely construct and
        dereference a pointer to a word- or greater-sized object at an odd
        char address).  Problem: this fails on many (esp. RISC)
        architectures better optimized for {HLL} execution speed, and
        can cause an illegal address fault or bus error.

  7.    The (related) assumption that there is no padding at the end of
        types and that in an array you can thus step right from the last
        byte of a previous component to the first byte of the next one.
        This is not only machine- but compiler-dependent.

  8.    The assumption that memory address space is globally flat and that
        the array reference `foo[-1]' is necessarily valid.  Problem:
        this fails at 0, or other places on segment-addressed machines like
        Intel chips (yes, segmentation is universally considered a
        {brain-damaged} way to design machines (see {moby}), but that
        is a separate issue).

  9.    The assumption that objects can be arbitrarily large with no
        special considerations.  Problem: this fails on segmented
        architectures and under non-virtual-addressing environments.

 10.    The assumption that the stack can be as large as memory.  Problem:
        this fails on segmented architectures or almost anything else without
        virtual addressing and a paged stack.

 11.    The assumption that bits and addressable units within an object
        are ordered in the same way and that this order is a constant of
        nature.  Problem: this fails on {big-endian} machines.

 12.    The assumption that it is meaningful to compare pointers to
        different objects not located within the same array, or to objects
        of different types.  Problem: the former fails on segmented
        architectures, the latter on word-oriented machines or others with
        multiple pointer formats.

 13.    The assumption that an `int' is 32 bits, or (nearly
        equivalently) the assumption that `sizeof(int) ==
        sizeof(long)'.  Problem: this fails on 286-based systems and even
        on 386 and 68000 systems under some compilers.

 14.    The assumption that `argv[]' is writable.  Problem: this fails in
        some embedded-systems C environments.

   Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism
   even if he or she has never seen a VAX.  Some of these assumptions
   (esp. 2--5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and
   became endemic years before the VAX.  The terms `vaxocentricity'
   and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.

vdiff: /vee'dif/ v.,n. Visual diff.  The operation of finding
   differences between two files by {eyeball search}.  The term
   `optical diff' has also been reported.  See {diff}.

veeblefester: /vee'b*l-fes`tr/ [from the "Born Loser"
   comix via Commodore; prob. originally from `Mad' Magazine's
   `Veeblefeetzer' parodies ca. 1960] n. Any obnoxious person engaged
   in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management.  Antonym of
   {hacker}.  Compare {suit}, {marketroid}.

Venus flytrap: [after the insect-eating plant] n. See {firewall
   machine}.

verbage: /ver'b*j/ n. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of
   {verbiage} that assimilates it to the word `garbage'.  Compare
   {content-free}.  More pejorative than `verbiage'.

verbiage: n. When the context involves a software or hardware
   system, this refers to {{documentation}}.  This term borrows the
   connotations of mainstream `verbiage' to suggest that the
   documentation is of marginal utility and that the motives behind
   its production have little to do with the ostensible subject.

Version 7: alt. V7 /vee' se'vn/ n. The 1978 unsupported release of
   {{UNIX}} ancestral to all current commercial versions.  Before
   the release of the POSIX/SVID standards, V7's features were often
   treated as a UNIX portability baseline.  See {BSD}, {USG UNIX},
   {{UNIX}}.  Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and
   kernel bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True UNIX.

vgrep: /vee'grep/ v.,n. Visual grep.  The operation of finding
   patterns in a file optically rather than digitally.  See {grep};
   compare {vdiff}.

vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from
   `Visual Interface'] n. A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy
   for an early {BSD} version.  Became the de facto standard UNIX
   editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite until the rise of
   {EMACS} after about 1984.  Tends to frustrate new users no end,
   as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor
   vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which
   mode one is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has
   often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/).  Nevertheless it
   is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 USENET
   poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a
   mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up
   faster than bulky EMACS).  See {holy wars}.

videotex: n. obs. An electronic service offering people the
   privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens
   instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they
   brush their teeth.  The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't
   government-subsidized, because by the time videotex was practical
   the installed base of personal computers could hook up to
   timesharing services and do the things for which videotex might
   have been worthwhile better and cheaper.  Videotex planners badly
   overestimated both the appeal of getting information from a
   computer and the cost of local intelligence at the user's end.
   Like the {gorilla arm} effect, this has been a cautionary tale
   to hackers ever since.  See also {vannevar}.

virgin: adj. Unused; pristine; in a known initial state.  "Let's
   bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again."  (Esp.
   useful after contracting a {virus} through {SEX}.)  Also, by
   extension, buffers and the like within a program that have not yet
   been used.

virtual: [via the technical term `virtual memory', prob. from the
   term `virtual image' in optics] adj. 1. Common alternative to
   {logical}.  2. Simulated; performing the functions of something
   that isn't really there.  An imaginative child's doll may be a
   virtual playmate.

virtual Friday: n. The last day before an extended weekend, if
   that day is not a `real' Friday.  For example, the U.S. holiday
   Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.  The next day is often also
   a holiday or taken as an extra day off, in which case Wednesday of
   that week is a virtual Friday (and Thursday is a virtual Saturday,
   as is Friday).  There are also `virtual Mondays' that are
   actually Tuesdays, after the three-day weekends associated with many
   national holidays in the U.S.

virtual reality: n. 1. Computer simulations that use 3-D graphics
   and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to interact
   with the simulation.  See {cyberspace}.  2. A form of network
   interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games,
   interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and `true confessions'
   magazines.  In a virtual reality forum (such as USENET's
   alt.callahans newsgroup or the {MUD} experiments on Internet),
   interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel
   complete with scenery, `foreground characters' that may be
   personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common
   `background characters' manipulable by all parties.  The one
   iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a
   character without the consent of the person who `owns' it.
   Otherwise anything goes.  See {bamf}, {cyberspace}.

virus: [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF]
   n. A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects'
   them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become
   {Trojan Horse}s.  When these programs are executed, the embedded
   virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'.  This
   normally happens invisibly to the user.  Unlike a {worm}, a
   virus cannot infect other computers without assistance.  It is
   propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their
   friends (see {SEX}).  The virus may do nothing but propagate
   itself and then allow the program to run normally.  Usually,
   however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing
   things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing
   strange tricks with your display (some viruses include nice
   {display hack}s).  Many nasty viruses, written by particularly
   perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like
   nuking all the user's files.

   In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially
   among IBM PC and Macintosh users (the lack of security on these
   machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the
   operating system).  The production of special anti-virus software
   has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports
   have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many
   {luser}s tend to blame *everything* that doesn't work as
   they had expected on virus attacks.  Accordingly, this sense of
   `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular
   usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or
   even a {Trojan horse}).  Compare {back door}; see also
   {UNIX conspiracy}.

visionary: n. 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an
   Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of
   getting computers to `see' things using TV cameras.  (There isn't
   any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer.
   The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of
   the camera information?  See {SMOP}, {AI-complete}.)  2. [IBM]
   One who reads the outside literature.  At IBM, apparently, such a
   penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.

VMS: /V-M-S/ n. DEC's proprietary operating system for its VAX
   minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom largest
   in hacker folklore.  Many UNIX fans generously concede that VMS
   would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if UNIX
   didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.  One major
   hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness --- thus the following
   limerick:

        There once was a system called VMS
        Of cycles by no means abstemious.
             It's chock-full of hacks
             And runs on a VAX
        And makes my poor stomach all squeamious.
                                         --- The Great Quux

   See also {VAX}, {{TOPS-10}}, {{TOPS-20}}, {{UNIX}}, {runic}.

voice: vt. To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or
   connecting in talk mode.  "I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."

voice-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the telephone system,
   analogizing it to a digital network.  USENET {sig block}s not
   uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or
   "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and
   "V-Net".  Compare {paper-net}, {snail-mail}.

voodoo programming: [from George Bush's "voodoo economics"] n.
   The use by guess or cookbook of an {obscure} or {hairy} system,
   feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand.  The
   implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't,
   one will never know why.  Almost synonymous with {black magic},
   except that black magic typically isn't documented and
   *nobody* understands it.  Compare {magic}, {deep magic},
   {heavy wizardry}, {rain dance}, {cargo cult programming},
   {wave a dead chicken}.

VR: // [MUD] n. On-line abbrev for {virtual reality}, as
   opposed to {RL}.

Vulcan nerve pinch: n. [from the old "Star Trek" TV series via
   Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a
   soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a
   feature).  On many micros this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on
   some Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch>!  Also called
   {three-finger salute}.  Compare {quadruple bucky}.

vulture capitalist: n. Pejorative hackerism for `venture
   capitalist', deriving from the common practice of pushing contracts
   that deprive inventors of control over their own innovations and
   most of the money they ought to have made from them.