|
|
|
|
|
|
|
question geek test". You say to someone "I saw a Volkswagen Beetle today with a vanity license plate that read FEATURE". If he/she laughs, he/she is a geek (see computer geek, sense #2). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
feature creature n. [poss. fr. slang 'creature feature' for a horror movie] 1. One who loves to add features to designs or programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, or taste. 2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks. See also feeping creaturism, creeping featurism. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
feature key n. The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as flower, pretzel, clover, propeller, beanie (an apparent reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie), splat, or the command key. The Mac's equivalent of an alt key. The proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle peril of iconic interfaces. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many people have been mystified by the cloverleaf-like symbol that appears on the feature key. Its oldest name is 'cross of St. Hannes', but it occurs in pre-Christian Viking art as a decorative motif. Throughout Scandinavia today the road agencies use it to mark sites of historical interest. Apple picked up the symbol from an early Mac developer who happened to be Swedish. Apple documentation gives the translation "interesting feature"! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is some dispute as to the proper (Swedish) name of this symbol. It technically stands for the word 'sevärdhet' (interesting feature); many of these are old churches. Some Swedes report as an idiom for it the word kyrka, cognate to English 'church' and Scots-dialect 'kirk' but pronounced /shir'k / in modern Swedish. Others say this is nonsense. Another idiom reported for the sign is runsten /roon'stn/, derived from the fact that many of the interesting features are Viking rune-stones. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
feature shock n. [from Alvin Toffler's book title Future Shock] A user's (or programmer's!) confusion when confronted with a package that has too many features and poor introductory material. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
featurectomy /fee'chr-ek't-mee/ n. The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies come in two flavors, the righteous and the reluctant. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and better way to achieve the same end. (Doing so is not quite the same thing as removing a misfeature.) Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed. |
|
|
|
|
|