WhatIs

/dink/

n. Said of a machine that has the bitty box nature; a machine too small to be worth bothering with -- sometimes the system you're currently forced to work on. First heard from an MIT hacker (BADOB) working on a CP/M system with 64K, in reference to any 6502 system, then from fans of 32-bit architectures about 16-bit machines. "GNUMACS will never work on that dink machine." Probably derived from mainstream 'dinky', which isn't sufficiently pejorative.

/diŋ/

n.,vi. 1. Synonym for feep. Usage: rare among hackers, but commoner in the Real World.

2. 'dinged': What happens when someone in authority gives you a minor bitching about something, esp. something trivial.

"I was dinged for having a messy desk."

/dīk/

vt. To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is "When in doubt, dike it out".

(The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing complexity than by increasing it.)

/di-jət/

n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation.

See also VAX, VMS, PDP-10, TOPS-10, DEChead, double DECkers, field circus.

/dif/

n. 1. A change listing, especially giving differences between (and additions to) source code or documents (the term is often used in the plural 'diffs').

"Send me your diffs for the Jargon File!"

Compare vdiff.

2. Specifically, such a listing produced by the 'diff(1)' command, esp. when used as specification input to the 'patch(1)' utility (which can actually perform the modifications; see patch). This is a common method of distributing patches and source updates in the UNIX/C world.

/di-dᵊl/

1. vt. To work with or modify in a not particularly serious manner.

"I diddled a copy of ADVENT so it didn't double-space all the time."

"Let's diddle this piece of code and see if the problem goes away."

See tweak and twiddle.

2. n. The action or result of diddling.

See also tweak, twiddle, frob.

/dik-shə-ˌner-ē flām/

[USENET]

n. An attempt to sidetrack a debate away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise. A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to disputes about reality.

/diklə̇s wərk-ˌstā-shən/

n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for 'diskless workstation', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50 and other machines designed exclusively to network with an expensive central disk server. These combine all the disadvantages of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of distributed personal computers.

/dee'voh/

[orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics]

n. A person in a development group.

See also doco and mango.

/de-vᵊl bu̇k/

n. 'The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System', by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley Publishers, 1989) -- the standard reference book on the internals of BSD UNIX. So called because the cover has a picture depicting a little devil (a visual play on daemon) in sneakers, holding a pitchfork (referring to one of the characteristic features of UNIX, the fork(2) system call).