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would activate (which demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through chains of logic. Meanwhile, the main program could continue with whatever its primary task was. |
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demon dialer n. A program which repeatedly calls the same telephone number. Demon dialing may be benign (as when a number of communications programs contend for legitimate access to a BBS line) or malign (that is, used as a prank or denial-of-service attack). This term dates from the blue box days of the 1970s and early 1980s and is now semi-obsolescent among phreakers; see war dialer for its contemporary progeny. |
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depeditate /dee-ped' -tayt/ n. [by (faulty) analogy with 'decapitate'] Humorously, to cut off the feet of. When one is using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of text blocks within a page or above a rule can result in chopped-off letter descenders. Such letters are said to have been depeditated. |
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deprecated adj. Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in favor of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately, linger on for many years. This term appears with distressing frequency in standards documents when the committees writing the documents realize that large amounts of extant (and presumably happily working) code depend on the feature(s) that have passed out of favor. See also dusty deck. |
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derf /derf/ v.,n. [PLATO] The act of exploiting a terminal which someone else has absentmindedly left logged on, to use that person's account, especially to post articles intended to make an ass of the victim you're impersonating. |
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deserves to lose adj. Said of someone who willfully does the Wrong Thing; humorously, if one uses a feature known to be marginal. What is meant is that one deserves the consequences of one's losing actions. "Boy, anyone who tries to use mess-dos deserves to lose!" (ITS fans used to say the same thing of Unix; many still do.) See also screw, chomp, bagbiter. |
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desk check n.,v. To grovel over hardcopy of source code, mentally simulating the control flow; a method of catching bugs. No longer common practice in this age of on-screen editing, fast compiles, and sophisticated |
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