WhatIs

/sȯf-tē/

[IBM]

n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.

/sȯft-wer-i(l)-lē/

adv. In a way pertaining to software.

"The system is softwarily unreliable."

The adjective softwary is not used.

See hardwarily.

/sȯft-wer rät/

n. Term used to describe the tendency of software that has not been used in a while to lose; such failure may be semi-humorously ascribed to bit rot. More commonly, 'software rot' strikes when a program's assumptions become out of date. If the design was insufficiently robust, this may cause it to fail in mysterious ways.

/sȯft-wer blōt/

n. The results of second-system effect or creeping featuritis. Commonly cited examples include 'ls(1)', X, BSD, Missed'em-five, and OS/2.

/sȯft-kä-pē/

n. [by analogy with hardcopy] A machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy.

See bits, machinable.

/sȯft büt/

n. See boot.

/sō-shəl sī-ən(t)s nəm-bər/

[IBM]

n. A statistic that is content-free, or nearly so. A measure derived via methods of questionable validity from data of a dubious and vague nature. Predictively, having a social science number in hand is seldom much better than nothing, and can be considerably worse. management loves them.

See also numbers, math-out, pretty pictures.

/S-O/

n. 1. (also S.O.) Abbrev. for Significant Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced /S-O/ by hackers. Used to refer to one's primary relationship, esp. a live-in to whom one is not married.

See MOTAS, MOTOS, MOTSS.

2. The Shift Out control character in ASCII (Control-N, 0001110).

/sni-vits/

n. A hiccup in hardware or software; a small, transient problem of unknown origin (less serious than a snark).

Compare glitch.

/snif/

v.,n. Synonym for poll.