WhatIs

/sā/

vt. 1. To type to a terminal.

"To list a directory verbosely, you have to say ls -l."

Tends to imply a newline-terminated command (a 'sentence').

2. A computer may also be said to 'say' things to you, even if it doesn't have a speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a terminal in response to your commands. Hackers find it odd that this usage confuses mundanes.

/sa-tər-dā nīt spe-shəl/

[from police slang for a cheap handgun]

n. A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a deadline, and in response to pressure from a salescritter. Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too often sneak into a production release after insufficient review.

/sa-nə-tē chek/

n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or anything else, e.g., a USENET posting) for completely stupid mistakes. Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it was written; e.g., if a piece of scientific software relied on a particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the formula, as a sanity check, before looking at the more complex I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the algorithm itself.

/san(d)-bäks/

n. (or 'sandbox, the') Common term for the R&D department at many software and computer companies (where hackers in commercial environments are likely to be found). Half-derisive, but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative play.

Compare playpen.

/sand ben-dər/

[IBM]

n. A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical design of chips.

Compare ironmonger, polygon pusher.

/sām dā sər-vəs/

n. Ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with respect to MS-DOS system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write programs that are not well-behaved.

See also PC-ism.

/sȯlt səb-strāt/

[MIT]

n. Collective noun used to refer to potato chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride. From the technical term chip substrate, used to refer to the silicon on the top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.

/sȯlt mīnz/

n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the end of the tunnel in N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine.

Compare playpen, sandbox.

/salz-mən/

v. To flood a mailing list or newsgroup with huge amounts of useless, trivial or redundant information. 

From the name of a hacker who has frequently done this on some widely distributed mailing lists.

/sālz-kri-tər /

n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke:

Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a computer salesman?
A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying.

This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the inclination to use them, they'd be in programming). The terms 'salesthing' and 'salesdroid' are also common.