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natural; it is generally considered good practice to include a comment high-lighting the fall-through where one would normally expect a break. See also Duff's device. |
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fan n. Without qualification, indicates a fan of science fiction, especially one who goes to cons and tends to hang out with other fans. Many hackers are fans, so this term has been imported from fannish slang; however, unlike much fannish slang it is recognized by most non-fannish hackers. Among SF fans the plural is correctly fen, but this usage is not automatic to hackers. "Laura reads the stuff occasionally but isn't really a fan." |
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fandango on core n. [Unix/C hackers, from the Mexican dance] In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a core dump, or corrupts the malloc(3) arena in such a way as to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have 'done a fandango on core'. On low-end personal machines without an MMU, this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage. Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may be substituted. See aliasing bug, precedence lossage, smash the stack, memory leak, memory smash, overrun screw, core. |
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FAQ /F-A-Q/ or /fak/ n. [Usenet] 1. A Frequently Asked Question. 2. A compendium of accumulated lore, posted periodically to high-volume newsgroups in an attempt to forestall such questions. Some people prefer the term 'FAQ list' or 'FAQL' /fa'kl/, reserving 'FAQ' for sense 1. |
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This lexicon itself serves as a good example of a collection of one kind of lore, although it is far too big for a regular FAQ posting. Examples: "What is the proper type of NULL?" and "What's that funny name for the '#' character?" are both Frequently Asked Questions. Several FAQs refer readers to the Jargon File (the on-line version of this lexicon). |
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FAQ list /F-A-Q list/ or /fak list/ n. [Usenet] Syn FAQ, sense 2. |
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FAQL /fa'kl/ n. Syn. FAQ list. |
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faradize /far' -d z/ v. [US Geological Survey] To start any hyper-addictive process or trend, or to continue adding current to such a trend. Telling one user about a new octo-tetris game you compiled would be a faradizing act in two weeks you might find your entire department playing the faradic game. |
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farkled /far'kld/ adj. [DeVry Institute of Technology, Atlanta] Syn. hosed. Poss. owes something to Yiddish 'farblondjet' and/or the 'Farkle Family' skits |
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