WhatIs

/sis-əd-min/

n. Common contraction of system admin; see admin.

/sis-frȯg/

[the PLATO system]

n. Playful variant of sysprog, which is in turn short for systems programmer.

/sin-tak-tik shu-gər/

[coined by Peter Landin]

n. Features added to a language or other formalism to make it 'sweeter' for humans, that do not affect the expressiveness of the formalism (compare chrome). Used esp. when there is an obvious and trivial translation of the 'sugar' feature into other constructs already present in the notation. C's 'a[i]' notation is syntactic sugar for '*(a + i)'. "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon." -- Alan Perlis

I/O stands for Input/Output and refers to the communication between a computer system and the outside world, or between different parts of a computer. It represents any operation, process, or device that transfers data to or from the computer. I/O plays a key role in a wide range of system components, including hardware, software, and the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). Here's an overview of what I/O entails:

/siŋk/

(var. synch) n., vi. 1. To synchronize, to bring into synchronization.

2. [techspeak] To force all pending I/O to the disk; see flush, sense 2.

3. More generally, to force a number of competing processes or agents to a state that would be safe if the system were to crash; thus, to checkpoint (in the database-theory sense).

/swi-zəl/

v. To convert external names, array indices, or references within a data structure into address pointers when the data structure is brought into main memory from external storage (also called pointer swizzling); this may be done for speed in chasing references or to simplify code (e.g., by turning lots of name lookups into pointer dereferences). The converse operation is sometimes termed unswizzling.

See also snap.

/swäp'd au̇t/

n. See swap. See also page out.

/swäp'd in/

n. See swap. See also page in.

/swäp spās/

n. Storage space, especially temporary storage space used during a move or reconfiguration.

"I'm just using that corner of the machine room for swap space."

/swäp/

vt. 1. [techspeak] To move information from a fast-access memory to a slow-access memory ('swap out'), or vice versa ('swap in'). Often refers specifically to the use of disks as 'virtual memory'. As pieces of data or program are needed, they are swapped into core for processing; when they are no longer needed they may be swapped out again.