|
|
|
|
|
|
|
be known as Real Programmers, and other hackers consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer" in Appendix A). Assembler is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. FORTRAN occupies a shrinking niche in scientific programming. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most hackers tend to frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline language), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or other traditional card walloper languages as a total and unmitigated loss. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
larval stage 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. A few so afflicted never resume a more 'normal' life, but the ordeal seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely competent) programmers. See also wannabee. A less protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when one is learning a new OS or programming language. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
lase /layz/ vt. To print a given document via a laser printer. "OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro calls did the right things." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
laser chicken n. Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish containing chicken, peanuts, and hot red peppers in a spicy pepper-oil sauce. Many hackers call it laser chicken for two reasons: It can zap you just like a laser, and the sauce has a red color reminiscent of some laser beams. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In a variation on this theme, it is reported that some Australian hackers have redesignated the common dish 'lemon chicken' as Chernobyl Chicken. The name is derived from the color of the sauce, which is considered bright enough to glow in the dark (as, mythically, do some of the inhabitants of Chernobyl). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lasherism n. [Harvard] A program that solves a standard problem (such as the Eight Queens puzzle or implementing the life algorithm) in a deliberately nonstandard way. Distinguished from a crock or kluge by the fact that the programmer did it on purpose as a mental exercise. Such constructions |
|
|
|
|
|