WhatIs

/ka-tə-ˈtä-nik/

adj. Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is so wedged or hung that it makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed).

"There I was in the middle of a winning game of nethack and it went catatonic on me! Aaargh!"

/kat/

[ from catenate via UNIX cat(1) ]

vt. 

1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other output sink without pause.

    

2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it carefully. 

   Usage: considered silly. 

   Rare outside UNIX sites. 

   See also dd, BLT.

/ka-stiŋ t͟hə rüns/

n. What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never works for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser does.

Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see the AI koan about Tom Knight.

/ka-stərs-əp mōd/

[ IBM ]

n. Yet another synonym for broken or down.

/kās {ən(d), (ˈ)an(d)} pāst/

[from 'Cut and Paste']

n. The addition of a new feature to an existing system by selecting the code from an existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes. Common in telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are selected using 'case' statements. Leads to software bloat.

/kär-(ˌ)gō kəlt prō-ˌgra-miŋ/

n. A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging, voodoo programming).

/keir'weir/

n. 

Shareware for which either the author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity or a levy directed to charity is included on top of the distribution charge.

Syn. charityware; compare crippleware, sense 2.

/kärd wä-ləp/

n. An EDP programmer who grinds out batch programs that do stupid things like print people's paychecks.

Compare code grinder.

See also punched card, eighty-column mind.

/kärd/

n. An electronic printed-circuit board (see also tall card, short card.

Syn. punched card.

/kə-ˈnä-ni-kəl/

[ Historically, 'according to religious law' ]