WhatIs

/as-ˈbe-stəs lȯŋ-ˌjänz/

n. Notional garments often donned by USENET posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit flamage.

This is the most common of the asbestos coinages. Also asbestos underwear, asbestos overcoat, etc.

/as-ˈbe-stəs kȯrk ə-ˈwȯrd/

n. Once, long ago at MIT, there was a flamer so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made, and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been nominated for the 'asbestos cork award'.

Persons in any doubt as to the intended application of the cork should consult the etymology under flame.

Since then, it is agreed that only a select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn this dubious dignity --- but there is no agreement on *which* few.

/as-ˈbe-stəs/

adj. Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect one from flames.

Important cases of this include asbestos longjohns and asbestos cork award, but it is used more generally.

/är-mər-plāted/

n. Syn. for bulletproof.

/arg/

n. Abbreviation for argument (to a function), used so often as to have become a new word (like piano from pianoforte).

"The sine function takes 1 arg, but the arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args."

Compare param, parm, var.

/ə-ˈrē-nə/

[ UNIX ]

n. The area of memory attached to a process by 'brk(2)' and 'sbrk(2)' and used by 'malloc(3)' as dynamic storage.

So named from a semi-mythical 'malloc: corrupt arena' message supposedly emitted when some early versions became terminally confused.

See overrun screw, aliasing bug, memory leak, smash the stack.

/är-ˌkīv/

1. A collection of several files bundled into one file by a program such as 'ar(1)', 'tar(1)', 'cpio(1)', or arc for shipment or archiving (sense 2).

See also tar and feather.

2. A collection of files or archives (sense 1) made available from an 'archive site' via FTP or an email server.

/ärk wȯrs/

[ primarily MSDOS ]

n.

holy wars over which archiving program one should use.

The first Arc War was sparked when System Enhancement Associates (SEA) sued PKWare for copyright and trademark infringement on its ARC program.

/ark/

[ primarily MSDOS ]

vt. To create a compressed archive from a group of files using SEA ARC, PKWare PKARC, or a compatible program.

Rapidly becoming obsolete as the ARC compression method is falling into disuse, having been replaced by newer compression techniques.

See tar and feather, zip.

/ap/

n. Short for 'application program', as opposed to a systems program.

What systems vendors are forever chasing developers to create for their environments so they can sell more boxes.

Hackers tend not to think of the things they themselves run as apps; thus, in hacker parlance the term excludes compilers, program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a user would consider all those to be apps.

Oppose tool, operating system.