WhatIs

/feech feech/

interj. If someone tells you about some new improvement to a program, you might respond: "Feetch, feetch!" The meaning of this depends critically on vocal inflection. With enthusiasm, it means something like "Boy, that's great! What a great hack!" Grudgingly or with obvious doubt, it means "I don't know; it sounds like just one more unnecessary and complicated thing". With a tone of resignation, it means, "Well, I'd rather keep it simple, but I suppose it has to be done".

/fee'ping kree'ch*r-izm/

n. A deliberate spoonerism for creeping featurism, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. This term isn't really well defined, but it sounds so neat that most hackers have said or heard it. It is probably reinforced by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their customary noises.

/fē-piŋ krē-chər/

[from feeping creaturism]

n. An unnecessary feature; a bit of chrome that, in the speaker's judgment, is the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.

/fee'pr/

n. The device in a terminal or workstation (usually a loudspeaker of some kind) that makes the feep sound.

/feep/

1. n. The soft electronic 'bell' sound of a display terminal (except for a VT-52); a beep (in fact, the microcomputer world seems to prefer beep).

/fee'ch*r-ek't*-mee/

n. The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavors, the 'righteous' and the 'reluctant'. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and better way to achieve the same end. (This is not quite the same thing as removing a misfeature.) Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed.

/fē-chər shäk/

[from Alvin Toffler's book title Future Shock]

n. A user's (or programmer's!) confusion when confronted with a package that has too many features and poor introductory material.

/fē-chər krē-chər/

[poss. fr. slang 'creature feature' for a horror movie]

n. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, or taste.

See also feeping creaturism, creeping featurism.

/fē-chər/

n. 1. A good property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it was intended or not is immaterial.

2. An intended property or behavior (as of a program). Whether it is good or not is immaterial (but if bad, it is also a misfeature).

/fir ən(d) lō-t͟hiŋ/

[from Hunter Thompson]

n. A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous -- Intel 8086s, or COBOL, or EBCDIC or any IBM machine except the Rios (a.k.a. the RS/6000).

"ACK! They want PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and loathing time!"