WhatIs

/vər-jən/

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.

/vi-dē-ō-teks/

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.

/V-I/, *not* /vi/ and *never* /siks/

[from Visual Interface]

/vē-grep/

v.,n. Visual grep. The operation of finding patterns in a file optically rather than digitally.

See grep; compare vdiff.

/vər-zhən se-vən/

v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered.

2. To repeatedly call or check with someone:
"I keep polling him, but he's not answering his phone; he must be swapped out."

3. To ask.
"Lunch? I poll for a takeout order daily."

/vər-bē-ij/

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.

/vər-bij/

n. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of verbiage that assimilates it to the word 'garbage'.

Compare content-free. More pejorative than 'verbiage'.

/vē-nəs flī-trap/

[after the insect-eating plant]

n. See firewall machine.

/vē-bəl-fe-stər/

[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.

/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.