WhatIs

/lär-vəl stāj/

n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers. Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour hacking run in a given week; neglect of all other activities including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from 6 months to 2 years, the apparent median being around 18 months.

/laŋ-gwij-es əv chȯis/

n. C and LISP. Nearly every hacker knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities.

/laŋ-gwij lȯ-yər/

n. A person, usually an experienced or senior software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of the numerous restrictions and features (both useful and esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming languages. A language lawyer is distinguished by the ability to show you the five sentences scattered through a 200-plus-page manual that together imply the answer to your question "if only you had thought to look there".

/lās kärd/

n. obs. A punched card with all holes punched (also called a 'whoopee card'). Card readers jammed when they got to one of these, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to produce these things owing to power-supply problems. When some practical joker fed a lace card through the reader, you needed to clear the jam with a 'card knife' -- which you used on the joker first.

/krem-vaks/

[from the then large number of USENET VAXen with names of the form foovax]

/Ka-NOOTH/

[Donald E. Knuth's 'The Art of Computer Programming']

n. Mythically, the reference that answers all questions about data structures or algorithms. A safe answer when you do not know:

"I think you can find that in Knuth."

Contrast literature, the.

See also bible.

/nīts əv t͟hə lam-də kal-kyə-ləs/

n. A semi-mythical organization of wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The name refers to a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which LISP is intimately connected. There is no enrollment list and the criteria for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known to give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who they are...

/klüj əp/

vt. To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this is milder than cruft together and has some of the connotations of hack up (note, however, that the construction 'kluge on' corresponding to hack on is never used).

"I've kluged up this routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe place."

/klüj/

[from the German klug, clever]

1. n. A Rube Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or software. (A long-ago Datamation article by Jackson Granholme said:

   "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")

/klüj/

n. Common (but incorrect) variant of kluge, q.v.