WhatIs

/E-O-L/

[End Of Line]

n. Syn. for newline, derived perhaps from the original CDC6600 Pascal. Now rare, but widely recognized and occasionally used for brevity. Used in the example entry under BNF.

See also EOF.

/E-O-F/

[acronym, 'End Of File']

n. 1. [techspeak] Refers esp. to whatever out-of-band value is returned by C's sequential character-input functions (and their equivalents in other environments) when end of file has been reached. This value is -1 under C libraries postdating V6 UNIX, but was originally 0.

2. Used by extension in non-computer contexts when a human is doing something that can be modeled as a sequential read and can't go further.

/enkw/ or /enk/

[from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for 0000101]

An on-line convention for querying someone's availability. After opening a talk mode connection to someone apparently in heavy hack mode, one might type 'SYN SYN ENQ?' (the SYNs representing notional synchronization bytes), and expect a return of ACK or NAK depending on whether or not the person felt interruptible.

/in-ˈhan(t)-smənt/

n. Marketroid-speak for a bug fix. This abuse of language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence into increased revenue. A hacker being ironic would instead call the fix a feature -- or perhaps save some effort by declaring the bug itself to be a feature.

/iŋ-glish/

1. n.,obs. The source code for a program, which may be in any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that to a real hacker, a program written in his favorite programming language is at least as readable as English. Usage: used mostly by old-time hackers, though recognizable in context.

/en-jən/

n. 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be used without some kind of front end. Today we have, especially, 'print engine': the guts of a laser printer.

2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a lot of noisy crunching, such as a 'database engine'.

/in-krip-shən/

privacy of messages - using ciphers and codes to protect the secrecy of messages - DES is the most common symmetric cipher (same key for encryption and decryption) - RSA is the most common asymmetric cipher (different keys for encryption and decryption)

/ɪnˈkoʊd/

Encode refers to the process of converting information or data into a machine-readable format. This transformation is essential for various purposes, including data storage, transmission, and security.

The encoding process involves representing data using a standardized set of rules or algorithms, ensuring that it can be easily interpreted by computers or other devices. By converting information into a machine-readable form, data becomes more manageable, allowing for efficient storage and processing.

/em-ˌpī(-ə)r/

n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are five or six multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, and one single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS; the latter is even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive.

/ee-moh'ti-kon/

n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include:

• ?

  smiley face

  for humor, laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm

• ☹️

  frowney face

  for sadness, anger, or upset

• ?

  half-smiley

  (ha ha only serious); also known as semi-smiley or winkey face

• ?

  wry face

  for confusion or WTF

• ?

  smirk face